Adrenaline Personal Experiences

For this weekly blog post I'm going to take a different approach. Instead of reviewing artists around the world for their work, I'm going to review my personal experiences at a shop downtown by the name of Adrenaline Tattoos, from where I got two of my tattoos from. This is a great and well known shop in the city of Toronto with a wide variety of tattoo artists that specialize in different styles. Adrenaline Toronto not only specializes in tattooing but also piercings. With a large selection of both piercing specialists and tattoo artists, you can walk into the shop comfortably knowing you will get exactly what you want. The employees will make you feel welcome and more than happy with the results of your tattoos, while keeping a clean and safe workplace. I will review both artists which did the work for me on a personal experience basis and also show off some of their art.

Firstly i'll begin with my first tattoo done by an Adrenaline employee by the name of Raidel Bas. He was born and raised in Cuba, like myself. I chose him upon viewing his previous art in his portfolio, I was convinced i wanted to get my tattoo done by him. The tattoo the Raidel did for me was the Cuban Coat of Arms on my right shoulder. The overall job took about two hours as he was a fast worker, but also with great technique. I was happy with the job he had done and the work space. Adrenaline has rooms for each artist that they work in and customize to their liking. Raidel had pictures and sketches of his art around the room and music which made the experience that much better.

My second tattoo was done by Joe Baker. Finding this artist took me a while because for the piece I wanted done I needed a specific style of artist. Joe did a Koi Fish piece right below my coat of arms on my right arm. When I first went in for my consultation to explain what I wanted exactly, he listened carefully, by the time I went in for my schedule tattoo appointment, he had drawn out exactly what i was looking for and asked for. The reason I chose Joe is because i saw the complexity of his art when i was looking through his portfolio, along with his long years of experience tattooing. Joe has been a long time employee at Adrenaline and he is known by the tattooing community within Toronto. His years in the industry reflect on his work style as it is amazing, while also being a fast worker. My Koi fish took about three hours to finalize but the quality of the work was most definitely worth the wait. My experience with Joe was above excellent, the work space was clean and tidy and it was a good environment overall, and I would most definitely return to Adrenaline for a third time.

My overall personal experiences with Adrenaline Tattoo Toronto have been phenomenal and I have never walked out disappointed. The moral of the story is; if you need to find a great parlor with great artists, you should most definitely check out Adrenaline Tattoo Toronto!

Some of Raidel's and Joe's art can be seen if you click on their names!

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Local Art

The beautiful city of Toronto has a lot to offer, including great local tattoo parlors where you can simply walk in and set up an appointment. Archive Tattoo located on Dundas West is a great local shop known for the artistic abstract style of tattooing. One artist which caught my eye that currently works at Archive Tattoo is David Glantz. His use of color in his style of tattooing is vibrant and the lines and curves are extraordinarily smooth. Accomplishing such precise hand-eye coordination takes years of practice which David has accomplished.

David was first introduced to the arts when he was only 4 years old, this was when he was enrolled in an art school and he has always been gifted in the field. As a youth he enjoyed drawing, paintings and even enjoyed graffiti. He went to multiple post-secondary institutions where he had studied photography, including Ryerson University. He had opened another local Toronto shop with his friends Bryan Turnbull and Colin Wiley and named it Lucky 13 Tattoo Shop. This shop was successful and recognized by many in the industry as a high end shop. Though Lucky 13 Tattoo Shop did not last as long as hoped for and soon disbanded, David was well on his way to accomplishing his dreams.

In the fall of 2008, David opened Archive Tattoo Studio, this store is still actively running and David is still tattooing. In 2009 David was awarded the "Best Tattoo Artist" by Toronto Life Magazine which is a great achievement to have within the Toronto tattooing community, along with this accomplishment, he was also introduced as top 50 "must know" world wide artists by Complex Magazine. Not only does David to tattooing, he also does work with sculptures, Asian paintings, and graphics design. The great artists working in local shops are inspiring because it is close to home and you can personally get a timeless piece done by such talented people.

David's Tattoo gallery can be seen here.

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The Great Art

"You get what you paid for" is a big saying when it comes to the art of Tattooing. Anybody can do a tattoo on anybody, but it is the quality of the art that counts when it comes down to it. Finding a good tattoo artist is not tough, but finding an excellent one is, and as always you should be ready to spend a little money. The main thing to look out for when searching for a tattoo artist is the style of tattoo the artist specializes in, for example...

Portrait Style (Roman Abrego Tattooing)



Asian Style (Chronic Ink Toronto Shop)

Bio Mechanical (BioMech) 

  

These are just some of the incredible pieces done by very talented and hard working artists. One of my favorite artist is Roman Abrego (he did the Bob Marley piece). Roman was featured in a show season one of Best Ink. Roman is also a talented artist who has won many awards for the work he has completed, with only 12 years experience in the industry. Roman is currently in his early 30's and has two daughters, he had two large Mexican families which raised him and always had love for the art. When Roman was younger he had gotten into a lot of trouble and soon after ended up in jail for a period of time. Within that time he spent in jail, he familiarized himself with the art more by spending time working on his artistic ability. Once out of jail he decided to change his lifestyle and begin his career. Roman's step father had him working in construction to keep out of trouble, but he did not want to do that for long. Shortly after, Roman was introduced to the art of tattooing and decided this is what his dream was. He is currently the owner of Artistic Element in California and many famous people go to him to get inked such as the rapper Game and many more. His tattoo style is portraits and BioMech, anything with a lot of color blend and mixture. A lot of his art can be seen here.