Tony ‘Retro Viking’ | Realism & Colour Tattoo Artist Saltash

About Tony & His Artistic Journey

I've always had a huge love for nostalgia and retro gaming and love sharing this with my daughter.

I originally started out airbrushing crash helmets and illustrating and creating the odd tattoo design for friends. I then started a printing business (Speedy Prints) I was then encouraged into tattooing by friends and never looked back.

I love drawing and sketching. Using anything at my disposal like pens, pencils, brushes etc. You will never catch me using AI to generate my artwork. I'm old school and believe in real human talent.

I never watch the news or get involved with religious or political debates or anything that is designed to cause negativity. I like to remain positive and hang around with like minded positive people.

I enjoy training 5 days a week, slinging weights and helping others achieve their goals in the gym with advice or spotting.

Tattooing has become an exciting challenge for me and I am very fond of new creative challenges. It really is a great honour to be entrusted to create living works of art and to play a part in enhancing someone's identity

Cant wait for the day when someone asks me to tattoo either HE-MAN or Scorpion from Mortal Kombat. Both are great memories from the 80s-90s and are 2 of my favourite characters.

mY STYLES

Here's a collection of the styles and techniques RV practices and offers his customers.

REALISM

A realism tattoo is exactly how it sounds - a piece of artwork that looks so realistic you almost believe it's a photo! It is full of intricate details with high amounts of shading, and generally takes the most amount of time to complete.

TRADITIONAL

These types of tattoos have distinguishing features, which include: Bold and clean black outlines in a 2D finish (looks like a drawing) Highly saturated colours of red, green, yellow, and lots of black.

BLACK AND GREY

Black and gray is a tattooing style that uses varying shades of black ink. Black and gray tattoos can also be realistic, with lifelike portraits, movie scenes, or other subjects.

SEMI REALISM

This style refers to a blend of realistic imagery with stylized elements, essentially creating a design that captures recognizable features of a subject while incorporating artistic liberties to give it a less photorealistic and more artistic appearance; it combines the detail of realism with the stylistic freedom of other tattoo styles like illustrative or neo-traditional.

ABSTRACT

Abstract tattoos are designs that look like pieces of art themselves. Other types of tattoos are a form of art, but in this case, it's something more. These tattoos do not try to imitate or picture anything real but capture an emotion or a feeling.

Cover-ups

Involves creating a new tattoo design over an existing, unwanted one, effectively camouflaging the old design. This is done by integrating elements of the original tattoo into the new design or by completely masking it with a new image.

WATERCOLOUR

These are bright, vivid designs made up of a number of subtle colour gradients that create a more gradual colour fade-out. Intended to mimic the characteristics of a classic water colour painting.

COLOUR

Used in a wide variety of different styles, like Neo traditional, biomechanical and new school tattoos, to traditional styles like Japanese and American traditional tattoos. Whether it's a bold and colourful sleeve or a subtle pop of colour in a minimalist design, colour tattoos hold a special place in the world of art and self-expression.