Dos Changos Locos Tattoo 2013

It is tattoo time for Dos Changos Locos Tattoo 2013.  Troy is making custom vinyl Toys.  If you have not looked at Troy’s Toys then you are missing out.  The tattoo studio has been busy and Troy is slammed with toy orders and tattoo appointments.  We are really happy that he is blowing up at the moment.  Many of the vinyl toy sites have been writing about Troy and his commission vinyl toys.

commission vinyl android toy.

Jen Culotta is booked about one to two weeks out.  Call to get your spot.  If you are requiring a custom drawing a deposit is required to hold your appointment and get your drawing started.  Custom work will usually require a face to face consultation. Jen has been very busy and spring time is the busiest, so think ahead.  Call today.

I am “Scotchie” back at the high school until the end of May. I am planning on working 5 more years at least at the high school before I retire.  Art and tattoos have kept my sanity over the years of dealing with kids.  I am looking forward to this year and what it holds for us.  I would really like to do more Aztec/Mayan art, so keep me in mind.  Here is a Mayan pyramid that I did recently.

Mayan Pyramid

California Corey Young has been busy as well. Call the studio if you are trying to reach him.  Bear Fields is here at the studio now and is ready to help you with your tattoo needs.  Guest artists  Mr. Droopy and Jopa are by appointment only. Call for details.

Here is looking to a great new year of tattooing.  Call us or come in and make an appointment for your tattoo today!

C/S

Scotchie Chapman

Scotchie Chapman Owner and artist of DCL Tattoo in Modesto California. 209-571-8282

Tattoo Machines:

Tattoo Machines:

Tattoo machines are the tools that make us money.  They are tools that must be maintained. Like any tool the amount you spend on that tool will most likely reflect the quality of said tool.  Another quality that affects the price of a tattoo machine is the way it looks, the rarity, hand-made, cast, machined, rotary, coil, pneumatic, iron, aluminum, brass, etc.  Many artists swear by specific machine builders and the metal that the machine is constructed.  Is the machine engraved? Is the machine a one-off?  There are many things to change the cost, however, one thing you will not be told is that a $12.00 machine is as good as a $500.00 machine.  You get what you pay for!  We tell our clients the same thing when it comes to tattoos.

I have yet to find a machine that has really good frame geometry and workmanship in the $12.00 range.  Can I tattoo with a $12.00 machine?  Yup, I sure can.  Do I want to? No.  While the machine would work in a bind, it will most likely not be consistent, and will get knocked out of tune easily, overheat, and just generally irritate me.  The machine will have to be tuned in order to make it work well enough to tattoo with, but yes it can be done.  Don’t get rough with it because you will knock it out of tune.  My Todd Hlavaty machine runs consistently day after day!  My handmade Hlavaty is engraved and was made specifically for me, so I am really attached to the machine.  This machine has ran well since the day I got it back in 2005!  Are they a bit more expensive? Yes, but worth it!  Some of my other machines are: 2003 G3 by Danny Fowler, 2003 Invader by Danny Fowler,  2005 Soba Pilot by Workhorse Irons, 2005 Seth Ciferri liner by workhorse irons, 2 original Neumas (they still run great), 2005 Tim Hendricks shader, and a box full of machines hand made by artists, and local builders, and then there is the box of pumas, swing gates, and cam machines that I use to teach machine tuning and building.

I spend the money on quality machines because I do not have to worry about the machine breaking down, not running right, being inconsistent, getting knocked out of tune, etc.  I know that the frame geometry is going to be correct and if it is not I can send back.  Any machine I have from the above linked builders will fix their machines.  They stand behind their product.  There are many other great builders out there and I own some fantastic machines built by people that do not have a website or a company.  My tattooing benefits from a consistent machine.

You will learn volumes from tattooing with a steady machine.  Try to be consistent in using the same liner and shader until you get a feel for the way the machine runs and hits.  This will allow you to apply that feel to another machine.  This will allow you to feel it by running your thumb against the armature bar while it is running and be able to feel if it is hitting too soft or too hard.  This will be invaluable to a new artist.  Every apprentice that I have had was given a quality set (liner and shader) of tattoo machines when they finished the first part of their training and they were beginning to tattoo.  I wanted them to have a firm foundation of information.  The way to do that was to give them rock solid machines that would give them the ability to build that tactile knowledge they needed.

Cheap machines hurt more than they help.  Yes, they will work in  a bind.  You should be working smart, not hard.  It is okay to work hard if you are doing in an intelligent manner.  Everyone will have their favorites.  I have some machines that I will never part with.  I have found newer machines that I like as well (Stigma Bizarre).  The Neuma machine is a great machine.  However, I will not line a tattoo with anything other than a coil machine.  For me the coil machine gives me more control over my lining.  I do use a wide variety of machine when it comes to shading.  There is more than one way to skin a cat!

I hope this was helpful.

C/S

Scotchie

Scotchie Chapman Owner and artist of DCL Tattoo in Modesto California. 209-571-8282

Tattoo Therapy

Tattoo Therapy

Stressed out?  Month going down the drain?  Family got you down?  Spouse or significant other on your back?  For me as a tattoo artist my art and tattooing is therapy.  Once I am in the “zone” creating all my stresses seem to melt away.  I am in a zen like state of mind where all I am focused on at the moment is the art.  It is better than any drug on available.  I am able to escape the horrors of the day and take a deep breath of satisfaction.  It is that quality of art that keeps me here in the industry.  It is a deep abiding love for the art and it is returned to me by the art without judgment or jealousy.  Art is like an unconditional lover that supports me always, no questions, no demands, just love.

The nice thing about tattooing and art is that each type of art is soothing in a different manner.  Drawing, painting, and tattooing all have their own rewards of stress release.  The smells of the paper, the smell of the pencils, the smell of the paint, the aroma of green soap, alcohol, witch hazel, and the sound of a tattoo machine all have their hypnotic quality that lulls me into a trance that melts away all my worries.

All of this cannot be put into a pill.  I cannot be put into a drink, smoked or loaded into a  syringe.  Yet the results of the high I get from art is much stronger than any drug or drink that I have ever consumed.  I have yet to find an equal to the high I get from creating.  Is it addicting?  Yes!  It is addicting in more ways than I can explain.  This might explain why so many are drawn to the tattoo lifestyle from collector to artist.  It is like gravity.  It is so difficult to get away from art once you are in its grasp.

Till next time…

C/S

Scotchie.

AB300MA Tattoo, Body Art and Piecing Regulation Is Now State Mandated

AB 300 (Ma) This bill places a state Mandate for all counties to regulate the Body Art, Body Modification, Tattoo, Piercing industry.  There is a state mandated minimum that must be met by July 1, 2012.  It was passed in October of 2011 and became active January 1, 2012.  This will force all counties to come into compliance.  The industry will have come into compliance by July 1, 2012 or face misdemeanor fines up to $1,000.  Permits will have to be purchased and businesses inspected and brought up to compliance.  This is what the body art industry in Stanislaus County has been trying to put into place for many years.

As a studio owner and artists this makes us very happy.  This is a necessary measure to protect the general public from untrained people working from their kitchens, or studios that are not in compliance with health and safety codes in place.  Tattoo artists, piercers and studios will have to meet the minimum health and safety codes to stay in business.  Sterilization procedures, hazardous waste management, blood born pathogen training, first aid, CPR, and AED training at the minimum.

I imagine that the studios will have to pay a permit fee like the bay area, but that would be a welcomed cost in order to level the playing field in the industry.  We do not mind competition as long as it is a reputable artist or studio that we are competing against.  With 34 studios and counting listed in the phone book or internet, and countless on Craigslist it is a nightmare trying to deal with the overhead of a studio that follows honest business guidelines while competing against people that follow no guidelines at all.

We and others have been endeavoring to get these thing put into place.  In the journey to doing this we have made sure that we were ready.  We are the only certified instructors registered with Stanislaus County.  We have been training tattoo studios and artists in CPR, First Aid, AED, and Blood Born Pathogens since 2008.  Scotchie has his instructors certification from the American Red Cross, and The Blood Born Pathogen Training Institute of America.

Stay tuned for the results of the new law and how it plays out in Stanislaus County.

C/S  Scotchie Chapman

www.dclt2.com

1404 Crows Landing Rd.
Modesto, Ca. 95351
209-571-8282

Tattoo snobs…

This gallery contains 5 photos.

Since when did we as a tattoo community give a damn what mainstream society thought of us?  I am seeing or rather reading about people and their ugly tattoos.  While some of the tattoos are well done, the subject matter … Continue reading →

Capacitors and your tattoo machine.

We should know we have a “cap” or capacitor on our machine.  You should know why it is on your machine.   A cap can make your machine run hot, burn a hole through your spring, and make it run like crap.  Wes Wood at Unimax tattoo supply came up with a kit that lets you try different caps without having to solder anything.  I would recommend this kit to everyone.  Yes, you can make your own and you can get your caps somewhere else, but hey Wes has made this such plug and play kit that it would be great to help you get started to tuning your machines.

Your machine should not be getting so hot that you have to put it down.  This can be a sign that you are forcing the machine to work outside of what it was tuned and built to do.  If you want your machine to hit harder than change your springs and possibly your cap.  If you are cranking up the voltage to get your machine to hit harder then maybe you need to tune your machine.  If you run your machine like a chainsaw and that is your style of tattooing than I would hope you are using a cutback that is set up for running fast.  You better have a quick hand or you are going to chew up your client.  Ask other artists if their machines get really hot and make sure that they tattoo the way you do, so the information will match up.  You will find out that the machine does not have to get hot even after many hours of use.

Capacitors store energy and if the cap is not in range or is bad than the machine will get hot.  If you want the machine to run fast, but you have a large cap on it that helps it run slower than you have set your machine up to fail.  What the frame is made out of will also dictate how long you can run a machine before it loses performance.  I would refer you to Danny Fowler for that explanation.  You should be able to run a machine for hours without it becoming an iron, or the machine stumbling all over itself.

First stop for you is to start with researching what a capacitor change can mean for you.

C/S

Scotchie Chapman
DCL Tattoo
1404 Crows Landing Road
Modesto, Ca. 95351
209-571-8282

Did you prepare for winter?

So winter is approaching.  Every year I take time to check our stock for the coming winter.    Is there anything I missed?  What are we low on?  Do we have enough needles, ink, paper goods, barrier film, madacide, autoclave bags, gloves, etc.  I try to be stocked up and not have to make any orders during the winter months.  I have been lucky enough in the past that if I made orders they were small orders of $200 to $500.  I have been lucky in the fact that I usually do not have to make an order until February each year.  This allows me to enjoy the holidays and not worry about finances.  If business is slower during the winter that is okay.  I try to plan on the worst case in that I plan for no tattoos at all during the winter months so that the studio is stocked up and everything is paid up.  The lease, utilities, and supplies are all paid for until February.  This allows me to relax and enjoy the holidays.  It also allows us to do toys for tats and other type of things to give back to the area where our business is located.   It also releases much of the stress that others feel at the studio when things get slow.  No one worries about if their work place is going to close.

In this economy we can offer better specials if we are caught up on our overhead.  At that point overhead is no longer an issue and whatever is brought in during the slow times is looked at like a bonus.

So, is it just me and some of the older tattoo studios that I got my ideas from, or do we all practice the same.  It is feast or famine.  That is how I look at it and how I was taught to look at the industry.  Just wondering if any of you feel the same way?

C/S

Scott “Scotchie” Chapman
1404 Crows Landing
Modesto, Ca. 95351
209-571-8282

DCLT2

Artists and shop bouncing…. It happens… get over it…

Well this happens more than what people realize.  As an artist first and a studio owner second…I am guilty of doing the same thing.  Artists are free agents, free spirits, and generally somewhat flaky.  We do not take shit from people so when we feel like someone is giving us shit we tend to bounce.  If we get bored we tend to bounce, if we do not feel like we are growing artistically we tend to bounce.  So hopping from one shop to another is something that is normal.  As artists we love to travel and tattoo at conventions and do guest spots.  This helps with the wonder lust that we all seem to have in our souls.

As an owner of a studio that is also an artist I do not get insulted when an artist leaves to go to another studio.  I would hope that they would be mature enough to realize that is part of the industry.  The studio was here before you came to work at it and it will remain long after you leave to go else where.  I have had some artists work for us three or four times and we still remain friends to this day and they will come and work for us again when and if I have an opening.  I have had many people come and guest spot for us. We usually part on good terms.  For those that leave cause they get their panties in a knot, I do not take it personally.  I do not get bent out of shape.  Even the artists that I have asked to leave can come back if the things that caused the parting have changed .

There is a small community of legitimate artists in the industry and most of us know of each other or have heard of each other in our city, or state, or even world-wide. So to harbor hard feelings toward each other is really a stupid thing to do.  All that does is make your exposure of art contacts smaller.  It is like cutting off your nose to spite your face.  It seems like the younger crowd has not learned this yet and it is because they are immature.  They will hopefully grow up and realize that the world kept turning and people did not disappear.  It becomes and issue of over inflated ego on their part and the only person that gets hurt by that is themselves.

So I guess all of us need to just take a deep breath and get on with our own business.  I guess if you are a studio owner that is not an artist then you may have some difficulty with artists bouncing all the time, but you should have realized early on that it is all part of the tattoo industry.

I do know of several studios that have had the same staff for decades.  On the flip side I think I have seen many more that change regularly.  I know many people who have one or two artists and the rest are guest spotters.  It all comes down to what works for you.

C/S

DCL Tattoo
1404 Crows Landing Road
Modesto, Ca. 95351
209-5718282

http://dclt2.com

Mat Martin, Jen Cullota, Scott Chapman, Mr. Droopy, Troy Martin, and Pattie Chapman

So here is to those at Dos Changos Locos Tattoo studio.  You can see all of the work on our facebook at http://www.facebook.com/dclt2. I thought it would be nice to mention those folks that makes us who we are.

Mat Martin comes to us by way of Jen Cullota.  Mat was apprenticed by her, and his art work stands on its own.  He loves neo-traditional work and is really into the craft that I myself love so much.  He is currently going to the San Francisco Institute of Art.  He is working on his BA in art.

Mr. Droopy comes to us from San Mateo.  He is a black and gray portrait artist.  He does some fantastic work.  Check him out on our facebook as well as our website.

Jen Cullota is in my opinion one of the best female tattoo artists in the entire central valley.  She is someone who is a well-rounded artist.  Now we see why Mat did so well with her.  She tattooed my left sleeve and my entire back five or six years ago and people still talk about those tattoos today.

Troy Martin is a new hire.  He comes to us by way of California Corey Young.  We welcome Troy here with us.  He does Traditional work as well as piercing.  So we have a piercer again.  Thanks Troy.

I will skip my introduction in that it can be found in the about section on my blog.  My wife Pattie Chapman manages the studio and handles the calls and clients.  She attempts to keep all of us crazy artists happy and supplied.  It is like herding cats!  You know how artists are…

When you call or come by our studio you will find our art on the walls along with some other flash work, but we are in the process of taking any other art other than our own out of the studio.  We are mostly a custom studio and we want to illustrate that by having only our art on the walls.  I had opened this studio as a street shop like you would have found in the 70s-90s.  We try to paint at least once a week if we can.  We draw everyday and try to stretch our art in new directions.  The one thing that I think binds all of us together is our love for the craft of tattooing.  We have a deep respect for the tattoo industry and we try to pass that respect on to our clients and our community, and that is the reason for this blog.

If you get a chance to visit us online or better yet in person, we welcome you and thank you for allowing us to share our art with you.

C/S

http://dclt2.com

P. Scott “Scotchie” Chapman Sr.
Dos Changos Locos Tattoo
1404 Crows Landing Road
Modesto California 95351
209-571-8282

Tattoos, music, bleach, and watercolor…Not always in that order…

Nothing evokes more memory cells then the smell of a tattoo studio when it is first opened. The turn of the key, the lights come on, and the smell wafts up to your nose like an old friend. Taking a quick stroll to the back and the music comes on. My world is set in motion. The next thing on my list after cleaning the studio, which is a happy routine that makes me nostalgic, is drawing, tattooing, or watercolor. It does not matter to me which order that drawing, tattooing, watercolor comes in as long as it is on the agenda. I always want to tattoo, draw, or paint. I sometimes–okay if you ask my wife, always–draw or doodle at the table (it helps me think/breath). I am not as bad about it as many other people that I know. Many of us can not seem to function without drawing or doodling. I need to draw more than I do. I need to paint more than I do. You can not get better unless you practice, practice, practice, ad nauseam.

Tattooing has so many facets that evoke happiness. The sound of the machine, the feel of the machine in your hand, lining out a tattoo, the smell of witch hazel, alcohol, green soap, ointment, madacide, bleach, the sight of skin with a design on it, the colors laid out on the tray, music blaring in the background, people laughing, the feel of accomplishment when the tattoo is finished, and the list goes on. All of this craft makes me smile, it makes feel like a kindergarten kid going out on recess. I wake up wanting to go to the studio, even if it is just to hang out with the other artists. When we go on road trips it is like going with an art class. We are talking about art without realizing it. We try not to talk shop, and I guess we don’t, but we are talking tattooing and art. My wife is not a tattoo artist, but she happily takes part in our child-like enthusiastic conversations. When I say child-like I mean that we are excited and giddy about the subject, but we talk of color theory, technique, etc. We are still excited about our craft many years into it. I seem to get more excited by it as the years go on.

Maybe it is just the people that I surround myself with in my life and studio. Almost everyone that hangs out with us are the same. All I can say is that the artists I get to share this life with are people that share the same enthusiasm for the craft. To those of you that read this if you are an established artist please share some of your memories with us, and for those non-artists, maybe this will explain why we behave the way we do…

C/S
Scott “Scotchie” Chapman
DCL Tattoo
1404 Crows Landing Rd.
Modesto, Ca. 95351
209-571-8282