Rand Johnson is a very busy guy. Between running a successful tattoo shop, creating incredible tattoo flash and marketing the work of other artists through his company Cherry Creek Flash, he took time out to talk with TattooFinder.com about his thoughts on the tattoo industry and the importance of tattoo flash. Check out what he had to say...

TattooFinder: How are you Rand?

Rand: Just fine.

TattooFinder: First of all, why do you start off by talking a little bit about your history and how you got into the tattoo industry.

Rand: Sure, I got into the field of tattooing back in the early 90s. I had spent about 25 years in advertising, commercial art, illustration and such. I traded in the old pen, pencil and paper for a machine, needles and ink! I enjoyed it a great deal, but I found that it was difficult to find much flash art at the time. About the only thing available commercially was J.D. Crowe’s work. I suppose some of the known artists at the time would sell a few sheets of their own stuff at conventions, but there was no real direct marketing effort being made. I ended up drawing a whole lot of custom work right off the bat when I opened up my shop. Eventually, I put together my first set of flash - which was all Native American designs - I had done over the course of a couple years at the studio. I debuted that set at the APT convention, their first convention back in either 1995 or 1996, in Baltimore. It sold well enough that I decided, by golly, I’ll give this a try! Over the course of the next 10-15 years I pretty much had to get out of tattooing and just work with the flash-end of the business.

TattooFinder: Why is that?

Rand: Time! Time constraints, demands... I also firmly believe tattooing is not something you can do on a part-time basis. It’s really a full-time discipline, to both maintain and improve your skill. Can’t really consider tattooing a part-time job or a hobby. You’re either full-time in it or you need to back off. [Laughs]

TattooFinder: Did you have an apprenticeship?

Rand: I did with a fella named Pat Skinner. He taught me the basics to get by with and it was from his shop that I ended up opening up the Cherry Creek studio a year or so later.

TattooFinder: Great! So now to switch gears, do you know Guy Aitchison?

Rand: I do not know him personally, but I do know of him, yeah.

TattooFinder: He has this theory that there was a sort of a "Tattoo Renaissance" in the early 1990s, maybe even in the mid 90s. He said that that’s when a lot of people with an art background started coming into the industry. How do you feel about that? Would you support that theory?

Rand: I certainly wouldn’t disagree with it. I’d say the first person with an extensive art background that came into the industry would have been Don Ed Hardy. But that was a lot longer ago than that. When I started drawing and marketing my own flash, and even the flash of a few other artists, I’ll bet that there were two or three other companies that did that. And that's around the time frame Guy's talking about, the mid 90s. Today, I bet there are dozens of large, reputable companies representing hundreds of artists in the flash industry. It really exploded! It’s really no different than the growth of tattooing itself. When you go back 30-40 years ago, I heard there were maybe 700 or 800 tattoo shops in the United States. Today there’s probably somewhere between 20-30,000. On a much smaller scale obviously, the same thing has happened with flash art. The same thing happened with tattoo equipment manufacturers and suppliers and all that stuff.

TattooFinder: Let’s talk about your flash particularly. What’s your favorite to create? Your favorite “theme” if you will.

Rand: I’m particularly fond of the Native American work. I also like animals and such, although for me drawing very realistically is like pulling teeth. It’s a tough chore. Although I don't draw the old school style, it’s a style I greatly admire, the old way of brush painting on the flash. Really nice stuff. But, I guess if I had to choose an absolute favorite style it would be cartooning.

TattooFinder: What about your own tattoos? Where are you tattooed at? What do you have? What’s your favorite?

Rand: I’ve got both of my upper arms covered, my chest and my back on the right side. I’ve got kind of a Harley Davidson theme going on the right side. It incorporates my very first tattoo, which was a large shield with wings. It has been added to with drawings that I’ve done — adding flags around it and a very large black and gray eagle. My other arm is for my Viking heritage, with a Viking warrior that I drew up and a Viking ship background. All of my upper arm work has been done by Tom Genereux of Rising Phoenix Tattoo. He is no longer with us. He passed away a number of years ago. I guess my favorite tattoo is one that’s kind of a blend of some of my old flash. It’s a cross of spikes going through a heart with blood dripping down it and it’s surrounded by the crown of thorns with the name “Jesus” above it.

TattooFinder: What inspires you to draw?

Rand: For me it’s a difficult process to get started. Once it starts, I enjoy drawing. But looking at the time and hours and tedium involved in producing another set or two or three, it looks like an insurmountable task. So it’s difficult to get myself motivated for it.

TattooFinder: Understandably!

Rand: Once I start then, hey, this is fun!

TattooFinder: What would you tell a tattoo virgin who’s looking for the perfect design? What’s your recommendation to them?

Rand: So, somebody is looking for the perfect tattoo. Well, for them the perfect tattoo is, “I want a dragon.” That’s like trying to hit something 20 miles away with a shotgun! You have got to start narrowing it down — what you want, where you want it, the styles available. There’s a lot of research involved before you settle on the perfect design. Research! To be honest, I’d recommend that they dig and search for that perfect design in the company of a “non-tattoo-virgin.” Without at least some understanding of the tattoo process, they may find their perfect design and it’s an incredibly complicated full back piece that they want done the size of a postage stamp on their ankle! It's really about more than just finding the perfect design. It needs to be the right shape for where they want it placed, the right size and the right price they can pay for a tattoo.

Actually, the proliferation of tattoo websites does provide a great deal of information that was not available to customers in years past. While there’s a lot of good, sound advice out there, there’s also a lot of erroneous advice too. There are some very good, professional sites that have been put together by people who actual know about tattooing or have extensively tattooed themselves. They, by and large, I would trust the most with what they have to say on their websites. Stay away from the wannabe and scratcher sites.

TattooFinder: You brought up a very important point regarding the Internet. Now, more than ever before, people have more options. Share your thoughts with us about the idea of single design sales and how they have either benefited or hindered the industry.

Rand: It’s definitely moving in that direction. A few years ago Cherry Creek had a presence on the web, selling the flash sets we carried. But our market was the professional artist, the professional tattoo studio. It’s a more recent phenomenon, within the last four to five years, where sites have developed that “sell the individual design.” It made it more expensive to compete in that arena, but it makes it far better in many ways for the flash customer. It has also created a far larger market for the flash companies that have these kinds of "single design" websites. Instead of marketing printed flash sets to a limited number of professional studios, they can now market single designs to many hundreds of millions of potential customers looking for that "perfect" tattoo design. So the number of potential customers has been vastly expanded by allowing the individual design purchases. The Internet has also opened up bootlegging to phenomenal degrees too. There’s always a plus and a minus to technology advances.

TattooFinder: Lyle Tuttle talked to us recently about the problem in the UK. What’s your opinion about that?

Rand: I monitor sites like eBay on pretty much a daily basis to see what’s new that has been listed in the tattoo area. I’ve been reporting fraudulent copyright infringing auctions for eight or nine years now. I also forward information to the Artist Legal Alliance which represents the copyright and legal interests of probably a couple hundred artists worldwide. They’ve shut down literally thousands upon thousands of auctions on eBay that infringe on artist’s copyrights. Many years ago, somebody would make a copy or two of some flash that they got hold of and trade it with one or two of their buddies that are in the industry. Well now, with technology and the Internet, bootleg digital reproductions are everywhere. They show up in so-called "copyright-free" or "public-domain" websites with flash designs. Virtually all of them are illegal. CDs and eBooks containing pirated artwork are being sold on sites like eBay. They offer maybe 10,000, 20,000, 50,000 designs - and can be sold for, you know, $1.99, $4.99. People who purchase those don’t realize that they’re not copyright free like the auctions claim. They’ll take and re-create more of them. Some of them even set up individual design websites where they either sell or give them away. The bootlegging is a huge, huge problem.

TattooFinder: How do you think it can be solved?

Rand: Education, education of the tattoo customer. I try to do this in my website - educate the public on what to look for when going into a tattoo studio. Most customers now know that its important to see if the place is clean, are the counters wiped down, is everything in order — all of these things you’re told to look for in finding a nice studio. I say it’s just as important to also look at the walls, the quality of the artwork on display. If the designs that they’re offering look like they’re third, fourth or fifth generation copies and they look like junk, that’s bootleg stuff. If there are no logos, artists' names or copyrights on the sheets, then they're cheap rip-off pirated copies. If the tattoo studio has cut corners in the front room where you can see that they’ve cut corners and expenses, what are they doing in the back room to cut corners and expenses that you don’t see? You might well be putting your health at risk in a shop that offers bootleg art.

TattooFinder: Totally. What do you think of the idea of a tattooist as a craftsperson or an artist? Obviously, designing flash is an art form. What about the actual application of the tattoo to the skin? Would you consider someone who does design flash, but doesn’t tattoo, an artist?

Rand: I guess it depends on your definition of an artist. I’ve run across people - and I’m sure everyone in the industry has - who can draw beautifully, or paint beautifully or airbrush beautifully, but they can’t get the hang of tattooing. They don’t make a good tattooist. There are tattooists that have mastered putting in color, the shading, and working with skin and pigments, needle groupings and machine settings. They’ve mastered all of that and can apply a tattoo that’s absolutely beautiful and can literally re-create anything they see. But they don’t consider themselves an artist that can draw something up that would look finished. I have a great deal of respect for the ones who - whether they can actually draw or not - can take and apply a tattoo properly, cleanly and do a good job at it. To me, they’re an artist in their own respect. I would think it’s more uncommon to find someone who is gifted in both areas. There certainly are some! Someone who is capable of applying a great tattoo, but is a little more challenged in the drawing of it, I’m pretty sure they would work for me. Someone who draws something beautifully, but just can’t really re-create it in the skin probably shouldn’t be tattooing. They probably should just stick with the flash art end of it.

TattooFinder: Let’s talk about custom tattoos and the idea of either free drawing on the skin to stencil application and everything in between. What is a custom tattoo to you?

Rand: I guess a custom tattoo to me, personally, is one that is created specifically for an individual client based upon what they want. Consulting together, the artist and the customer come up with drawings to create the tattoo. The free-hand style tattoo is obviously custom tattoo also, and quite a challenge. Instead of using a line art stencil that’s applied to the skin, free-hand art is literally drawn on the skin and then tattooed. I think that certain styles lend themselves to free-hand drawing and other styles don't. Some intricate Celtic work probably can’t just be etched onto the skin, it needs to be worked out in advance. Other free-form style tribals or background sketching – things like that – lend themselves well to free-hand work. I personally like to work things out in advance on paper. There are some people that are gifted and are just able to draw like crazy right on the skin, but I'm not one of them.

TattooFinder: If someone has a few pieces of flash that they want incorporated together, would you consider that a custom tattoo or would you say that’s just putting together tons of flash?

Rand: I suppose it depends on how much it’s altered. You could pick several pieces of flash, put them together, and that just makes a much larger tattoo! It’s maybe a custom interpretation of a piece of flash, but I personally consider that still, basically, a flash design. Or if someone takes a particular rose by an artist that they like and they want a banner added with their son or daughter’s name in it or something, that design has obviously been altered but it’s still basically flash.

TattooFinder: Let’s discuss stencils, going back to the idea of a custom tattoo. Obviously, line work is very important in your opinion.

Rand: Mmhmm.

TattooFinder: What are your thoughts about that?

Rand: Well, part of it may have to do with my background in commercial art, illustration and such, but yes, I personally believe the line art is very important. I start with the outline when I’m creating flash art. When I was creating art for customers, my rough sketch would be sufficient for me to work from. But when I’m making flash art, my goal is to make the line art and the finished art as perfect as possible. This way when the tattooist applies it to the skin he has a better chance at re-creating the design. If a circle is called for, I don’t want to make a representation of a circle, I want something that the tattooist can really follow. For my part, when I create flash, I start with the rough sketches and I refine them into as tight and perfect line art as I can. Then I copy that line art and I add the power-lining, coloring and so on. I find that’s the way I work best.

I know many artists who will create their flash first in color and then they’ll use tracing paper and trace their designs to get the line art. Some are pretty good at it, and some aren’t. For most artists, the line art seems to be the most tedious step in drawing flash art. Doing that step last only makes it all the more tedious. You think you’ve got this great set that’s all done and then, oh shoot, I’ve got to draw the line art! To me personally, clean, accurate line art is of the utmost importance in saving the tattooist time when he’s going to tattoo something. The worst thing that can happen is you can have inaccurate line art. You think artists will ever buy flash from you again? I don’t think so!

TattooFinder: What do you think about the use of technology and the future of tattooing, or rather, flash art?

Rand: I’ve heard rumblings in the industry of people working with tattoo studios to get the equivalent of online tattoo purchasing directly into tattoo studios. I suppose it is quite possible as technology advances and the cost of these things start coming down – computer screens, things like that – that paper flash, wall flash will be replaced completely by screens. Traditional flash sheets probably still stick around a bit for decoration, but it’s probably not necessarily what people will choose from in the future. I could see customers searching through four, five, six, seven screens available in a tattoo studio's front room. People look for their designs and when they find it the counter person can download and print out the design and they’re ready to go! It’s just like the revolution that's come through online single design sales. How it all plays out between the artists and the entrepreneurs, I don’t know yet.

TattooFinder: A lot of people fear that with the rising popularity of tattoos, many folks that have no business in the tattoo industry will get involved because they’re out to make a quick buck. What’s your opinion on that?

Rand: I would agree, but I don’t think it’s a recent phenomenon. I think it started ten years or more ago. As tattoos became more popular, people thought of tattooing as, you know, cool and a quick way to make a buck. However, I know that when I got into it and began to learn the craft, I found out there was a lot of pressure and stress involved. I never had to concentrate harder on what I was doing artistically in my life. It was very demanding and there were no erasers. If a person takes tattooing seriously - for the sake of both your reputation and your customers' satisfaction - it certainly can't be considered a way to make a fast buck. It requires dedication, hard work, and long hours.

It’s very difficult. You can constantly learn more. You never really arrive as a tattooist, at least not to your own satisfaction. There’s always something new. So for someone who is just in it for the buck, to me, they’re no better than the bootleggers out there selling corrupt artwork. They can mess up a lot of people and mess up our industry, as well, leading to unnecessary regulation or outright banning the practice. It’s a concern! It’s something that requires the commitment and oversight of the legitimate tattoo community. We don’t want to deny anyone the opportunity to become an artist in the tattoo field, but we must also make it unacceptable to become just a hacker in it, someone only looking to be cool and make a few bucks.

TattooFinder: Is there anything else you’d like to share with us?

Rand: Well I guess that at the time I got into the tattooing various tattoo conventions were well-established. They certainly weren’t as prolific as they are now or mega-sized. Back then I found that, although your local competition wouldn’t want to open up their little book of secrets to help you out with a problem, the established artists at those conventions were more than happy to help out someone earnestly looking to get a few answers. When I would show them my portfolio of artwork it was a good door opener. They saw that, OK, hey, he can draw! They were willing to talk to me and help me out. I don’t know that that’s the case much anymore. Over the past years I’ve cut back on convention travel a great deal. The types and styles of the conventions are different. There’s obviously a whole new generation that has come up recently. To be honest, I miss some of the old school camaraderie that I had established back in those early years, but things do move on. I really hope that the torch-bearers of the craft in the future take it seriously and appreciate the art form and the power that was laid down without violating it.

TattooFinder: Well thanks so much for talking with us, Rand. We really appreciate it!

Rand: Hey, you’re welcome!