I didn't start tattooing as an extension of my art, because when I started I couldn't draw! Luckily my skills have come along

Andy Engel is officially the nicest guy in tattooing. His caring and empathetic nature towards his clients, the fact that he still works in the small German town of Kitzingen – not far from where he was raised – and that his wife, Heike, handles the day-to-day running of his busy tattoo studio, offers an insight into how down-to-earth Engel’s tattoo empire is.

“I’m the nicest guy in tattooing?” Andy laughs. “I’m happy about that! My clients trust me to do a good job and I try to do my best for them.”

Andy is the kind of tattooist who welcomes fresh blood into the industry and would stop in a heartbeat to help a fellow inker in need of advice. When it comes to improving his already outstanding technique for photorealism he’s not above looking to his peers for help, either.

ROCK 'N' ROLL STAR

After disappointing his parents when he was 14 by announcing that he wanted to be a rock star, Andy drummed in a successful covers band called Paradice for 14 years, and then dealt his folks a second blow by telling them that he wanted to be a tattoo artist.

“Initially, they thought it was a horrible idea,” says Andy. “But now they can see how far I’ve come and that I’ve made a good living from it, so they’re truly proud of me.”

Not unlike the controversial American TV show that aired in July, Tattoo School (see Bizarre 180), where wannabe inkers spend just two weeks learning the craft, one of Andy’s bandmates caught the tattoo bug and attended a two-week crash course to learn the basics.

“Back then it was unheard of for anyone to show you how to ink,” remembers Andy, “but my bandmate passed on his new knowledge to me. The rest of my ‘training’ consisted of looking at tattoo magazines, copying out the drawings, and then practicing tattooing them on my friends.”

Andy didn’t spend his youth sketching on school books or adorning walls with graffiti, and he admits that he couldn’t draw to save his life. “I didn’t start tattooing as an extension of my art because at that stage I couldn’t draw! I started purely because I loved tattooing,” he says. “Just before becoming a tattooist I was a plumber and then I worked for two years with my father as a blacksmith. Luckily, my drawing skills have come along quite a bit.”

HEATING UP THE IRONS

Eight months after first fondling a tattoo machine with his eager hands, Andy swung open the doors of his own tattoo studio for the first time in October 1994. His early designs consisted mainly of Native Indian and Viking portraits, and he says they helped him to hone his now world-recognised portraiture.

“I spent a lot of time looking at pictures of big, burly, bearded men wearing metal helmets,” laughs Andy. “Tribal ink was also really popular at the time. Taking on a lot of that kind of work helped me to make nice, clean lines and to do solid black fill-ins, so I’m grateful for having done it.”

Although Andy’s clients were happy with the new tattooist in town, a fellow inker located over 50 miles away was less than impressed. “He was pissed off with me for opening my shop and sent these guys down to scare me,” remembers Andy. “They demanded I pay him 5,000 Deutsche Marks to make it OK for me to work. I was 22 years old at the time, and a little worried about my wife being there in the shop, so I handed the money over. All these years later, I hear that he tells people I was his apprentice! The only thing I learned from him is that he’s an arsehole.”

Instead of running scared, Andy stuck to his guns and has built up a reputation as a brilliant portraiture artist. He loves doing well-known faces and has tackled Arnold Schwarzenegger puffing on a cigar, Bob Marley surrounded by marijuana leaves, Gene Simmons with blood gushing from his tongue (see right), and a brooding Lemmy from Motörhead. Andy says the hardest ones to do are memorial portraits.

“I enjoy tattooing those sorts of portraits, but it can get very emotional,” says Andy. “The request that shocked me the most was from a guy who wanted a tattoo of his baby. It sounded straightforward enough until he walked into the shop and presented me with a picture of his stillborn child. I really wanted to help him work with that memory, but I wasn’t 100 per cent comfortable that he’d be happy walking away with a picture of his recently deceased baby inked on him. There was no option but for me to refuse the job.”

REIGNING IN THE NEW KIDS

Portrait tattooists are currently in high demand and Andy has noticed a surge in interest over the past four years. But while that’s good for business, there has also been a surge in the number of unskilled tattooists who churn out nasty work.

“Some of my early portraits were pretty bad,” admits Andy, “but when I hold seminars I tell tattooists that if they can’t draw something, then they sure as hell can’t tattoo it. The worst I’ve seen was the iconic image of Johnny Cash holding his guitar and flipping his fuck finger. It was so awful! Some tattooists will do portraits just to earn the money, but they require a hell of a lot of skill. It’s tragic when the tattoo hardly resembles the person or pet in the client’s picture. Should we introduce a squad of Tattoo Portrait Police? That’d be a great idea!”

For more visit www.Andys-tattoo.com