Tattoo Artist Interview- Johnny Smith

When did you first become interested in tattooing?
I’d say I’ve been interested in it since I was a kid and I saw people with tattoos. It’s not something you see in a little town in Mississippi. So, as soon as I knew it was debatable I was into it.

Do you remember the first tattoo you saw or one that really impacted you?
I went to school with this kid in junior high and his dad was a tattoo artist. He got a leg piece and he was showing it off at school. From that point on I was pretty set on getting more tattoos than that guy.
In your bio it says that you’ve been tattooing professionally for three years. Did you tattoo before that? I’ve been tattooing a long time. Close to 15 years probably but, I was horrible up until about 4 years ago. Then I started taking it seriously. I met Cory Norris at a convention, the first convention I went to, and after talking to him I started taking tattooing seriously. He totally changed my outlook on tattoos and how cool a tattoo artist can be.




When you first started out who did you look up to?
Jeff [Gogue], obviously because he was a local celebrity in Oregon, where I was at, and all of his tattoos are amazing. Nikko Hurtado. I was just more of a realism guy so, anyone who was killing it with realism I was trying to study as much as I could.


You’ve said your style comes from your painting technique. How do you think a tattoo machine is similar to a paint brush? How are they different?
The way I was trying to tattoo was more along the rules that everybody had up until that point. To line everything out and go from darkness to lightness and everything. That never really worked for me so, when I say I started tattooing like I painted I started using my shader almost exclusively. I stopped using liners and I started painting tattoos on skin. Now that I kind of threw the rule book away and started working with my own thing it works a lot better.



What other mediums do you like to work with?
Oils. I like to carve marble. I’d love to do more of that. It’s super awesome. I’d like to venture out but, I am kind of stuck on oils right now. It is hard once you are used to something to start something else.

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