Interview with Neil Guban

I was really into streetwear. I’d always wanted to make a streetwear brand, and graphic design felt like what you needed for that. Understanding how clothes work, what goes into it. But I got that degree way too early. Graphic design wasn’t even something people considered a real career until probably now. So I just had a degree that no one wanted, and I couldn’t really do anything with it.

I always make the joke about having Asian parents, but honestly, mine have been pretty chill about it. My mom is super supportive, and my dad is actually the reason I’m tattooing right now. He knew I was practising in my room, just for fun, not seriously. Then during the pandemic, he and my mom are nurses, and one day he was like, “You should tattoo me.” So he set me up with all the proper care and supplies and said, “Do it properly, or else I’ll lose an arm.” He has two full sleeves from me now. I look back at them and think, how did he let me do that on him? But it’s great. He was the person I did most of my first tattoos on.

Five years. I just hit that mark, and it’s kind of nuts. A half decade. It really puts into perspective how fast things go. I actually started during COVID. I was playing way too many video games with my friends and I was like, this is so boring right now. I’ve always been in the art field, I have a degree in graphic design, but the plan wasn’t even to tattoo. It was just something to have in my back pocket. It kind of evolved into something else entirely.

Ever since I was a kid. My dad was really into Dragon Ball Z and it seeped into me. I was like, wait, guys are just yelling and they have superpowers? That’s sick. The amount of times I’ve tried to go Super Saiyan. I still try, honestly.

Manga is different from Western comic books. There’s so much attention to detail. When manga is in its simplest form, just black and white, like a newspaper clipping, it blows you away. Each weekly chapter surprises you with how good the art is. There are entire worlds that people build, and the fan base for all of it is massive now. That’s the niche I found myself in.

It’s very refined work. You mess up an eye and it’s over, especially if the client knows the character really well. Being able to replicate that level of detail on someone’s skin permanently, having it heal well, and having their friends see it and say “that’s sick” — that’s the goal. There’s a lot of intentionality in the style. Some artists say they do manga work, but they don’t always have the full understanding to emulate it. When you get a manga tattoo, you want it to look like the character.

Honestly, skin is harder than any canvas. You have fewer things you can do with it. There’s the person’s pain tolerance, how they take care of their skin. All of that limits you. Geometric shapes, for example, are incredibly hard on skin because the skin isn’t flat. Arms and legs are tubes. Backs stretch and flow with your muscles. It’s never a flat surface.

A lot of designs I create in 2D have to be heavily adapted. I always tell people, don’t put manga or anime things on the front torso. Not many people will see it, and the way the character bends with the ribs and the stretching just doesn’t work the same as it would on your back, where you’re standing up straight. Arms and legs are usually the way to go.

I’m completely self-taught, and I’m very open about that. I’d like to let the work speak for itself. It’s not like I’m doing this for clout. I have a deep interest in it. The way I came into it was just very nontraditional. At the time, there weren’t any special resources either. It’s always a shocker to people when I tell them.

And tattoo schools? I’m more on the side of the older crowd with that one. What do you mean we’re mass-producing tattoo artists? That’s where a lot of the older heads get upset. I get that apprenticeships are hard to come by, but there should be real regulations on it. No one should just be able to tattoo. And yes, I realize that’s ironic coming from a self-taught artist. But there’s a difference between someone who’s genuinely invested in the craft and someone just running through a program.

A lot. Some of my first manga tattoos didn’t look like the character I wanted. That was disappointing, especially because tattoos are expensive. So now, I won’t take on a project if I’m not fully confident I can deliver. That’s not about being afraid to challenge myself. There are just some things where you have to be honest and say, I actually don’t know how to do that. And in those cases, why not recommend someone who can?

That’s where I see a disconnect in the industry. Some people take on anything because they want the money, and I get it, you need to earn a living. But tattoos are permanent. If you know you’re not going to do it well, why attempt it?

Lately, I’ve been hyperfocused on back pieces because backs are huge. Regardless of who it is, you have so much space to do whatever you want. I’m always making concepts and thinking about where they’d work best. If it doesn’t look good on a back, will it look good on an arm? And if someone trusts me enough, we go for it.

I used to think about what the most popular manga was, what would get people interested. But I realized quickly that chasing trends isn’t genuine. So now I find things I like, put them out there, and say, “Who wants this?” And then someone will say, “Actually, yeah.” Even then, I still make sure. Do you really want this? It becomes a consultation of sorts, a back-and-forth.

A hundred percent. Especially during long sessions, people will tell you everything about themselves. Their biggest fears, their stories. It speeds up the friendship process in a way that’s really fun. I’ve met incredible people through the art. I was actually half-joking about getting a counselling diploma so I could charge double. One fee for the tattoo, one for the therapy session billed to the government. Everyone was like, wait, that’s actually an idea.

That’s my biggest gripe. People try to gatekeep everything. I get being careful about who you share certain mechanics with, but a lot of it just comes down to art. If you want the industry to grow and blossom, why hide stuff? It’s like expecting growth while building walls. It sucks.

It’s this fast-consumerism thing, right? Quick scroll, attention-grabbing, basically infomercials. If someone with enough influence says “This is a cool tattoo, you should all get this,” people just do it without thinking about what they actually want. I don’t love that. If you come to me and your references aren’t from Pinterest and you can actually tell me why you want this piece, that’s the type of person I want to tattoo.

When it comes to AI being used in the actual art, that’s my hardest take. If you have no free thinking, no ability to come up with something on your own, and you have the audacity to overcharge for it? Yeah, I don’t agree with that.

The industry should stay human. When it gets too automated, that’s where it starts heading in the wrong direction. There’s a certain level of humanness to a tattoo artist tattooing that you just can’t replicate.

They’re very validating. It’s not always about confidence. Confidence is hard to build in general. But being able to provide that feeling for someone, not knowing what they’re going through, and seeing them feel like a better person afterward, even if it’s just some silly little ghost thing? That’s what art is about. Self-expression, joy, all of that. For me personally, it’s culture, identity. Sometimes I just want a cool tattoo. I just want to look cool. Will a tattoo do that? Yes.

As much as I love all these silly manga characters and high-contrast statues, that’s on someone permanently. It affects them. The disconnect in the industry is that some people forget that. Not every tattoo needs deep meaning. Some people get them purely for the aesthetic, and that’s fine too. Everyone has the freedom to get what they want, and I have the freedom to make sure people don’t end up with shitty tattoos. Hopefully.

Barely. The art never really leaves me. I’m not the type to leave it at the studio. You’re always prepping for the next day. But I try to find hobbies. I go climbing. I’ve been doing a lot of sumi ink work, Chinese and Japanese calligraphy style. It’s very calming, almost like meditation. And since I always wanted to be a streetwear designer, I enjoy t-shirt making and printing, though getting all the tools for that is impossible sometimes.

I did take things from graphic design into tattooing, especially the principles of what makes sense visually and what doesn’t. You have to understand the flow of the skin, how the body moves. There are places, and people will disagree with me, where you just don’t need to put a tattoo. But from my end, I try to apply those rules to myself. And creatively? I’m actually satisfied right now. Compared to graphic design, where it’s continuous work, sometimes tattooing is just one-off and you’re like, wow, that’s done. Hell yeah.

You’re going to have to really ask yourself: what makes it so that my art deserves to be on someone’s body forever? Art is so vast but also so tunnelled in. Styles cross over between artists all the time. So what does your style bring that’s different from someone who’s been doing it for three years already?

A lot of people think they can just tattoo and make money, or tattoo their friends and call it a career. But it goes way beyond that. It’s about taking care of someone who’s trusting you to put something on them permanently. Find your own voice, your own reason. That’s what’s going to keep you around. Be willing to adapt, be willing to change. Art evolves at high speed. You either keep up or get left behind.