Mouse boy Chris has finally got his back (almost) finished – at least it looks like a proper tattoo now! Ben and Iva pinned him to the chair and tore into him for a couple of hours. Poor boy didn’t like it at all, but hey – do we care? of course not!

Nice one Chris now lets do some more and get you ‘tattooed up’!

the one that didn't get away!

Been taking the little Sinner fishing for a while now and he absolutely loves it. Every weekend it’s ‘Can we go fishing Dad? can we, can we…?’

So the other day we went to our local lake which is really kid friendly. Basically you can drop your hook in anywhere and catch something! This particular day was lovely – really warm and sunny without burning the shit out of you, and the fish were really biting well. Little Sinner keeps on trying to catch bigger fish so we tried the method his grandad uses with much success – floating crust. And bugger me it was wicked! The big old carp all stay near the surface when it’s warm and like a bit of bread and you can just watch their big gobs pull the bread and your hook down into the water and ‘BANG’, you’re into a nice fighting fish!

My personal best by far was this nice mirror carp – what’s nice for me is I spend ages drawing and tattooing all kinds of carp so catching a big one it’s great to see all the detail and stuff that makes them such a great tattoo. Unfortunately, little Sinner didn’t catch his big fish…. he was so close to one but got his line properly snapped with a loud crack, so that was that. He’ll get there soon I’m sure.

Until next time…. happy fishing!

Oh yeah! Seven Sins Tattoo has just celebrated it’s 10 year anniversay!

It seems like only yesterday that we opened the doors to the world. Back then everyone told me it’d take about five years to get properly established, and I guess they were right. After five years we really started to get into a higher gear and the work just kept coming. Nowadays after ten years in business, it’s flat out, non-stop tattooing for all four of us, which is fantastic! Our diary is always full and the customers are always happy!

We have a brilliant customer base who trust us and our work completely – there’s no better compliment than people letting you do pretty much what you want on them!

So to all our customers, past, present and future, I’d like to say a massive THANK YOU for all your support!

And here’s to the next ten years eh…!

Happy Birthday to all you Sinners!

I hate the poxy tabloids – rubbish red-tops – lazy bloody journos the lot of ‘em. Full of made up bollocks and sensationalism. But I hate poxy ad men more. Those jumped up little cretins in their designer red rimmed glasses and snazzy braces (see we can stereotype too wankers!) sitting in their shabby little offices, scrapping the barrell to come up with yet another  hackneyed excuse for an ad campaign.

Step forward the tossers who came up with this garbage for Suzuki – you know who you are… and what’s more so do I! This ad campaign is running currently in the Scum and other red top tabloids.

You can just imagine it can’t you…

…it’s friday afternoon – they’re up against a deadline (who cares, life goes on etc) and they’ve just got back from the poncy wine bar …

‘Oh Nigel we need to get this campaign wrapped up before we nip off to pick up the charlie from wossisname’,

‘Ooh I know Colin, lets brainstorm this one and get some lines racked up’.

Seconds pass by… tick, tick, tick…

‘Oooh I’ve got it Nig!’,

‘Go for it Colin!’….

‘You know how tattooists can’t spell right?’,

‘Really Colin, is that true?’,

‘Oh who cares, everyone know they’re all thick, that’s why they just draw on people for a living, so no-one will care, it’ll be a laugh!’,

‘Ok Colin, hit me with it…’,

‘Well Nig, we’ll have a model bloke who looks like a tattooist a bit, but hasn’t got any tattoos right, but we can draw some on, no-one will notice…, and he’ll be doing a tattoo right, on this big blokes back, and… here’s the sell right… he’s spelt the tattoo wrong! It’ll be wicked, we’ll get the campaign finished, and we can get down and sort the charlie right!’.

‘Ooh Nig you’re a bloody creative genius you are!’

‘Sorted!’

Well that’s what I imagine happened in the Suzuki ad men’s shabby office anyway – because if they had any brain they’d find that we tattoo artists aren’t thick – I have an National Diploma in Art & Design thanks – we can actually write and spell too. Some of us get together regularly to make the tattoo world a safer and better place for the rest of you, lobbying parliament, holding educational seminars for environmental health officers and taking on the big boys…

Besides which tattooists in the modern world use computers for lettering design and have ‘spell checkers’!

So to you sorry ad twats at Suzuki – absolutely NO ‘RESPLECT’ you cocks. Next time you want to stereotype an art that takes a lot of hard work and pure skill to do well, pick on something else…  maybe advertising eh? Doh! that’s not an art, unless it’s the art of bullshit of course!

Oh shit, better make a… wait for it…. ‘Swift Exit!’

Lame doesn’t even come close…

‘Evening lads of the village’

A wierd expression I know, but one me and my old mate Mark were greeted with by the landlord of the Greyhound one night years ago… sorry I digress…

Village life is a beautiful thing. Old fashioned, quant, bordering on the senile and demented! But so much better than living in some nondescript city where no-one talks to each other and everyone treats their neighbour with manic suspicion.

Anyway, the last May Bank Holiday in the Sinner Village, we had our annual May Fayre. The ladies of the WI go baking mad, filling their stall with awesome cakes, buns and biscuits. There’s plants for sale, ropey ceramics, grubby car boot tat, bouncy castles and more. The very modern lady vicar turns out to pour tea in the refreshment tent, there’s tombolas, fishing for ducks, maypole dancing, a May Queen, the absolute lot! And along with this they have competitions for everything from flower arranging to poetry to wine making. One of the categories is for painting – so I thought ‘Why Not?’ I grabbed a few off the studio walls, paid a quid an entry and left the lady taking the entries saying ‘ooh aren’t they all different!’

Well I like to be diverse you see and paint all kinds of stuff – I entered an artists pallette with a bulldog on it, a budha, a heart with wings, a flaming skull in blue and a Bob Ross inspired mountain landscape. (You’ve gotta love a bit of Bob Ross!)

So me, Mrs Sinner and our little Sinnerettes toddle off to the May Fayre and have a jolly old time. Eating cake, hooking ducks, trying to win a coconut (poor little Sinner boy is a lousy shot) and trying to shelter when the rain pours down as it usually does on a Bank Holiday! Then Mrs Sinner checks out the competition gallery and guess what… I’d only got 2nd for the blue flaming skull and 3rd for the mountain landscape! I was pretty chuffed and not too bothered that I’d been beaten by a pretty average windmill scene!

Picking up the rosettes (yes rosettes, I told you this was village life!) from the visiting vicar, he asked me which painting had got the 2nd place and didn’t bat an eyelid when I told him it was a blue flaming skull!

So there you go – tattooists are artists too

Rock ‘n’ Roll!

2nd Place for the Flaming blue skull

3rd Place for the mountain landscape

Had a few requests for a follow up from us to the blog below about the twats in the latest series of LA Ink, masquarading as tattooists etc.

Well, I’m pleased to tell you they’ve all been Fired! Sacked, Given The Elbow – about time too.

This is good news.

The bad news is the crumby network have obviously got contracts to honour and now we keep being subjected to ‘insights’ into their increasingly banale and tedious lives.

Look you tossers, the studio (American Electric) they now all work in is shit, they talk shit, the tattoos are shit,  so stop wasting our fucking viewing time okay! Just give us the luscious Kat Von D and her crew and leave out the shit.

POST FROM MARCH…

The Missing L(A)ink(s)

Is it just me or has the latest series of the (alleged) popular tattoo ‘reality’ TV show LA Ink become a total pile of steaming poo? Every episode now seems to focus solely on some air-head bimbo twat called Oooorbreeee, who hasn’t got a fuckin’ clue how to work in a tattoo shop. The rest of the crew, especially Cory Miller,  hate her guts and let her know it (like you would) and it’s all ‘drama’, ‘drama’, ‘drama’ – well if you call constantly bursting into tears all the time because you’re useless – ‘drama’ – It’s unbelievable!

And to make it worse they’ve got a tattooer who’s an untattooed ‘nu yawker’, called Pooorleee, who’s about as good at tattooing as I am at brain surgery! What a fuckin’ loser – Wanker.

And if that ain’t enough, there’s some freaky looking ‘make up’ artist, turned tattooer, Aaimmmeeee. Man you’ve got to see her – the make up is amazing – like your two year old daughter got let loose with nan’s make up bag, but not as good…

Each week it just gets worse – hardly any decent artwork any more – just scripted ‘drama’

FUCK OFF! We deserve better…

St George & Dragon - Gouache - A4 - framed - £60 (plus p+p)

St. Georges Day

Last saturday 24th March, was St. Georges Day in England. Here in sunny Sinnerville it was celebrated in the town with a festival. The high street was closed off and lined with stalls from local businesses, clubs and charities. Over 4000 people turned up on a gorgeous sunny day and had a great time! Blimey, even the Queen turned up! Us Sinners had a stand showing off our artwork and tattoos, all related to England and St. George.

We Brits are a patriotic bunch and here at the studio we do loads of tattoos of St. George and the dragon, bulldogs, Britannia and so on. And we’re proud to do them too. They can be really challenging and time consuming and always pretty spectacular.

We’re looking forward to the World Cup in a few weeks and doing loads more England badges and stuff. Come on boys!!

Check out some art – all for sale.

Bulldog artists pallette - acrylic - £40 (plus p+p)

Bulldog with flag artists pallette - acrylic - £40 (plus p+p)

Skull artists pallette - acrylic - £40 (plus p+p)

If you’re interested in buying anything drop us an email at info@sevensinstattoo.com

Time for a whinge!

I’ve been doing this blog for a while now, happily tapping away on my keyboard, hoping to write stuff that someone out there might enjoy reading. So every day I get the comments on my posts emailed in and at first I was encouraged that there were quite a few. Wicked! I thought, nice to get feedback. Then I started to notice an increase in the junk comments and realised that most of these comments are posted by people or companies that are only interested in getting advertising or porn! Some are just long streams of utter gobbledegook (phew that was hard!) that have no relation to anything, let alone english!

Now they’re really starting to piss me off – there’s so many – every day. Honestly you wouldn’t believe it… everything from Christian Dating(!) to Romance Academy (findmesomeone.org!) to Discount Shoes to any kind of bloody insurance you can think of! Fuck me, it’s a joke. What I want to know is WHY? What do you think they hope to get out of it? Apart from just filling my trash they’re totally wasting cyber space.

So my message to you ‘so called bloggers’ – who ain’t, is FUCK OFF! Just stop it and let the real people who have valid comments to make – make them.

Dimitris from Hellenic Stixis, Athens

Once again Seven Sins Tattoo is proud to announce that our friend Dimitris from Hellenic Stixis Tattoo in Athens will be guesting in the studio from 2 May till 18 May. If you want to get an absolutely unique, one-off, hand poked custom tattoo please contact us on 01293 775385 for an appointment.
Check out Dimtris’s work at www.myspace.com/lakedaimoniostixis

As a tattoo artist I get really pissed off with people who come in when we open (at 11am), give me that ‘You’re lucky, I start work at 4 in the morning’ look, and say ‘must be nice to start work this late! Half day is it?…’ Wankers! What they and all you others who think we just live a rock ‘n’ roll lifestyle (thanks LA Ink!), don’t realise is all the work we do before we open and after we shut.

A normal day starts with taking the kids to school for 8.15 (early enough and rock ‘n’ roll enough for you?), coming home and getting breakfast. Then aim  to get to the shop by 9am-(ish). On goes the computer to answer all the emails, along with a double shot cappuccino. This is always hard work – ‘how much is a tattoo?’ being the benchmark! This can take up to an hour, sorting designs, quotes, appointments etc etc, binning the Viagra ads (got plenty at the moment ta).  Then it’s checking the diary for the day ahead, making sure the designs are ready for each customer, calling customers who’s designs I’ve got drawn up,  and checking that we have a few moments sometime during the day to eat lunch (quite rare most days). Then it’s inspecting the work stations for supplies, cleanliness etc, and another double shot cappuccino.

Once the doors are open at 11am, it’s heads down, non-stop tattooing all day, interspersed with giving quotes for tattoos, taking designs, answering the phone, answering customers questions ‘how much is a tattoo?’ - told you it’s the benchmark, ‘where’s the toilet?’ (a close second) and so on. At 6pm we stop (apart from Ben, who’s usually running late). Then it’s cleaning… everywhere. Vacuuming, mopping, bin emptying, etc etc, then cashing up, which usually involves chasing the guys who’ve inevitably forgotten something they’ve done, ‘cos it doesn’t add up.

If I’m lucky I can be home for 7pm, in time to have dinner with Mrs Sinner and the kids, maybe give them a bath (not Mrs Sinner, she can usually manage herself) read them a story or two and put them to bed (see it’s SO rock ‘n’ roll!).

Then it’s back to the computer, checking the days emails, editing and uploading photos for the website and writing this blog. Hopefully this won’t take long – then it’s out with the pencils and onto drawing up tattoo designs for customers – and believe me we have loads and loads of them to do. So if you’ve left us a design to draw up, my apologies… we’ll get it done as soon as we can! Normally I can’t draw past about midnight – my eyes start to hurt bad and I begin to dribble and nod off onto my art pad! Hopefully by then I’ve got a couple of drawings done for future tattoos.

At last it’s off to bed… then the alarm goes off… and it’s back to groundhog day again…

So, there you have it. Not rock ‘n’ roll. Not 9 till 5. Not fucking easy OK!

But after all is said and done, it’s brilliant and I wouldn’t swap it for anything.

Keep inking all you lovely Sinners!

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