Neal Aultman

Neal Aultman, originally from New Orleans, went to art school for graphic design and now works as a tattoo artist at Zeus in Brooklyn.

One day a group of Chief staff and friends stopped by for some new ink. While Neal tattooed the lot of us, we asked a few questions about "puffy ink," and the learning curve for tattooing.














Chief Magazine: Do you do a lot of girls?

Neal Aultman: No, I have a girlfriend.
 
Since when do you have a girlfriend?

Two weeks ago.
 
What's her name?

Maria, she's a hairdresser from Boston.
 
Does she have any tattoos?

Yeah, she had a bunch before I met her. I did that portrait of the woman I showed you, that half portrait. That's her mother.

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Is there something trickier about the wrist than other parts?

Yeah, just about the sides. With little tattoos, you screw up just the tiniest bit, and it looks retarded.
 
How many tattoos do you think you've given?

Oh God, well over 5,000.
 
And how many tattoos have you given yourself?

I've got "I hate skinny bitches" that I covered up on my leg.
 
You covered it up?

Tattooing yourself sucks. It fucking hurts. 

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What's up with the bee, why the bee?

Girl getting bee tattoo: It's a long story that I'm not telling Chief Magazine.
 
Do people do a lot of insects?

There was a big movement a while ago, a bunch of people got insects, but it's really not that common anymore. Most people will come into this shop with their baby's mamma's name, or their kid's portrait, or some real hard shit dawg, like "death before dishonor," or "cry now, laugh later," or like "718 proof..." No, no, no. "187 proof."
 
You used to tattoo in the West Village too, right?

Yeah I tattooed there, that was mostly gay shit.
 
Like rainbows?

Yeah!
 
How did you get into it, to start?

A girl named Kate Burnett bought me the equipment.

So then you just started tattooing your friends in your apartment, or what?

Yeah, the Delta House. Started tattooing there…
 
The Delta House, you mean a Frat right?

Yeah, I just started tattooing my friends there and, you know, slowly getting bigger clientele, and then one day I taught this kid Jack how to tattoo, and he got a job at The Village Diva, and I was like, "Well shit, if he can get a job at the shop without a portfolio and without a license, I can get a job at that shop." So I was like, "Get me a job," and he was like, "Yeah, the kid that's working OD’d or is all fucked up on heroin so we're about to fire him and we need a new head guy," or whatever. I showed up and was the head guy and I was there for a while, until the end of the summer, until Ali sold the place to this fucking asshole and he fucking took over, making it like a bong shop. I was like, "this fucking sucks," but I had no place to go. So then Alex was working with me, he quit there, got a job at Cassiopeia, then he got me a job at Cassiopeia and then through Cassiopeia I met Carmen and she got me here, and I've just been here ever since.
 
So how long were you tattooing at the Delta House before you got the job?

I started tattooing at the Delta House in probably like 2000, '99 maybe, and then again in 2000. I didn't start working at The Diva until 2004, so it hasn't really been that long.
 
So do you still get this precious baby feeling when you do a tattoo?

Sometimes. On certain people, yes definitely.
 
When was the last time you got a tattoo?

My [moustache on my] finger. And maybe a month ago. I have an appointment with a guy named PeeWee for a giant fucking gypsy head, like a gypsy girl. Troy Temple, the guy that owns Philadelphia Eddie's is friends with my boy Isaac, and that's the guy who's putting out my book, hopefully.
 
What's the book?

Oh, it's just going to be flash, my drawings – as goofy and as crazy as I can get them, I don't know, dress to impress kind of shit. Not like Looney Tunes, but you know, like really crazy traditional zombie girl portraits. I'm really into zombie girl portraits, 'cause, well, they're beautiful. They're zombies and girls. That's what I'm doing on Alex, he drew that one up though. We just take girls from tattoo magazines, like the girls from the cover of the tattoo magazines, and turn them into zombie girls when we're bored. I got the girl from the National Geographic, you know the African with the eyes? Yeah I'm doing her as a zombie girl. I don't know on who, but I have it halfway drawn. It's going to be big though, and elaborate. But I have to give it away for free, because no one is going to pay that much for it.

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Is it just like drawing on somebody or is there more?

Oh, there's definitely more to it. I can't teach anybody how to tattoo a portrait. It's just something I picked up. It's like every shading maneuver you can think of.
 
So there's a lot to learn between knowing how to draw and how to tattoo.

Yeah, most of it is the equipment. If you have shitty equipment you're not going to get good tattoos.
 
Shitty equipment meaning old equipment or…

Old equipment can be the best equipment. My National Supply is fucking old as hell but it's the best Goddamned power supply I can find. This machine has been around for God knows long. I bought it a year ago but it's the same design they've had for the past 25 years, or 50, or something like that.

Certain things have the test of time in tattooing, like certain machines, certain ways of doing things, and then other things completely change, like inks - the organic pigments and the dispersals and the blah, blah, blah, and the fluorescents and the UVs. A lot of really high flying tattoo artists make their own ink from raw pigment that they get from all over the world.
 
What's up with that black light shit?

Yeah, the UV shit? I don't trust it.
 
So do you ever get anybody that's like, "You fucked my shit up?"

Not anymore.
 
How would you handle a situation like that?

How did I used to handle it? "Oh, I'm sorry. Get it out of my apartment, you should have kind of figured." You know, usually I didn't touch anybody that was a complete stranger, until I got into a shop, and then by the time I got into a shop I was already good enough that I wasn't going to fuck anybody up. This one girl came in here and she wanted intertwined or interwined or I don't even know what – she talked with a lisp, so she spelled it out for me and she spelled it wrong, and I was like, "Ok, I can't spell." So I just did whatever she gave me. So she came back and was like, “This is misspelled," and I was like, "We can fix it just like this," and it fixed itself perfectly.
 
So you're from New Orleans, right?

Mm-Hmm.
 
Do you ever go back?

Of course. I went back for Christmas. I think I went back before that... for my birthday?

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So is there any place besides the obvious where you can tattoo somebody?

The who-who? You can get your who-who tattooed. You can get your nipples tattooed if you want. Anything on your body will hold ink. Even your tongue can hold ink. People tattoo their tongues black for some reason. I still have this picture I saw online. There was this dude, his whole dick was a dragon and like, the dragon was up on his thing.
 
So what got you into tattoos?

Chicks! [laughing]  Yeah, I was 15 and I don't know, I liked them.
 
Is that when you got your first tattoo or is that when you gave your first tattoo?

That was when I gave my first tattoo. I didn't get my first tattoo until I came to Pratt.
 
So you gave tattoos before you had a tattoo? Shouldn't that be a qualification?

Yeah, but one of the best tattoo artists in the world is Anil Gupta and he only has one fucking tattoo. I don't like him anyway. I think his shit's over-detailed and he's overpriced. He's over-hyped too. But he tattoos uber, uber-famous people, like Jenna Jameson. His work is in those magazines, you can check them out. He's Indian, like Hindu, and he works in Times Square.
 
Does he have a reason for not getting more tattoos?

No, he has one. It's a portrait of the Mona Lisa. I think he did it on himself. That's sad.
 
Well how many tattoos do you have?

Let's count them: one, two, three… twelve.
 
You can't see any of them, is there something behind that?

Yeah, well, my parents. I don't know, I told my mom I wouldn't get my arms tattooed until she died, but I think I've just get my arms tattooed and that will kill her. My mom didn't know I was a tattoo artist until like, a year ago.   I didn't tell her. Yeah, she hates
tattoos. I told her I was a freelance graphic
designer.
 
Does she know that you have tattoos?

Yeah, I showed her my "Mom" tattoo.
 
And the Ma-Pa tattoo?

Well no, the "Mamma-Papa" tattoo is my grandparents, and I can definitely never tell them! They would just disown me straight off. My parents would just be disappointed.

Do your grandparents think you're a freelance graphic designer?

I guess so, I don't know.

They're kind of out of it. They're both gamblers anyway. So it's hypocritical. My grandmother's a professional gambler only due to taxes, she makes too much money at the casino, so she has to claim that she's a professional gambler on her taxes.
 
What would you be doing if you weren't tattooing? Freelance graphic design?

No. I hate that shit. I did that at Pratt, Pratt got all that shit right out of me. I'd probably be an illustrator.
 
What'd your mom say when you told her you do tattoos?

"Do they offer health benefits?" or something like that. I was like, "No."
 
Was she bummed by that?

Yeah, she wants me to have a real job, with a tie and dental and health and shit like that.
 
You could wear a tie.

I could wear a tie. It would get in the way though.

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Do you get a lot of repeat customers?

Most of my customers are repeat. Usually, if I tattoo you, especially in this neighborhood, you're going to come back to me, 'cause the people down the street really fucking suck and the guy across the street's an idiot.
 
Once, some guy got a tattoo, I think it was on his neck, and it had some sort of Satanic thing involved in it, and he was up at the front corner, up at the end, and he passed out, and he crashed right through the glass table and he slit his neck and died.

Sometimes your blood sugar drops. Most people, when they get a piercing, they're fine afterwards and then they go to stand up and pass right out.   So that's probably what happened to him, he didn't eat anything and then you know you get a Satanic tattoo and God's after you.
 
Do you do a lot of tattoos for deceased?

Yeah, most in this neighborhood, it's a lot of Spanish people. Virgin Marys, praying hands, "death before dishonor." Religious shit, yet a lot of them get demons and shit like that.
 
Do you ever get the kids with like, two or three names crossed out, and then they’re here for a fourth name?

No, it's covering up a name with a name: "Yo, can you make the script like crazy?"
 
Do you get the same person to come back to you to cover it up? Do you remember them?

Every now and then. Most people I try to talk out of it. Like, if she's coming in to get Jose's name I'm going to try to talk her out of it. But if she comes in with Jose, I can't really talk them out of it. Or if they want to get matching tattoos and they want to just get each other's names, I'm like, "Why don't you just get the same tattoo?" That way when you break up, which you will because its America... these idiot 18-year-old kids just think this shit is forever. I would never get a girlfriend's name. Although I am getting my girlfriend tattooed on me as a zombie, but it's an old picture of her; I just really like the picture.
 
And you drew the zombie?

No, I'm having an artist draw the zombie. I don't want to draw my own tattoos, fuck that shit, it’s way too stressful. I'll draw something and look at it later and be like, "Eh," but other people still like it, so I don't know.
 
One thing you do get better at when you're tattooing is little perfect circles, absolutely straight lines, and like, little itty-bitty detail, like blindly – because, I don't know if you can tell, but I can't see what I'm doing.

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How did you practice? Did you practice on people?

Mm-hm. You practice on people. You lie to them.
 
The first person you tattooed, did they know you were an amateur?

The first person I tattooed was at a shop in New Orleans and they had no clue, but they were also 16, so they didn't really care. All you have to do to get a tattoo license in New Orleans is to get two people who have a tattoo license to sign you into it. Here, you have to pay $140. If you have $140, you can be a tattoo artist.
 
Is there a course or a class you have to take to be a tattoo artist?

Yeah, you have to take a bloodborne pathogens test, which is bullshit. I slept through mine and still passed it. You go, you sit for two hours and you have some nurse tell you everything that's wrong, like they literally teach you wrong information. Like, they say, to clean out blood from shit you use bleach. Oh hell no I'm not using bleach in this shop! No! It's called maticide. That shit kills everything, that shit will kill bleach.
 
What do you have on your head?

It's a little Viking symbol. I got it when I was 19. I actually got Scott Harrison to do it at New York Adorned. He's like this world famous guy and if I would of known who he was when I was getting this I would of fucking killed myself. Even if I wanted a tattoo from Scott Harrison right now, it would probably take like five years to find his ass, get on his waiting list, and then wait. And I got a walk-in at Adorned. I don't know, it’s just odd.

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Do you think, that all of those reality shows, like what is it…

Miami Ink? I think the owner of Miami Ink is a horrible tattoo artist. I'm better than him. Avi is not good. Chris Garver is the shit.
 
But the stuff they show of Chris Garver's is just so simplistic.

I know. You look at Chris Garver's portfolio, you might fucking cream yourself. Like the dude is just uber fucking sick. The shit that they show on TV is like his boring stuff.
 
What about Kat Von D?

Kat Von D? The thing about Kat Von D is like she's a really good portrait artist, but there's a lot of really good portrait artists, and she falls like, maybe in the middle of all the portrait artists in the world. Like Shane O'Neil or fucking Robert Hernandez – those are the big names. Bob Tyrrell and shit. Kat Von D, you won't even find her in magazines.
 
But is that getting people who wouldn't normally get tattoos to get tattoos?

Oh, definitely. The whole Inked and Miami Ink has been like great and shit, because then you have people coming in here, and they think they know a little more about it and they want to have the mean, and bla-bla-bla and they'll get bigger pieces now. Before that they'd get little itty-bitty you know, or they'd get the smallest humanly possible so it can be as cheap as humanly possible so it hurts as less as humanly possible. I'd be like "Okay, you're going to have something on your body the rest of your life that reminds you of how cheap and pussy you are?"
 
Is that special ink?

It's tribal ink, it fills in 20 percent quicker
 
I knew someone with a tribal cockroach.

We have a whole huge thing actually of tribal animals. I saw a really awesome traditional cockroach by Burt Crack. It was awesome, I wanted to get a whole bunch on my feet, with all like orange and pink and yellow.
 
What about that traditional shit with the needle?

Horimono is the name of it. Or the Japanese, it's different. They have like big brushes where it's like 25 fucking needles and like a big stick and you can hear it like popping the skin, like "pup pup pup pup pup." They're on YouTube, Horiyoshi III, and he's like doing this tiger back piece and you can hear "putt putt putt putt," and its like, they show it to you in slow-mo, and it looks like that's the way he does it, and then they speed it up to real speed and you're like, "Whoa," and he gets more accurate from doing this, then I can by doing this. Well, not really, but he uses a fucking machine too. He'll line with the machine and then he colors Horimono style. And I heard that you can't choose what you get from him, he picks what you get. He meets with you, you go drinking with him, and then he decides what you get. He drinks every night at the same bar. Horiyoshi III has a seat that he drinks at every night at the same bar, and he's like the Godfather, he's a made Yakuza man too, you can't fuck with him.
 
Almost all of them used to be, right?

All of them used to be, some of them still are. Some of the best tattoo artists in the world, you don't know they exist because they work for Yakuza families.

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So what's your policy on tattooing drunkards?

I don't.
 
You don't tattoo people who have been drinking?

No, it just makes the tattoo come out like shit.
 
Because they're squirming around?

No, it's because they bleed. The alcohol thins your blood. Even a tiny bit of blood thinning anything will fuck your shit up.

In the beginning were you scared of using the needle at all?

You don't push down. You push down at all you're going to fucking gouge them out; you'll take a chunk out. I definitely scarred the piss out of people when I started out, just because my machine was a piece of shit. Technically, it was what they would consider a tattoo machine, but it wasn't too far from jailhouse. Jailhouse tattooing is usually done with a walkman.
 
A Walkman?

Yeah, on fast forward. And a guitar string, sharpened. And the ink is usually burnt checkers or rubber that they mix with your piss, because your piss is sterile to you. And they need some type of astringent, like ammonium or alcohol or something.
 
What's the craziest thing you've ever tattooed on somebody?

Well, I've never tattooed any swastikas or anything.
 
Would you?

No. Well, I would, if it wasn't on somebody who was white power. I mean, if you want like a Hindu swastika or a swastika as designed, that means like gentle swastika if you would– yeah, that's fine. If you're white power and you want to get some SS bars and a swastika? Nah.
 
Is there something that people who don't really know how to tattoo do?

Yeah, they scar the piss out of people. They give them what they call a blowout. A blowout is when you go too deep and the ink looks real bad. Or you'll have some people come in, some idiots be like, "Yo, do you have that puffy ink?"
 
Stuff that puffs up?

You mean like puff ink? No, it's called keloid scarring, that's what they're talking about. There's no such thing as puffy ink, you know, unless you're making sweaters.
 
Who would want that?

Oh, ghetto people love the puffiness, because the tattoo comes out so shitty anyway, that they only see it in 3-D, so they kinda like it. I don't know
 
So the puffiness is when you go in too deep?

Yeah.
 
So people come in and ask for that?

Well, on darker skin, you can, you know, keloid someone a lot easier. So that keloid puffs up, and the tattoo's puffy. They think it's cool, they think it's puffy ink.
 
Has anyone ever, like spaced on you, like passed out or whatever?

I've had only maybe two or three people pass out on me while tattooing.
 
Was it something big, or…

Oh, it's always big. Usually, if someone's going to pass out on you, it's within the first couple of minutes, because their blood sugar drops when they feel the pain. They pass out, they wake up, and I give them some cookies and some juice and they're fine again.
 
So you have five little containers of ink there, why not just have one?

Because, the more you dip into one, it dilutes the ink.  Because fluids, blood, and all sorts of shit get up in this needle, so the more you dip into one thing, the more it's diluting. That way, if you're doing a huge tribal piece and you have just one big thing of ink, that's what morons do--the tribal piece, during the end, winds up turning grey just because they're whole shit is diluted. White especially, if I'm using white, or having a piece with a lot of white, I'll lay out a cap for every time I fucking dip the ink. Or I'll just put the white on the paper, and just get it from the side.
 
So let's talk about tattoo technology for a second.

Alright. It changes every fucking day. You want to see the three new colors that came out this week? I bought them. This one? It's called "Beer Gold." It's awesome. It's actually kind of gold, like beer gold, you know like kind of an amber beer. Where as the other one, "Rainforest Green." This is more of like Exorcist pea soup. Then the new one is "Powder Blue." It comes out way lighter than any of this. MOMS has the best names. "Piss yellow," "doodoo brown," "monthly red," "blue balls." I don't tell people the ink color because they're like, "I don't want no doodoo brown on me," I'm like "Yeah, but that's the brown you want."
 
Do you give them any neon or glow in the dark ink?

No, I don't do those.
 
Why?

They aren't tested. Like, they say they're FDA approved, I did the right research on it. They're not actually FDA approved, they're FDA sanctioned. I just don't think it's good to have anything in your skin that radiates light. That is called radiation.
 
Well, there's black light and then there's glow in the dark…

Glow in the dark doesn't exist anymore. They do not make it; it causes cancer. UV is still in testing right now. And as far as I know, that UV only lasts like three years. So it's pointless.
 
Do you get people coming in asking where to get their tattoo removed?

Yep, all the time. And I tell them I don't have a degree in dermatology, and that they should go to an actual person that doesn't put the fucking tattoos on but a person that takes them off. I'm like, "Are you an idiot?" Hold on, let me turn this gun around and use the eraser.
 
Do they make cool tattoo erasers for the guns, like they do for pencils?

They actually have a tattoo ink now that can be laser removed, like ten times easier. But I'm thinking to myself that if it can be laser removed ten times easier, wouldn't it fade ten times easier? Wouldn't that be pointless to get a tattoo with shittier ink?

How many people did you tattoo today, before we showed up?

No one. I priced everyone out so I wouldn't have any customers.

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Intentionally?

Mm-Hm. If I'm bored or hung over, my prices go up extremely. I make it worth it. "If I have to tattoo this asshole, I want at least $300."
 
Do you also price based on the intelligence or stupidity…

Yep. You bet your fucking ass I do.



Zeus Tattoo and Piercing
682 Grand Street
BKNY 11211


Photos
Xavier Ninja

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