Art Throb Tattoo

This shop used to be awesome. I'd come for piercings in the past, but I gave up the idea coming for anything because they're never open when they say they're going to be. I'm honestly shocked they're still in business.

While it's been a few years since I've been here and I don't know if the same guys are still at the shop, I'm going to review it anyway...I got my very first tattoo done here when I was 18 (9 years ago now). I didn't do a whole lot of research at the time because I didn't know any better, and this was just a close shop that I ended up at. The first time I came in here to get a tattoo quote I was quoted an absolutely outrageous price. I learned years later from friends of the guy that he had been addicted to meth at the time and was probably looking for money. (Funny enough, I actually got tattooed by this guy several years later after he had cleaned up and he is one of the best tattoo artists in the country, the pieces he has done on me and my friends are absolutely goddamn insane)

So I ended up going to Lee instead...the first tattoo Lee did on me came out pretty ok. He did a lot of my more simple work, a pinup Queen of Hearts, which looks nice enough but doesn't have too much personality (and it was a piece drawn up by a friend of mine and the original drawing was so much cuter than the tattoo). He did a name, the typography came out nice. And he also did a chestpiece which was a coverup for another tattoo which was mediocre and done somewhere else, I don't even remember where now. The coverup he designed for me doesn't really cover up the original piece very well, and after sitting through 3 painful chestpiece sessions for lines, shading and color, it's kind of infuriating that I can still so clearly see it underneath (he put roses and a sugar skull over the top of heart containers from Zelda). Most people don't see it until I point it out, but I think the design and the colors are just ok, like he really didn't give much thought to the cover up he was doing...After having coming to him three times before and having an artist/client relationship I would have expected him to care a little bit more about putting something good on my body. I also got pinball flippers on my lower back and buttons by my side, and while it's not a huge mistake, he didn't think about the perspective while viewing it and the buttons are on backwards. Nobody notices any of this stuff on my tattoos except me most of the time, but after having gone to several really incredible tattoo artists, and going to one who doesn't think creatively or artistically, it kind of sucks to think I wasted any skin space on these guys. I still get compliments on my chestpiece a lot, but all of the work I've gotten at this shop looks so incredibly boring and poorly done compared to the rest of my work. If only I had lived in LA when I started getting tattooed.

I have no idea who works at this shop now as it's been years since I've been there, but I was just reviewing good tattoo shops and I looked down and was thinking "Man I wish these tattoos Lee did were better!" He also tattooed my friend and did an overwhelmingly ok job. I mean, the tattoos here are passable. But if you want really GREAT work, I'd recommend somewhere else.

I didnt get a tat from here. Customer service sucked. I felt like i was bothering them. No one said nothing when i walked in. I tried to show them my ideas and they could care less. i don't know if they were on drugs or just really slow, but conversation was limited. They really sounded like they had no idea what they were talking about. I came here after checking yelp, looking at there pictures, and walked out disappointed.