Custom work only · 214 Foundry Row, Bay 3 · Est. 2019

It goes in once. So we draw it twice.

One client a day, three artists, no walk-in flash after four o'clock. The patch in the panel is a lining and shading pass at real speed — including the part nobody photographs, where each stroke bleeds a hair into the skin behind the needle. Then switch it to healed and see what you actually live with.

Stencil on

Twenty minutes old. The ink sits proud of the skin, that soft dark halo is plasma and surplus pigment spreading past the line, and the whole patch reads two to three shades heavier than it will end up. Every tattoo you have seen photographed looks like this.

Three weeks on. Roughly 15% lighter, halo gone, and each line has picked up about a third of a millimetre of softness as pigment settled into the dermis. That is normal healing, not fading — it is why we space the linework wider than the drawing needs.

Who is in the shop

Three artists. No house style.

You book a person, not a studio. Each of us draws your piece ourselves, from scratch, with you in the room for the first pass. Nobody here will copy another artist's tattoo off a screen — bring it as reference and we will draw you your own.

Marisol Vance

Blackwork, bold line, large-scale ornamental

Eleven years, six of them on sleeves and back pieces. Books in four-hour blocks because her work does not suit an hour here and there. Will tell you when a design is too small to survive twenty years.

Liner 9RL · shader 15M · line weight

Books open · next 12 Sept

Dez Halloran

Fine line botanical, single-needle script

Six years and a botany degree they insist is relevant. Draws from live plants on the bench by the window. Honest about the trade-off: single-needle work is beautiful at four weeks and needs a touch-up at four years.

Liner 3RL · single needle · line weight

Waitlist · 41 names

Ike Farrow

American traditional, flash, cover-ups

Nineteen years, owns the place, sharpened his first liner on a kitchen table he still regrets. Takes the cover-up consults nobody else wants. Charges the same rate to fix someone else's work as to do his own.

Liner 7RL · shader 11M · line weight

Closed · returns 4 Nov

Rates, deposits, flash

What it costs, before you ask.

One rate for all three artists. We quote in time, not in guesses about size — an hour of Marisol's blackwork costs the same as an hour of Dez's linework, because it takes the same hour.

Hourlybilled in half hours after the first$180
Shop minimumanything smaller still costs this$140
Half day · 4 hourssaves $80 on hourly$640
Full day · 7 hourstwo breaks, lunch on us, saves $210$1,050
Depositcomes off your final session$100
Consult · 20 minin person or video, no obligationfree
Touch-uponce, within 12 monthsfree
Hands, fingers, feet touch-upthey never heal predictably$60
Ribs, sternum, feetslower going, added to any booking+$40

Deposit terms

$100

It holds your date and it holds your drawing time. The deposit comes off your last session, not your first — so a one-sitting piece at four hours is $640 with $540 due on the day.

Move your date with more than 72 hours notice and the deposit moves with you, once. Under 72 hours, a no-show, or turning up drunk, and it is gone: that chair sat empty and the drawing was already done.

Cash and card both fine. Tips go straight to the artist and are never expected.

Flash sheet · fixed price by size · up to 3 in $140 · up to 5 in $180 · up to 7 in $240 · each design goes out three times, then it is retired ▸

Aftercare & shop rules

The first two weeks are your job.

We do the tattoo in four hours. You do the healing over fourteen days, and the healing is what people see for the next thirty years. Read this before you book, not after.

Hour 0–4

Wrap stays on until you are home and can wash properly. If we sealed you with second-skin film, leave it 24 hours — up to 48 is fine. It will fill with cloudy fluid; that is plasma and ink, not infection. If it starts leaking at an edge, take it off and wash.

Day 1–3

Wash twice a day: clean hands, fragrance-free liquid soap, lukewarm water, twenty seconds, no cloth. Pat dry with paper towel — bath towels hold bacteria and catch on the edges. Then the thinnest smear of unscented ointment, barely a shine. A shiny tattoo is a suffocating tattoo.

Day 4–10

It flakes. Everything goes cloudy and grey and you will privately decide we ruined it. Switch to plain unscented lotion, twice a day. Do not pick, scratch or scrub — pigment comes away with anything you pull off, and that is what leaves a patchy line.

Day 10–21

New skin, slightly duller than day one, slightly softer lines. That is exactly the change on the healed setting up in the hero. Stop the ointment. Keep moisturising.

Week 4+

SPF 30 or better, forever. Sun fades black faster than anything else we can name — faster than age, friction or bad aftercare. A tattoo kept out of the sun for ten years still looks like a tattoo.

Do not, for two weeks

  • No soaking. Pools, lakes, sea, hot tubs, baths, saunas — 14 days. Showers are fine, just do not stand under it for a song.
  • No sun on it for 3 to 4 weeks. No tanning beds at all if you care about the linework.
  • No gym mats, no contact sport, no heavy sweat for 5 days. Sweat under a wrap is how people get infections.
  • No numbing cream you brought yourself. It changes how skin takes ink and we will stop the session.
  • No alcohol for 24 hours before. It thins your blood, the ink washes out with it, and you will bruise.
  • Call us, don't wait — red edges spreading after day 4, yellow discharge, or a fever. That is infection, not healing, and it needs a doctor as well as us.
18+, photo IDEvery time, no exceptions, no signing for a friend.
Eat firstA real meal within two hours. Bring a drink and something sweet.
One guest, no kidsThe booth fits you and one person. Not a place for children.
We can say noHands, necks and faces get a conversation first, and sometimes a no.

Consultation

Twenty minutes, free, no sales pitch.

Bring three things: reference you actually like, the placement, and a rough size in inches. We will tell you honestly whether it will hold up at that size, which of the three of us should draw it, and what it will cost in hours. If the answer is that your idea needs to be bigger or simpler, you will hear that in the consult rather than after the deposit.

Consults run Tuesday and Thursday afternoons, in person at the shop or over video. We reply to booking requests on Tuesdays — one of us, not a bot.

The shop214 Foundry Row, Bay 3
Kestrel Point
OpenTue – Sat, 12 – 8
Sun & Mon closed
Talk to us(207) 555-0148
front@ironwoodtattoo.example