Interview with Matteo Pasqualin

  Hello Matteo Pasqualin! Thank you so much for taking the time to do this interview. Please start by telling us something about yourself, when did you start doing tattoos? Since I was a kid, I spend a lot of my free time drawing. It was 1997 when I made my first step into the world of tattooing, after getting some advice from a tattooist that used to work in his home, near where I lived. My whole imprinting was self-taught.

Q: How your style changed over the years?
A: I experienced a quantum leap four years ago, shortly after I made a tattoo by Andrea Afferni, I gave some useful tips especially on the organizational level. Since then I decided to dedicate myself only on realism style. Since then I have noticed an improvement in my technique and I finally feel happy with my work.

Q: Favorite tattoo designs?
A: When I tattoo, portrait or realistic, I take inspiration from pictures that have strong contrasts. I really like dog portraits, because I really love my dogs. In my life they play a very important role, especially Pini and Lona, my two little dogs! I love when the design is non conventional never, seen or crazy! I really like when the customer favors my idea, I can give them free rein to my ideas. Also human portrait tattoos. I’ve always been inspired by the challenge to tattoo a portrait and make it look like it’s real and listen to people say “wow”! “It’s really him/her!”

Q: Your color tattoos are awesome. What ink brands do you use?
A: I use Panthera lack Inks doing black and grey. When I do color tattoo, I often use Intenze or Eternal. It’s more difficult to a color tattoo because my background is based completely on black and grey drawing. But there’s another problem, I work near the beach, so it’s rare to have the possibility to work on white skin.

 

    

    

   

Q: What's your biggest inspiration?
A: Strange pictures on the web, books, magazines or else! Then I love to mix them, interpreting in my way! The hardest part is to sell them to the customer... lol

Q: So the tattoo is done, what's your favorite client's reaction?
A: The final reaction is always an emotion to me! My favorite is when I do a memorial piece, often the client's eyes become wet when they look at the work I've done! So I understand that I've done a good job and the portrait really seem to resemble the real person!

Q: Any advice for the new artists?
A: You've got every sort of supplies, books, tutorials on Youtube, advice from a lot of tattoo artists, Google and more! But this kind of 'take it easy' makes you think that you don't need to sacrifice anything at all and everyone feels like a master after few tattoos. If you want success you need to work very hard, ask professionals, get an apprenticeship if you can and never, ever stop learning.