I interviewed Kevin and all I got was a Bob Ross sticker!
I recently sat down with Kevin McNulty, one of the resident Tattoo Artists and owner of 7th Circle Tattoo & Piercing. With an interesting story of how he got to where he is now, he has adapted both his own style and broadened his horizons over a relatively short career. Situated in the North West of England, Oldham is where Kevin carved out his place on the map and since has been providing some awesome tattoos and artwork alongside his colleague Bogdan. Here is his story and some of his opinions on the tattooing world.
How long have you been a tattoo artist and how did your tattoo artist journey begin?
So in 2016, I got my first apprenticeship and it didn't last long, maybe two months. I ended up leaving and looking for somewhere else, and by the September of that year I had found somewhere else. The studio was called Violet studios before eventually becoming Heathen Ink and then we took over in 2019 and renamed it 7th Circle. So yeah I did my first couple of tattoos right here. I was very much just thrown in at the deep end. Here's a machine off you go. I tattooed my dad, (laughs) as well as some of my friends. Then unfortunately, we got the news that Bodie (Kevin’s Daughter) had a brain tumour and ultimately cancer, and that kind of derailed everything. I had to stop tattooing for a while and then eventually managed to work around her treatments, so I was working one day a week at a studio in Royton.
And this was still under an apprenticeship?
No, I was not treated as an apprentice then, I was kind of accepted as an artist. Rightfully… wrongfully, it’s a subjective thing. Some people see the value in the deep end, some people think you should learn under a fully fledged artist. I was basically self-taught. But even if you're an apprentice there will always be a ‘here you go have at it’ eventually...
Do you think that was better for you?
In hindsight I'd rather have had a traditional apprenticeship, rather have learned from someone that really knew what they were doing. I learned a lot from trial and error that I know could have been learned a lot faster if I had someone to really show me the ropes. So I stuck with it and I figured some stuff out. Now we are here, six years into owning the studio which is just crazy for me being in the profession for less than ten years.
You do seem to cover a wide range of Tattoo styles in this shop. Like, do you have a preferred style that you like to tattoo?
Anime. Even going back to college during my B-TEC in Art, my portfolio was all anime. My college tutor said for the next few years, no anime, (laughing) which actually really helped. When I first started tattooing I was like, I want to do Japanese. I really want to do Traditional Japanese tattooing, but being naive and being in Oldham in the Northwest of England, there's not much of a market here. Traditional Japanese tattooing as a practice also has some very, very strict rules. So there's a lot to learn with Japanese and when you are self teaching, It's not so easy. Yeah, so Anime has always been my go to, but then a couple of years ago I did a colour realism piece for the first time and it just felt natural coming quite easy to me. Since then, I've been big on colour realism, I definitely prefer colour work rather than black and grey work. So if I had to choose two of my favoured styles it's anything with anime or colour realism.
Do you think it's important for tattoo artists to still be able to flex outside of their preferred style?
I think everyone should be able to do whatever comes through the door. There shouldn't be stuff that you can't do, obviously people will be better at one thing than another. That's just human. But yeah, being well-rounded is really important especially when it comes to running a business, and we're just just a small studio. There's only two of us here. Some studios have multiple artists where there can be a specialised artist for each style, but for us we have to be diverse in what we’re able to do and not get too comfortable in a box.
What's your favourite tattoo that you've done recently? And your favourite tattoo on your body?
So my favourite tattoo that I've done recently was a huge, huge, Dragon Ball-Z piece of Majin Buu. So this is on a good friend of mine, Ben. It's from Ben's hip all the way down to the ankle. Full side of his leg. In the knee ditch, on the knee, full side of his thigh, bit of shin, bit of calf, full length. It’s a huge implied realism Majin Buu so not a true anime style but it includes Vegito and Hercule in a more typical anime style.
But finding those people can be hard. I know people in other towns and cities that are doing anime pieces where there is a drive for those kinds of tattoos, but I find most people in Oldham dont have the same interest, that I’ve spoken to at least. My favourite tattoo on myself would be the tattoo with the most meaning to me and that's a tattoo of a robin on my arm. I got that whilst we were in Germany and my daughter was having cancer treatment. The robin is carrying a gold and grey ribbon which represents childhood cancer and brain tumours, this is something that means a lot to me. My favourite general tattoo on my body would probably be the vampire fangs on my hand. It's not very good, I did it myself when I was starting out. But I see it every day, and it is based on the lyrics of one of my favourite Ghost songs.
Tattooing in the shop is a whole process from meeting the customers to the final tattoo. What's your favorite part of that process?
The best part is, I mean, it varies from customer to customer. Some customers, it's getting to know them, it's the conversations. Some customers don't really talk much so for them it's not always about talking and to get to know them better, which is cool. The thing that is the same with every customer is the final pay off. At the end of the tattoo you both get to share the feeling of a new piece of artwork and seeing people's reactions to the tattoos. For lots of people who aren't very artistic it's a big change when they become the physical owner of artwork on their body. It’s a good feeling.
If you could choose one section of the body to tattoo for the rest of your life which would it be? Is there any place you think a first timer should avoid?
Okay so my favourite place on the body to tattoo is a shin. It's a difficult spot but it takes the ink so well so if you want to do a big piece and you want to do a big piece quickly, the shin is where you want to do it. That's why at conventions I favor shin pieces. You can get a lot done, in a small amount of time. If you take your time with it, you're going to butcher it, you're going to blow it out, you're going to chew skin up. With shins you have got to get in and get out. There's no messing around, it keeps you honest. If you get bogged down in the details too much, you're being punished for it.
How do you find that working with a customer? obviously with the shin bone there is a certain level of pain that goes with that placement.
Yeah, so you know. It's not the most pleasant place to get tattooed. It can be tender but it's also not the worst either. It's not like the centre of your chest. I mean, there's definitely worse places. As far as places people should avoid one for the first time. Inner wrist. Inner wrist hurts a lot more than people think. A lot of people opt for a small tattoo on the wrist to check it out but it's one of those places that can get in the way of you getting other pieces or sleeves further down the line (I have to cover them up a lot). We do see the pain factor quite a lot as a tattoo artist a lot and I'm like, yeah some places are more painful. If you get them out of the way early the other tattoos will feel like nothing.
You've mentioned that you recently started doing some more traditional artwork on canvas. Have you found trying different art mediums to help with the tattooing process?
Yeah definitely, I always say to people the most important thing is the drawing. If a design is bad, it's going to look bad no matter how well you do it and the tattoo will suffer. So the most important part is the drawing, it’s the design, it’s that process. So any practice in any medium is really beneficial to how the tattoos are going to come out. We get a lot of people asking about apprenticeships. I say to people, "Draw, draw, draw, draw, draw." That's the most important thing. If you can't draw, what are you doing tattooing?
Do you feel like you're going back and doing this at a later stage because maybe you missed out from the fundamental work parts of your non-apprenticeship?
So I’m getting into colour realism. The big part of that is colour theory and the best place to practice that is in painting. The inks that we use and the paints we use are not exactly the same pigments, similar though. So when you come to mix in colours, you can experiment with paints without the risk of making a mistake on someone's body. So, figuring it out with paint and then applying that same process to tattooing, it makes a big difference.
Do you have many goals more than what you've been doing in the traditional art?
So, I’m going to push into trying to sell some of my artwork, mostly paintings. I'm trying to get into some galleries and focusing on quite a lot of portraiture at the moment. I'm still discovering and exploring where I want to go and what I want to do with it. In the past I always just did it for fun. Now I think I'm ready to take it a bit more seriously.
Are there any areas of art that you're looking forward to trying in the future whether that is tattooing or something more traditional?
Tattoo wise, I'm trying to go back to basics and tradition and by that I mean I'm taking it back to Edo period Japan and learning Tebori style tattooing.
Okay so, what is Tebori?
So Tebori style tattooing is the traditional Japanese method of tattooing where you would have a group of needles on the end of a stick. And you basically just push the ink into the skin by hand, no machines. There is a word in Japanese for tattooing with a machine and that's Wabori. So when you’re talking about Tebori it's almost like hand-made in that sense, the literal translation is hand carved. I've been practicing that for a little bit. I've not done a tonne, but I'm definitely making progress with it. It's hard to find people that are willing to be experimented on. I have found a handful of people who would let me do it and they have all been happy with the results. But I've not tried anything too difficult yet, as it’s something that, like, in Japan, people spend lifetimes learning. It's not something that I expect to be able to do very quickly. I think it's gonna take a lot of time and effort to get good at it.
Tebori, I mean, I've not heard of it much. Is it very popular in England or around the world?
No, outside of Japan not really. I know maybe three people in the UK that are actively doing Tebori. You can't even buy the equipment. I have to make my equipment. You need to make it disposable which means having to make new equipment for every session. There are a few people that I know that have had traditional wooden equipment passed down to them. But we can't sterilize them so they're great display pieces. But in terms of hygiene the EHO would definitely not be happy. So fresh equipment on the day using sterile needles is as with regular tattooing, a must.
Having written the recent convention blog, I'm interested to hear what your opinions and feelings about conventions are.
Conventions are awesome. Conventions for me as an artist are great for networking, great for getting my name out there and getting some exposure to new customers. There's a lot of different approaches that people have for conventions. I remember at my first convention I had this idea that I was going to go and tattoo all these people and make a lot of money. I was wrong. I did four tattoos that weekend and one of those was on my wife. It's changed as well since COVID. People are only now really starting to get back into going to tattoo conventions, as the scene really, really died off due to COVID. People are more willing to be in an environment with that many people, they are more willing to go out spending money. It's a great place as a potential customer. It's a great place to go and get an on the day tattoo. As long as you are okay with getting what an artist wants to do, people will tattoo flash and they will usually only want to tattoo their flash. You might get lucky and find someone that wants to work with you and draw something based on your idea. But for the most part, people will be tattooing flash. A lot of artists work conventions for the competitions. That's what I've been doing recently in the last couple of years having won a few awards. My opinions have changed slightly on conventions and the reality of what it means to win an award, but I still enjoy competing and attending conventions.
So you mentioned that this shop has been running for six years, which is really impressive. What your vision for yourself and the shop in the next five years?
Well, we're about to sign a new six year lease on this shop. It's a strange time to be honest, because I’ve seen some prominent and well known artists that I know, stepping away from tattooing, the way that things have been, the economy recently, tattooing is kind of on a downfall. We had a huge boom post COVID times and we're now heading back to pre-COVID times in terms of the amount of footfall, the natural traffic. It's across the world, not just in the UK where shops are being hit and studios are closing and some artists are fully stepping away and getting regular jobs. But thankfully that's not us in our shop. We're going to stick around and stick to it. We've got plenty of room. Eventually we’ll look at bringing in additional artists, but it's a ‘right person for the job’ kind of situation, we are in no rush to do it any time soon.
Would that be having recurring guest spots or more of a permanent/semi permanent artist join the team?
No, I’d have a permanent artist. Like I mentioned earlier that I want to do more traditional artwork in a sense, and to have time to be able to do that, I need to be tattooing less.
But that's a really good position to be in, to be able to possibly tattoo less to do something different and still keep the shop running, no?
Yeah. We have plenty of room here, so we have four floors, and we currently use two floors. So long term we could potentially get an artist or two on each floor and that would give me a lot more time to focus on painting and Tebori in the future.
