Cow Palace Tattoo, August, 2008

Another Cow Palace tattoo expo have gone by. We were there. Ariel Cruz of Cruz Creations Tattoo and Darius Agustin of Da Underground Tattoo had 3 booths combined. I never expected us to have that many customers because summer was almost over. You know summer is the best season for business because this is the time they can show off their tattoos.



Almost all the pinoys came to us for their tats not only because we’re good (hehe) but also because we offer the most reasonable price for their money.

I had one client who asked me to draw a masked face of a samurai warrior. I charged him 30 bucks for the drawing. He told me… ‘do you know how much the other booth was charging me for this drawing?’ (not the tattoo), He said ‘three hundred fucking dollars.’ Then he added, ‘mga artist talaga o.’

Some artists may say that I charge too low and this will make our business suffer but I have my reasons. Customers will come back and they sure did. I think we had about four to five returning clients during the convention.

Billy Truong (one of my tattoo teachers) showed of his new machine. The gun was as light as a ballpen and it was using air. I find this very interesting because of the lightness of the tattoo gun and it’s practically noiseless. This will make it a lot easier to control but it costs $2000.00 for the whole setup and takes a lot of space. Ummm… never mind, maybe next time :-)

I got scared.

Darius asked me to do one tat. Boo hoo, I declined. He was tired the last day so he asked me but I wasn’t psyched to do it and I wasn’t expecting it. I showed him my book and saw the latest tattoos that I did and I guess he liked it so he trusted me. I knew I can do it but my mind just wasn’t prepared. I just got scared that I might mess up. I’m gonna be ready for the next one though.

My family joined me for the first time in almost 3 years that I have been going to tattoo expos. Miro was just running around while Isabela just oggled at people. Good thing she behaved. Millette went shopping a little bit and bought me a bracelet that I can’t put on because the buttons were too tight.



Oh, one guy asked me to draw up his idea. He asked me what if he didn’t like it. Some people don’t get it that I went to an art school and paid for it (actually my parents did). But once they ask me to draw something up, they have to pay for it. They think drawing is easy and doesn’t realize the fact that it took me years of pracice to be able to illustrate. Mga tao talaga o… hehe.

I just told him that at least he had something to start with. He liked it and when Ariel was doing his tattoo, he told me that if he weren’t sitting there having his tat done, he’s gonna hug me. That’s nice to hear.