kai.

apprenticed at a studio in spalding, and four years into tattooing now — long enough to have settled into what he's actually good at, which is portraits.

his work is black and grey, and it lives or dies on two things: the eyes and the mouth. get those right and a portrait can carry a few small imperfections elsewhere; get them wrong and nothing else about the piece matters. he builds shading up in patient layers rather than pushing for depth in one pass, which is why a large portrait can take longer at the table than people expect — that's deliberate, not a delay.

before the machine touches skin he wants a reference he can actually read — a clear photo, not a low-res screenshot pulled off social media. if the likeness in what you've brought is ambiguous, he'll say so rather than guess and hope it lands on the day. the drawing gets refined with you at the consultation, so what ends up on the stencil is close to what you agreed, not a surprise once you're in the chair.

outside portraits he's just as at home in japanese and anime work — dragons, characters, the odd horror piece — and he'll take on realistic animals and landscapes too. wolves come up a lot. if you've got an idea and aren't sure who at shade suits it, kai is usually a safe bet: broad enough to take on most things, precise enough that the range doesn't cost you detail.

a session with him is unhurried. he'd rather stop, reset and keep the linework clean than push through and rush the shading to finish on schedule. outside the studio he's at a gig somewhere most weekends — machine gun kelly, mostly.

currently taking bookings.

see kai's work in black and grey.