No trabalhos do artista de tatuagem de São Petersburgo Sergei Titukh, você encontrará tudo que você está tão assustado de ver em uma sala escura ou floresta noturna: monstros dentados, bruxas assustadoras, criaturas da floresta, vampiros, criaturas com membros insetos desagradáveis. Creio que ele sabe tudo e até mais sobre seus medos.
Toda criatura assustadora que você poderia imaginar já vive em suas tatuagens. Mas é improvável que você consiga, porque esse mundo estranho é o produto da imaginação de um artista que conhece muito sobre monstros. As criaturas que habitam seu portfólio são pura magia da sua imaginação.
Porém, o paradoxo de seu portfólio está precisamente no fato de que todas essas criaturas assustadoras fascinam e capturam o olhar do observador, você quer olhar para elas, entender os detalhes e talvez até se familiarizar melhor com elas. Obviamente, todos os portadores de tatuagens de Sergei Titukh, não apenas não tem medo desses monstros, mas já se tornaram amigos fortes com elas.
Olhe para esses personagens, não são eles cutinhos?
Mais detalhes sobre o caminho de tatuagem de Sergei, seu trabalho e inspiração, aprenderemos diretamente ?
- Sergei, boa tarde! Vamos não mudar a tradição das nossas entrevistas e começar com um acolhimento. Onde você trabalha agora, o que você fez antes de se tornar tattooer?
- Meu nome é Sergei Titukh, eu moro em St. Petersburg, Rússia e trabalho em uma das mais estilosas e mais frias lojas do centro da cidade - INKME.
Eu nasci em uma pequena cidade na região de Rostov, em 2005 fui para St. Petersburg para estudar e fiquei aqui para viver. Entrei na Academia Marítima, mas seis meses depois percebi que não me interessava e entrei na Faculdade de Design. Eu não tinha formação artística, mas na universidade tivemos aulas práticas de desenho e pintura. Eu realmente comecei a desenvolver meu desenho quando comecei a fazer tatuagens, mas a universidade me deu uma boa base de desenvolvimento artístico.
Na minha última fase de estudos, percebi que o design, no sentido em que é ensinado na universidade, não me atrai, pois é claro que as aulas em um escritório são muito repetitivas. Eu queria liberdade, encontrar-me a mim mesmo. Eu estava interessado em trabalhar na indústria de bares, e até tinha planos de construir uma carreira nesse setor. Mas após 3 anos de trabalho em um bar, fiquei cansado de falar com os "alegremente animados" clientes. Percebi que quero algo mais, algum tipo de mudança na minha vida, para me realizar de uma forma mais criativa. Amigos sabiam que eu estava desenhando e sempre me empurravam para aprender a fazer tatuagens, não excludo que fosse por motivos egoístas ?.
- How did you end up in the tattoo industry from the restaurant business?
- Probably, in 2009-2010, I tried to take the first steps towards tattooing, I decided to find a studio where I could learn this, and ended up in the Tattoo Artist studio, at that time it was on the Petrograd side, in the Orlandina rock club. The cost of training for me was quite high, I could not afford that amount of money (although in fact, it was not so much). But also in this studio there were piercing courses that were cheaper, and body modification was generally interesting to me, so I decided to become a piercing master.
I joined the party, met many interesting people who, at that time, were at the top of the tattoo culture, but I never studied tattooing as a craft and, to be honest, lost interest a little, went deep into piercing. In piercing, I also did not reach special heights and decided not to continue doing this.
But, after 3 years, being an employee of the restaurant industry, I again fired up the idea of a tattoo, and in the fall of 2014 I bought my first tattoo machine. It was difficult for me to make a choice in buying and I relied on a big-name and quality. I also wanted a universal tattoo machine for different types of work, since I did not understand what exactly I would do. As a result, I bought a Stingray from InkMachines and did not regret it at all, since this machine worked with me for 3 years - I studied on it and subsequently got tattoos.
- Do you remember your first works? Did you have teachers?
- I started to train myself, I did not have teachers, and I collected all knowledge from the Internet, watched videos about how other tattooists work, and found the necessary information from articles. I spent the first training on myself, on my legs, these tattoos are still with me, although they need to be properly corrected.
After the third tattoo, which I did on myself, I felt confident that I could tattoo someone else, and these, of course, were my friends. I started working at home and bought all the necessary equipment. I am not a supporter of “couch” tattoos and tattoos in the kitchen, so I made myself a mini studio in my apartment: I had a table and a couch, a dry heat for sterilization and much more that is necessary in the work of a modern tattoo artist. I was very worried that I could harm someone's health if I poorly approach the process.
But I didn’t work at home for long, probably at that time I had about 5 well-done works in my portfolio, and I saw an announcement about the opening of a new studio, which was aimed only at graphic black-and-white works - Blackyard Tattoo. There was a set of tattoo artists in the studio, and the guys took me. I was incredibly happy that I would be working in a real tattoo studio. There they helped me a lot to develop as a tattoo artist. I worked there for about 2 years. Then I opened my private studio and began to travel a lot in Europe and the USA. Since the end of 2019 I have been working with the INKME team.
- In your portfolio there are an endless number of different frightening, creep images that are similar either to the heroes of some ancient fairy tales, or to creatures that inhabit nightmares. Why did you choose this theme? Who are all these creatures? And where do you get your inspiration?
- At the beginning of my path, I was not exactly sure what I would draw. But in 2010, I noticed several tattoo artists who did graphic work and used only black color, I was interested in this, and I decided to try to draw something in this style. Also, I had no passion for color drawings and working with a large palette of colors.
And by 2015, when I definitely decided to engage in tattooing, I decided for myself that it would be black monsters and all sorts of creepy creatures. I'm not exactly sure why I stopped on this theme, but I have always liked dark creepy creatures, fantastic films and horror films with them, besides, I love heavy music - black metal, doom metal, etc., which is saturated with darkness and heartbreaking screams ... Perhaps this became the basis of my interests and preferences in tattooing.
At that time, I saw several tattooists who already made creepy b/w creatures in a tattoo, and I really liked it, and I realized that I could create my own world with monsters. All my friends and clients supported me and expressed their interest in my dark creations.
Yes, sometimes, these are some characters from fairy tales or legends, characters from films and video games, which I interpret in my own way in a tattoo. But, more often, the characters are completely invented by me. Now I try to get away from creating characters based on existing heroes of books and films as much as possible, I'm really interested in developing myself as an artist and immersing clients in my world with creep creatures.
- What features of your work can you highlight?
- I prefer not to rely on existing themes and not to take plots that other tattooists have already done. I like to use insects and underwater elements in my art. I don't really like to use plants, with the exception of dry trees, but if plants and flowers are added as a small element, then this is to my liking. I don't really like drawing animals. If the client asks for a specific animal, then the task is to draw this animal as realistically as possible, and authorship fades into the background. I do my best to do well, but it doesn't inspire me, so I try to avoid such orders.
- Since we started talking about the plots of tattoos, tell us about your clients. Does the client bring an idea or do you always work with yours?
- Clients are very different, with different interests, from a modest girl working in an office to a brutal metalhead. It is difficult to describe them, I will say that all of them are interested in getting something dark from me. Someone shows their versatility with such a tattoo, wants to destroy stereotypes, and someone supplements their “gloomy” essence with such pictures.
Probably half of my clients also share my love for heavy music, nature and dark forces ?.
I think that most of my clients are girls. 40% of my clients give me the freedom to create characters or choose ready-made characters that I have already invented, I really appreciate that. The remaining 60% offer me their ideas, based on existing characters, but I try to fulfill their ideas as much as possible in my style, and as a rule people do not mind this, because they came for my author's performance. Thanks to them for that!
- What tattoo equipment do you prefer and why?
- I started to learn and work with a rotary universal machine, I also had a power supply from Critical, an excellent unit by the way, which worked with me for 5 years, after which I sold it as I switched to a wireless machine.
A couple of times in my life I used an induction tattoo machine to understand what it is, but I got so used to the lightness of a rotary machine that I could not readjust, I realized that I was comfortable working with only one machine. Three years ago I switched to a pen from FKIrons, it is very convenient and fits all my requirements, and now I work as a wireless rotary pen. I am glad that I finally got rid of wires. It is very comfortable to travel with it. I prefer needles from Kwadron, usually in my work I use a set of 3RLLT, 7RLLT, 9MMT. A year ago I started using paint from Allegory Ink, a very good, deep black color. Sometimes I use white to convey contrast or when overlapping, and sometimes I also use medium gray for backgrounds and guide lines.
- Do you have any idols among tattoo artists? Who are they?
- Yes, of course. There are so many great tattoo artists right now who are bringing more and more interesting things to the tattoo world. In fact, there are a lot of tattooers who are interesting to watch, and I'm afraid the list will be long. I will name a few that inspired me at the beginning of my career, and still remain my idols.
Alexander Grim - I admire the cleanliness and accuracy of his lines and the presentation of the plot. He is, without a doubt, the first on my list. Rob Borbas, aka Grindesign - scale and quality of his work, the dynamics of the drawing are fascinating. Deni Aktemirov - probably like many others, I loved his work as soon as I found out about him, and am still amazed by his transfer of volumes and creation of forms.
- How can you assess your popularity in the industry? And how do you think it can be measured?
- Without modesty, I can say that I have enough popularity, since people from all over the world know my works. But of course, I'm far from the top of fame, the places there are already taken ?. But I am working on promotion, because in modern tattooing, as in any other business, you cannot do without it.
I think at some point I gained popularity by doing a number of works with "creepy cute freaks", and this created the basis of my subscribers. But the longer I was engaged in tattooing, the more I wanted to understand the techniques and sometimes changed my style, and thus, in my opinion, spoiled my inner vision. I often looked to other tattoo artists and tried to try similar techniques in my works. Now I try not to cloud my mind and try to restore the original idea, but with the same level of technology that I received over the years of work.
- The popularity of a tattoo artist often leads to an increase in the copying of his works by less successful tattooists. Have you encountered this in your career, because the characters in your tattoos are very memorable?
- Like every artist who has done a great job creating a design for a tattoo (and this is, as a rule, an individual order), of course, I have a very negative attitude to copying other people's works. But unfortunately, I have faced this many times in my career. Many of my tattooist friends have the same problem, but without it, our business is nowhere.
The only advice I can give to such "tattooists" who repeat other people's work: do not sign or refer to the artist whose work you copied, it will shame you even more. And if you still borrowed the work, then make an effort and change it.
Also, do not forget that by copying other people's work, you deprive the design of both your client and the one for whom it was originally made. And an individual sketch is the most valuable thing that I can offer as an artist. After all, few people want to make themselves template tattoos from the catalog, everyone wants to be different. Do not give in to the client's persuasion, you need to convince him and come up with something original together.
- Do you follow the tattoo industry in general? What can you say, is modern tattoo: art or commerce? Where do you think the Russian and the Global tattoo industries are heading?
- I don't really follow the industry, maybe it is worth paying more attention to this, but I feel comfortable without it at the moment ?.
Eu acho que o tattoo moderno é um comércio, mas ainda assim, você não pode fazer isso sem arte. Os artistas de tattoo, que realmente têm criatividade e sua própria visão do desenho, agora têm a oportunidade de não se fechar em um armário, mas de ganhar dinheiro com isso e se desenvolver ainda mais. E tais artistas sempre têm seu próprio público-alvo pronto para comprar, acho que é excelente. Poucos conseguem ter um trabalho onde você pode fazer o que ama e ganhar renda. Parece-me que há muitos artistas de tattoo talentosos na Rússia, e não me atrevo a dizer que, juntamente com os estrangeiros, os tattooists russos ocupam um dos primeiros lugares na cultura do tattoo.
O futuro do tattoo global, como qualquer futuro, é difícil de prever. Mas acho que o interesse pelo tattoo será gradualmente declinante, a moda passará. Agora, cada segundo de pessoa tem um tattoo, e em algum momento ele não será tão relevante. Mas não estou triste com isso, pois aqueles que ganharam confiança na indústria de tattoo permanecerão em seu auge, e todos aqueles que não abordam seu trabalho seriamente e não se desenvolvem - desaparecerão. Assim, não estaremos sem trabalho, o cliente sempre encontrará seu artista de tattoo.
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