Passionate about cartoons and pop-culture, 35-year-old Basque tattoo artist Tony Justice is a multi-talented artist. He specialises in brilliantly coloured newschool, but is also at ease with black and grey realism. The former fine arts student is also very active in music, photography, skateboarding and surfing. Creative bulimic Tony?
Can you tell us a bit about yourself Tony?
I'm originally from the Basque Country, in the north of Spain. I live in a seaside town called Gijon and I work in two tattoo studios: "La Mamba Negra" and "El Gremio". I also travel to other countries to do guests.
It is obvious that the world of cartoons has had a great influence on you...
Of course! Ever since I was a kid, I've been obsessed with old cartoons and traditional animation. When I was a kid, I used to spend hours watching my Disney VHS collection over and over again, until my parents went completely crazy!
Are there any cartoonists, among the most famous like Walt Disney, that you particularly admire?
I love the dynamism of the Looneytunes, the way they move and stretch... but I think the most shocking moment was when I first saw "Who Wants Rogert Rabbit?" (by Robert Zemeckis, 1988), whose animation work was done by Richard Williams, one of the best cartoonists of all time.
Did you start drawing by copying these cartoons?
It's good to copy to understand the structure. I used to do that when I was young and then later I studied them more in depth, reading a lot of books about cartoons and animation. It's fun to copy or draw fanart, but it's even more fun to make your own!
When did tattooing come into your life?
After my studies at the Fine Arts School in Bilbao in 2013. During the last year of university I started tattooing with my homie Hosk Rodriguez - who is an amazing tattooist now - and like many people, we started tattooing trashy stuff between us. Then I started tattooing friends, just for fun, before it suddenly became the most important thing in my life. I was lucky enough to start early in a studio with many residents and guest artists who helped me progress quickly and make bigger and bigger works. At first I was doing realistic tattoos, but I wanted to do more drawn work so I started to get into small newschool pieces.
This style offers a lot of creative freedom...
What I like best about this style is that I can add my own style to the client's idea, sometimes with more or less freedom, but this is more mine than copying an image, as is done in some realism projects for example.
What is the most important thing for you when you start a new piece?
It depends on the project itself, but the movement and expression of the character is the most important thing, as well as how to mix the drawing with the skin.
Among the themes that we find, there are cartoons, but also pop culture in general. Films, video games, anime, etc., what links do you have with them?
I love them all! I may have less time now than I used to, but back then I used to play a lot of video games, like Mario, Sonic, the Crash Bandicoot saga, all the GTAs... It caused a lot of arguments with my parents hahaha. I also watched all kinds of movies, classics by Akira Kurosawa (famous Japanese director), Hitchcock, Fritz Lang or Ingmar Bergman and Christopher Nolan, Tarantino or Guy Ritchie, as well as animated movies like "Akira", "Perfect Blue", "Ghost in the Shell", "Berserk", the most recent "Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure" or studio Ghibli masterpieces.
Customers are increasingly demanding in terms of the inventiveness of their pieces. Is it a driving force to push yourself?
Obviously, the more freedom you have, the greater the challenge and I always try to do my best. It pushes me to stay on the edge. And I always have my little personal projects for fun, that helps too.
What kind of projects?
Most of the time I have to work for other people, so when I have time I do illustrations, drawings (sometimes for stickers, t-shirts...) small traditional animations. I recently started working with 3D sculpture... I have a kind of necessity to create things that most of the time don't go anywhere, but each project gives me this satisfaction to make another one and keeps me artistically active... I don't know, maybe I'm just crazy hahaha.
How do you maintain your drawing on a daily basis?
Most of the time I do my designs on a day-to-day basis. For larger projects, such as a full sleeve, it can take me longer.
In addition to comics, you also do realism. Can you tell us about it?
Realism was my first goal when I started. I used to draw comics in this style and copy portraits, that's how I started. But I'm a comic book romantic and when I got to know the newschool style, I knew I had to try it. I take great pleasure in continuing to improve, day after day, while having the opportunity to switch from one style to another.
Do these two styles complement each other in the end?
As an artist, I think that knowledge of each style is good for personal enrichment, so directly or not, definitely yes.
Are you mainly inspired by movies, which ones?
Not mainly, but I sometimes get inspiration from 1980's movies, gangster/yakuza or horror movies... and of course I also get inspiration from other artists' work.
Quels artistes admires-tu ?
You do newschool in colour and realism in black and grey, what technical pleasure do you get from switching from one to the other? What I like most when I do colour is that things are more drawn, they belong to me more. Anyway, black and grey tattooing is naturally easier for me, so I sometimes prefer it to colour, especially when I feel less creative or tired.
Do you have other passions than drawing and tattooing?
Of course I do! I like all kinds of music, I play piano since I was a child and I played in several bands (a newmetal style and another one more funky, disco...). I was part of a jazz band for several years. I also like photography and I always have my camera with me when I go out with my family. I also dabble with skateboarding and surfing hahaha. + IG : @tonyjusticetattoo @fat_tony_tattoo