Ryan Scarpino( aka Newz) scratched his first tattoo on his leg when he was
12 years old using a homemade tattoo machine made from a walkman motor. Little did he know he was going to become a full time tattooer!
ARTISTS
RYAN
NEWZ
SCARPINO
by JORDAN PRINGLE
Ryan Scarpino( aka Newz) scratched his first tattoo on his leg when he was
12 years old using a homemade tattoo machine made from a walkman motor. Little did he know he was going to become a full time tattooer!
How did you get into it? Is there anyone who helped mentor you? I had always thought about getting into tattooing, so one day I just decided to order myself a tattoo kit from Ebay. I got the kit in the mail and immediately went home to tattoo myself. A few days later, I ran into a friend and told her about my new machine and how I wanted to learn to tattoo. She pointed me in the direction of Jeremy Papove at a shop called Young Guns Tattoo in Kelowna. I went in to show him some of my artwork and he asked me if I had any tattoo equipment. I showed him my Ebay purchase and it went straight into the garbage can! His exact words were“ you are not using this cheap crap in my shop.” I had no clue what was good and what wasn’ t, so we ordered better gear and he took me in as his apprentice.
When did you open your shop? Around the end of my apprenticeship, Jeremy told me he was moving to Edmonton to open a new shop and asked me to take over Young Guns. I took over the studio space but it didn’ t last long as I was too new to the industry and had no idea how to run a business. I closed the doors less than a year later and went on the road tattooing, doing guest spots in various shops throughout western Canada for about 2 years. After traveling, I was ready to be settled
into a shop and focus on building my business at home. I approached a shop in Kelowna called Shinobi Studios that was owned by an artist named Ryan Cardinal. Luckily, he had room for me and I began tattooing there right away. After a year, Ryan decided to move to Vancouver and pitched the idea of me taking over his shop. I felt more prepared to be a shop owner at this point, so I took over the space in 2012 and renamed it Dynamic Studios. It’ s been 4 years now and I am very happy with my staff and the direction the shop is heading in.
How do you compare being a shop owner to just tattooing? Being a shop owner is a whole different game
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