ALAN
NGUYEN
Hey! My name is Alan. I was born and raised in Sydney, AUS and moved to the U.S in 2004. I primarily have lived in Olympia most of my life! I now have a beautiful wife and son. This is my story.
Early in my childhood, I remember drawing and making canvases of different cartoons and anime. I was obsessed with Pokemon and Dragonball. I've been drawing for as long as I can remember. Although as I've grown, art was unfortunately never a fully consistent hobby. There were years where I took breaks, but my creative outlet was always there. Whether it would be with fashion, music, or anything design related, I was interested in it.
I got my first tattoo when I was 19. It's 3 lines on my left hand. This was something that was heavily influenced in the pop-punk/emo scene that I obsessed over. After that, I wanted more, but financially, it was never really possible.
Tattooing for me started right around COVID in 2020. Slightly controversial, I started tattooing in my own home. As my wife and I were laid off, we purchased stick and poke kits off of Amazon. We started doing dumb little tattoos on ourselves. As my wife stopped, I continued on. I questioned to myself what it would look like if I got better with this?
I watched countless of hours of getting better at my technique with handpoking. I didn't want my tattoos to look like the generic hand poked tattoos you'd get from a random at a party. I wanted them to look good. During this time, I also wanted to make sure I did everything right. I learned and also obsessed over the sanitation. Making sure everything I did was clean.
It wasn't until about two years later, until I got a tattoo machine. It was actually a Christmas gift from my sister. I did not use it for months. I, again, watched countless hours of videos to see how everything worked.
As controversial as it is, I started tattooing in my home. I had no knowledge about the tattoo industry and had no idea that doing so was heavily frowned upon. I was what people would call, a "scratcher". It wasn't until about a year and a half after that I was going about it the wrong way. I had already done a handful of tattoos on myself, family, and friends. I made a promise to myself that I wouldn't tattoo anybody until I felt 100% confident that I could do decent work myself.
Around this time, I was desperate to get into a shop. Knowing that I was a scratcher, I would have thought that nobody wanted me. I knew the process I went through was backwards. Until I reached out to a shop that was local to me. I explained to them everything with how my tattooing journey started. They appreciated my honesty and to them, it showed some sort of integrity. I was able to grow my skills at that shop.
Fast-forward to this day. Not only do I love the art side of tattoos, but I love the craft. The technical side. The "industry" as a whole. I love learning how tattoo coil machines work. Learning how needles are made. Learning what it actually means supporting local artists, tattooer owned companies, etc. I love the history of tattooing.
I love the history of tattooing. Tattooing has given me so much in such a little time. So I want to do my best to help keep the craft going.
Tattooing is way more that putting art on somebody. It's the connection I have with the client. My goal is to have everyone leaving the shop better than when they came in. I want them to know how honored I feel that they got a piece from me.
I take pride in my work. Everything I do, I can promise you that I will do it to the very best of my ability. That I put my heart into it, because that's what it deserves.