what do u guys think of this?
https://www.instagram.com/p/BxKzyk1lHoS/

https://www.instagram.com/p/BxHZzuEl3AR/

tldr; tristen of chronic ink stole artwork from someone else to use for promo ads

Chronic have a pretty solid rep, so it's pretty surprising to see one of their artists getting busted for plagiarism. Not going to judge, so all I can say is hopefully he doesn't base all his art on ripping other people off. It's pretty scummy but we all fuck up. He was probably just being lazy. Hope he makes it right somehow (that's not for me or you to judge, but the artist he stole from)

My thoughts are the same on the laziness front. I don’t understand why a good artist would do something so half assed, and disrespectful. It’s not gonna work out well.

Thinking of getting an Asian/ non traditional Japanese sleeve.

Any new good artists ?
I know the ones everyone is usually familiar with , Jeff from MK, Jesse from black water, Cohen Floch, bobby at CSS.
I remember Edward Truong use to post here few times here and their. He blew up, good for him. Tried to reach out to him but he is not taking bookings till 2021 I think.
Carson who was Jeff's apprentice at one point also has over a year wait.

Leaning over to Jesse at blackwater, but please let me know if you have anyone in mind.

Eddie blew up big time... I think he had like 500 followers on IG when I followed him, now he's up to 55K and booking years in advance! Good for him man SeemsGood

Well Deserved, his work is awesome!

This whole thing really blew up.... Looks like Chronic is disassociating themselves from Tristen now. While Tristen is not allowed to tattoo anymore at the shop, keep in mind he is still the co-founder and he is still part of shop both financially and in name.

Not going to comment on Tristen's work. I do have a full sleeve from him so its safe to say I am a fan of his work, I still am after all this.

This whole fiasco is a super low-level mistake from a talented artist like Tristen. The bigger disappointment is that how he offer the apology only after it is all over the internet.

90% of the tattoo artist used reference. Especially artist that specializes in a certain style. Sometimes when you use the same type of reference enough you unconsciously cop the style even when you are trying to come up with something new. I watch Tristen did his work on my arm and yes some element of the sleeve he did straight up use reference from a book and just added his own flair. Some portion of the tattoo like the face he freehanded.Is putting together various element and using reference to produce something that is distinctively your's consider copying? I'm not good enough of an artist to comment. I do know that Tristen does solid work and if he did copy anyone he put enough of his style into it that I would consider his work (the tattoo work at least), his original work. I have sat in the tattoo chair for many many hours and have gotten work from many respected artists and I can say almost every single work from all the artist originated from some kind of reference.

I follow and read almost every comment on both Tristen and chronicink's apology as well as @meltedbun's comment. There is a surprising amount of tattoo artist that is taking this opportunity to poke fun and flame Tristen and Chronic ink in general. Very disappointed to see some local artist names on the comment acting like a little child and acting as if they have never used a reference themselves. It seems like Chronic Ink and the founding crew have some unresolved issue in the Tattoo community most likely due to their fame and possibly how they handle themselves. Many people are taking this opportunity to voice their dismay towards the shop and the crew and tbh it is just as unprofessional and unrespectful as Tristen stealing work.

Looks like Tristen won't be tattooing at least publicly for awhile. I hope this completely opens his books up so I can get my sleeve touch up and more work done at hopefully at a lot cheaper rate :)

There's referencing, like he did with your tattoo, then there's blatant copying, which he did here. You can see that it's literally the same art, traced from the original and I think mirrored.

This was blatant copying.

It sucks that he copied the art, it sucks that he only owned up to it once enough noise was made. But that's between him, his crew, the original artist, etc. Not me or his other clients or artists or any randoms online just trying to let the world know how virtuous they are by being outraged at him.

The "internet outrage" culture seems to be getting worse, where people try to get themselves over by showing each other how mad and outraged they are when someone does something wrong. Every little fuck up gets blown up to something huge, even if it happened decades ago.

Yea Tristen fucked up hard here. I follow him on his WeChat account too and alot of his recent digital work is…incriminating to say the least. No excuse for him here.

I was mainly referring to other comments on the posts that mentioned Tristen copying in his actual tattoo work. Other tattoo artist are quick to jump in and bash. Lots and lots of low blow and even racist comment. Drama does bring out the degenerate in people.

I see Tristen has delete the apology post and all digital work he had on his instagram….Man I just want another appointment lol

Oh this is the first I've heard about him copying work in his other art... That's pretty sad.

It sounds to me like he is a very good technical tattooer, but not a great artist. Like he doesn't have the creativity or the drive, and relies heavily on reference in his tattooing. Sounds like he relied so much on reference that it devolved into flat out copying when he did his digital art... Oops! :o

There was some questionable stuff in his digital art work. He might of rush into that side of art. Maybe he is not as well verse in with the digital tools as he is with the tattoo machine. He probably shouldn't have shown off those work. You know how when you start out tattooing you copy flashes until you perfect them. Tristen's digital work feel like that stage.

I challenge the not having creativity argument though. Tristen does traditional asian piece. The topic material is re use over and over in this style. Ask any neo-traditional/traditional asian artist to draw you a koi and 90% will come with up with a similar looking koi despite drawing from memory. There is a few style of kois artist like to draw and you can look at an artist "freestyle freehand" koi and you can tell which type of koi he started out copying and perfecting as his own

You draw a dragon 1000 times all your dragons starts to look the same. How about Nikko Hurtado and Carloes Torres who's portrait work is entirely unoriginal and 100% reference base, are they also not a great artist? I mean the entire traditional japanese style was founded on a single book that got reference over and over and over. All the Hori-master of the world needed these original reference to produce their work.

Tattoos is such a special art form just because you took reference doesn't make it any least special/creative. There are people that reference Tristen work and attempt their own spin and it looks like ass. There are also the copier of the tattoo world that just straight up copy design one for one. Tristen is not that. Being able to take reference material (however extensive it may be) and turn it into your own is part of tattoo creativity.

This whole thing does not translate to digital world as you can see.

To add more fuel to the fire. @meltedbun reference her drawing from a gaming character, she actually uses ALOT of anime and CGI references.

Nobody is truly original in the art world. They both use reference and they are both amazing artist

'I wanted to pay tribute': Raptors fan immortalizes Kawhi Leonard's iconic buzzer-beater with a tattoo
https://www.cbc.ca/1.5139483

https://i.cbc.ca/1.5139497.155805735...ard-tattoo.jpg

I think you're mixing up creativity with technical artistry. Actually in your two examples, you have examples of two very different portrait artists. Nikko, who does an amazing job of recreating photography in tattoos

And Carlos, who takes real world reference and mixes it up in fantastic ways

Both guys use reference, but in different ways. I would argue that one is more "creative" than the other. That doesn't mean they both aren't amazing artists. Someone can be an amazing artist just doing the same dragon over and over. Maybe they just aren't creative about it. And that's fine, not everyone is creative, and not everyone wants creative tattoos.

I was just theorizing based on what happened, not knocking him or anything. I instantly thought that the guy just didn't want to think about creating art for this mall piece, and just lazily copied someone else's art. You say a lot of his digital art is like that, just copying other artwork, maybe with or without his twist. To that, I instantly think he's just not creative enough to sketch original concepts, even if he's technically talented. Or maybe he's just copying art to get a hang of the artform. There's nothing wrong with that, but he absolutely should not be sharing it with anyone if that's the case.

sorry not sure how to embed like everyone else.
first time posting one of pieces. nice fast one by James that took about 4 hours?
nice guy and amazing studio.

plan to get a full sleeve/chest by him in the near future :) dude is prob booked till at least 2021

You and me both. Been trying to get in with him for over year now. Spoke to him on IG before but no luck with getting in when his books open even though he mentioned he would try and get me in.

He gonna be so busy with his new shop opening. Good luck getting on that list.

My leg piece from him is still incomplete after 2 years :alone:

4 hours for all that? that's fast af. James acrow always does great work

Second 8hr session with Horiryu. Raijin/Kirin sleeve.

Shading around the elbow was no fucking joke :heckno: hurt so much it lowkey made me angry at myself

Hang in there bro!

I don't know if everyone goes through the same ride in a sessions but for me it's usually something like.

Start - 10 mins = Slightly uncomfy
10mins - 5hrs = nothing, sometimes even fall asleep
5hrs and beyond = slowly start to get uncomfy again pending area of work but def starting to get bored, hangry, and possibly sore from laying, sitting in the same position

Start - 10 mins = painful
10mins - 5hrs = painful
5hrs and beyond = painful

So it looks like I’ll be finishing my back piece this year. Took a 5 year hiatus in 2014 due to becoming a father but finally ready to complete it and move onto my arms. Currently researching designs and looking for some artist suggestions. Theme will be angels on the left arm and demons on the right, black and grey portrait-esque, deep shading to give depth and contrast. Kind of like a good and evil theme.

Looking for recommendations on locals artists who could pull this off. Everything I find online is either USA, South America, or Europe. I’d like to rule out local artists before I decide to travel to get it done. I really like Steve Wiebe of Golden Republic in terms of shading and depth but he’s more of a portrait guy and not taking any bookings currently.

Any suggestions or recommendations are greatly appreciated ��

Steve Moore. He would love something like this. If you manage to get a booking with this guy please hook me up with an appointment too:smug:

Justin Ormiston? Good buddies with Steve Moore and similar style, but might like the black and grey more than Steve would.

Thanks gents!! Checked them both out and definitely contenders for sure.

I sat for 4 hours a couple weeks ago. No idea how I plowed through 8 hour sessions when I started. I'm weak AF now. Haha! Looks like another 4 hours should do it including a few passovers to freshen it up since I took such a long break. Most likely mid-January. Stoked to be completed and even most excited for arm work.