I'm a tattoo artist in New York City, and today we're going to look at how tattoos can identify characters in films.

Okay, Ramblers, let's get rambling.

This is from dusk till dawn.

I think this movie, this tattoo really created a whole era of tattooing.

Tattoo has a lot of significance.

And you see, you see movies come after this where people have really large tribal tattoos.

You see a bunch of people who are tattooed in the nineties that look like this guy, you know, creeps up the neck.

This was the image everybody brought me when I first started Tattoo.

I could glance it.

These guys walking on ST tell you got tattooed between 1993 in 1996 or you relate to the party and it's perfect for this character is pressed for this time.

Period is perfect for this story.

It's perfect for him.

It's unique.

It doesn't remind you of anyone else's tattoos.

This one's pretty pretty accurate.

Even the motion and flow and shapes.

They're kind of not cohesive.

This is not a symmetrical tribal tattoo.

This looks like how tattoo artists made tribal in the nineties.

You know at the time of this scene of this setting of this character, tattoos were still pretty taboo Maur than they are today.

I think it looks very real to me because I know if tattoos have done very perfectly, they they can look very sharp and very dark, especially contrast in next to skin.

But this time for this character, I would expect to see more holidays in the tattoo.

And a holiday is what we call like a spot messing or an inconsistent spot.

And we call it a holiday because the it's like a tattoo artist take a day off right there.

So actually filling in a really large area, solid, black and consistent is really difficult.

Some of what may make it look fake is that it looks too well done for this gangster on the run.

There's some things about this that are really good for the character.

Don't go get this done, Booth.

So this is my wanna Maui, which is my favorite representation of tattoos in film.

The tattoos themselves were a character in the film, his tattoos or his conscience.

There, his better half, and they spoke to him and encouraged him to do the right thing so often.

In film and even in life, tattoos are painted in a negative light for Disney to include tattooing on a character first of all, and then to do so where it was the voice of reason.

I get chills thinking about it.

I love.

They're also made very well.

So if you look really close at that film, the tattoos have the inconsistencies that would be typical of that style of tattooing.

I'm certain that Disney consulted many tattoo artists and experts of tattooing in that style.

Traditional Polynesian and its hand poke.

They do it days on end.

It's like a rite of passage of ritual for young man.

Disney puts tons of research into doing things correctly.

You can tell Dan in the full.

This is Snatch and I love this movie.

I want to be him when I grow up.

Oh my God, what the kids on is just none of these aerial right.

That face on his chest is woefully difficult for me to stare, but I feel like the film succeeds, and this is the quality and work you'd expect on some Iris Street fighter, right?

Who's trying to get his mother caravan.

I can't tell with all of them are they don't know if that's good or bad.

I can tell what the Mary is on his chest.

One thing to consider his placement on the body has to fit the image.

His chest has lost shape, too, and a lot of definition, it changing shape in the middle of a faces.

It doesn't help the image of the tattoos on his shoulders actually look like they're made by the same person in the same moment, which is appropriate for that design, and his chest looks like it's just outlined.

Assimilated didn't quite know what they're doing and whose skill level was lower than the tattoos on his shoulders.

Do you have a bunch of different styles of tattoos of your tattoo throughout your life?

I just think that, you know, they wanted them to not look like the best tattoos world again.

It's for film, so it's purposeful, successful tattoos they're supposed to like, you know, externally present the way somebody feels internally, right?

So they should be a visual representation of that person.

Irish street fighter like this looks appropriate.

They get an A plus on fitting form to the character eyes.

The hangover part to it looks really because it looks like it hurts the poor bastard.

The hangover.

Part two is famous in itself for its lawsuit for this tattoo.

They did not acquired the rights to use this tattoo in this film from the tattoo artist.

Technically, if I designed this tattoo for Mike Tyson and I tattooed on Mike Tyson did not buy this design from me.

He bought the tattoo.

I still own the design for them to use that design in film without the Tet tourist permission.

They want a coast of them.

A lot of money.

Let me say, though they did a perfect job of making it look swollen and painful and what your face with Tattoo would look like if you passed out in the bathtub drunk.

If we're speaking specifically about Mike Tyson's tattoo, I love it.

It's a warrior mark on Homie.

Over here, though, is a bad decision.

It's perfect.

They just should have you know, I got the right to do it.

I think this is the place beyond the pines with Ryan Gosling.

Yeah, takes somebody really either knows themselves or doesn't give up to get face that to any cheek tattoos.

A bolt tattoo.

First thing I notice is some of the blacks.

They're not the equivalent of what pigment looks under skin.

Our tattoo pigments sit under your skin's pigments.

Black is as black as it can be.

Once it's under your pigment, it's washed out.

It's lightened.

At first glance, some of them looked too dark to be real.

So that's one thing that I catch right away.

It looks like he has a bunch of Americana traditional style tattoos.

I think it's great when people, when they're designing tattoos for these movie characters that it stays in theme.

It wouldn't make a ton of sense for him to have something super, highly rendered on something super simple, really next to each other.

It seems like this person has a style they like they know they identify with, and they have stuck with.

So he has a boxer, stiff looking boxer that's traditional.

You know what you think of like sailor Jerry tattoos?

That's the vibe of this style.

Is 19 twenties on the Bowery sailors coming off and getting tattoos, and so there's still a big aesthetic and market for that now.

One thing I think could be improved on design stuff on this tattoo is his back tattoo.

It's not super clear that it's a ship to me.

I see the little cloud.

Poof.

It's cute.

I get the horizon line when I look at the tattoo, I want to know what it is and snap.

If my brain has to spend some time trying to figure out that image, I feel like that's time wasted on your first impression.

These tattoos don't particularly compliment his body.

I feel like maybe the bird on his chest is, you know, the closest one is not clear thought path from one tattoo to another.

It's like what fills this spot approach that later on his hand.

I'm pretty sure that it's Frankenstein.

I think that that does not speak to the time period there.

Saying he got tattooed micro realism wasn't really a thing.

People were getting tattooed in the 90 so I think that tattoo would have been a lot Baker.

I think sometimes film studios don't consult tattoo artists.

They lot of this stuff's done by makeup artists.

They might miss some minor details like the fact that early mid nineties they just weren't doing tattoos this small with high detail.

So I think they got that correct on his neck, doing it really big and open.

That was pretty common thing in the nineties.

Spider webbing and elbows like a symbol of I went to jail in 1993.

This is the girl with the Dragon tattoo.

I'm a little embarrassed to said I didn't see this movie.

I think I'm the only person on earth that didn't see that movie.

But speaking to the work, I like that it's form fit fits your body really well.

They nailed the S curve in design.

When you're learning about flow in motion 101 is the S curve, and everything kind of moving in that direction creates flow in something that's still your your tattoo's still, when it's on your body until your body starts to move.

We have many of these curves and angles on our body.

Your color is the same angle is your rib cage is the same angle is your hips is the same angles of muscle structures on your arm, and so they all kind of lead into the center of you, the spot that it's in his unique and I like that it hit certain curves and angles of her back is very clear.

This dragons Somebody studied that day of our class.

So, like when tattoos move body parts and bring your eye around a person, so they make you interested in their form.

How that form of the design fits the body.

Curves are feminine, and that's you know how we identify him.

It's a medieval dragon.

The motion and flow of it's not stiff, you know.

Still stagnant, muscular and presented in motion feels more feminine.

But I wouldn't inherently call it feminine, too.

There's a lot going on that I can't completely read the anatomy of everything in the image.

Let's get these little T Rex claw.

There's some interesting anatomy choices to the design.

It looks realistic.

It doesn't look like a really good tattoo.

Most tattoos aren't really good, so this is Memento.

First thing I notice is many of them upside down, so they're clearly a message to himself.

The presentation of tattoos is for the viewer, the audience, people who are looking at you.

If you have a T shirt on, and it's all written upside down so you could read it.

People think you're sure it's upside down.

I haven't seen that in film, hardly ever.

So it's really unique to this.

The top of his thigh doesn't look very really.

Some of the smaller things don't look like real tattoos because of how dark they are, how dense they are and tattoo settle in skin, kind of like a Sharpie on a paper towel.

Except it takes 10 years really only when their very first made.

Are they quite that sharp.

And even still, there aren't many artists that could be digitally sharp.

Please look, in some cases, digitally shop.

So you're This is Red Dragon.

What I love about this tattoo is you know, this guy's evil.

Throughout the film, you just know it's almost to reveal of Hiss spirit in this tattoo.

It's done pretty well that close up.

You could see that they put a lot of effort into making it really good.

Certainly they could have added more contrast in mid tones to make that shading look accurate.

Realistic.

He is the demon, as he's decorated on his body again and own always loved that tattoos could kind of make the bad guy.

But seemingly he's a quiet, misunderstood person, at least at a glance throughout this film.

So what are his tells its his reveal of him to is yourself.

Take this exact same scene without a tattoo, and this is just a naked guy posing in front.

Tattoo does so much in the scene to say just how pure and raw evil this man is.

Tha Oh, yeah, this is blades, blades, a bad ass.

I like Blade.

Step two.

It's like the only travel tattoo okay with I can't remember many characters before that or even famous people, celebrities, anything that had head tattoos.

So this is my first memory of someone with a well executed head tattoo that wasn't like a wrestler.

It spoke to the character.

I mean, even his hair style was like as a vampire slayer.

I mean, this is the tribal wave.

This is symmetrical tribal.

I prefer this symmetrical tribal over the kind of like organic travel that we saw him, Clooney's arm and dust till dawn.

It's complementing all these shapes.

It feels like armor.

It fits.

His muscle structure fits his anatomy.

If it's a shape.

If it's a symmetry, I think I would have made it a little less busy in his neck.

Neck, like your face gets a lot of sun, so your neck is darker, more dense tattooing and smaller shapes leaves less room for the eye to breathe.

And in time, that will just be really hard to separate ink from skin and you won't see all those shapes as he ages.

The front of him looks much better, so much more room to breathe.

If it were my input, I would have angled it more down to his chest.

Just a couple more hard angles that face more towards mill.

You want to lead the eye towards the centre.

Swirls aren't aggressive, like angles are aggressive.

It's a little bit lost in that it has angles and swirls.

It's like pick one, bro.

I'm not gonna talk.

Don't blade you kick it.

This is once were warriors.

I mean, I could tell right away that these air fake because of the consistency of pigment around the fingers and knuckles.