San Antonio tattoo artists look to cash in on NFTs

Northside Pleasant Dreams owners spend most of their time etching tattoos on their customers’ bodies. However, in his spare time, he creates and sells digital artwork as non-fungible tokens (NFTs). Investors can buy, sell and trade his NFTs like cryptocurrencies, or other valuable commodities such as valuable baseball cards and paintings.

NFTs are image, audio and video files certified by the blockchain, a digital ledger that records transactions on myriad computers on the Internet. NFTs are created by a unique computer code recorded on the blockchain. They are in a digital wallet owned by the owner.

In San Antonio, many tattoo artists are already making and selling paintings and stickers to increase their income. And now they are adopting NFTs. Upon purchase, the buyer can decide whether to duplicate the digital image as a tattoo.

“I always wanted to scribble on the highest points in the city so that everyone could see it,” he says, using lots of black and gray, thick lines, and saturated colors in his tattoo works. Lopez says. “NFTs are the same way. You have some bad ass (swearing) and put up with it. It’s a risk, but without it there’s no progress.”

With a star carver — — Both Scott Campbell and Mark Machado (also known as Mister Cartoon) are based in Los Angeles. — — Lopez, who earned NFT sales, was one of the first tattoo artists to start selling his work to crypto investors here.

Artists of all kinds are attracted to NFTs as a way to sell and promote their work.

“This is a global trend,” says Murtuza Jadriwala, an associate professor of cryptocurrency and blockchain undergraduate classes at the University of Texas at San Antonio.

According to market tracker Dapp Radar, NFT sales surged last year from $ 94.9 million in 2020 to $ 24.9 billion. Most NFTs sell for between $ 100 and $ 1,000. However, a few artists are already making a lot of money from NFTs. Wisconsin-based digital artist Beeple, Michael Joseph Winkelman, sold a record $ 69.3 million at Christie’s Auction Company in the United Kingdom last March.

Is this the real thing?

The old problem is that the world of traditional art proves that the work is not the original knockoff. The digital art market has the same challenges.

“The solution for blockchain is to associate the owner with the file,” says Jadliwala. “In the real world, there may be a copy of the Mona Lisa, but there can only be one created by Leonardo da Vinci. The NFT is trying to create something similar in the digital sense. increase.”

Still, imitators and scammers are breaking into the online NFT marketplaces of OpenSea and Rarible, which are out of the reach of banks and governments.

OpenSea, the world’s largest online NFT marketplace, has been accused of allowing people to create or “mint” NFTs for free and slowing down the review process aimed at removing counterfeits. Last month, OpenSea Said on twitter We found that over 80% of NFTs created with free tools were “plagiarized works, fake collections, spam”.since then exclusive You can create up to 5 collections of 50 items each for free.

Capture

Primarily in the cash-driven industry, some San Antonio tattoo artists remain in the dark about how NFTs work. Others hesitate to invest in something they consider fashionable. However, Lopez etc. are sold by NTF.

Inside Lopez’s brick-walled studio, Pleasant Dreams, he wears a black “Go Big or Go Home” T-shirt, and his desk is a shrine of ink bottles and NBA and Apple stickers. Eminem and 50 Cent’s rap are heavy in the bass and pop out of the speakers. He reaches for the iPad and shows visitors the NFT created in Adobe Photoshop and Sketchbook. This includes the title “Eye Will Remain” featuring animated aliens and rain sound effects.

By January, Lopez had created digital wallets and accounts in OpenSea and Rarible. It charges a 2.5% commission per sale. He created the NFT as a single version, uploaded a digital file of his work, and started selling it in Ethereum cryptocurrency for $ 150- $ 350.

So far, he has earned $ 3,000 from sales and expects 5% to 10% royalties for every resale.

“Selling NFTs is a way for artists to be artists and not have barriers to selling their art,” he says. “The money you spend is equal to the exposure. People see your art even if you don’t sell it.”

Recently, Lopez has been interested in creating NFT “projects”, multiple editions, or series centered around a single character. The famous Bored Ape Yacht Club website did the same last year, creating 10,000 cartoon apes and selling them to Ether as digital assets stored on the blockchain for $ 200 each.

Join the scrum

Just inside Loop 410 in northwestern San Antonio, Brian Pitman gives Freddy Krueger’s horror tattoos freehand to the shoulders of element tattoo customers. He takes a break and introduces the 433 version of the Pitbull, which he is designing with ProCreate software from the Christmas weekend.

Pittman doesn’t have a digital wallet yet, but will soon create a digital wallet and upload his NFT project to the online marketplace.

“What else do you want as a man, an artist?” He says. “I just want to be part of that. I want people to know a little bit about what I’m doing. I can name and promote it. I want to take care of my family with art.”

The 44-year-old Pittman grew up on a ranch next to the Branch Davidian compound near Waco and had been building a communications tower for some time. He became a tattoo artist over 20 years ago. Like most artists in San Antonio, he is an independent contractor working in an established studio, but he buys his tattoo machine and ink. He receives an hourly salary and works six days a week. His fingers are permanently curled by tattooing Surrealist works on his customers for years.

Pittman said he wasn’t tech-savvy and was late to open an account on Instagram, a social media site where most local tattooists display artwork. In recent months he has been scanning the internet looking for cryptocurrency and NFT related news articles and YouTube educational videos.

I don’t think he sells tattoo designs and paintings as NFTs enrich him and his wife, but he wants to share his work with the general public and attract more customers. I want to promote myself.

“I was late and at the end of social media, but I don’t want to be one of the last people to attend an NFT,” he says. “When I see NFTs as” I’m going to be a millionaire, “it’s just a heartache. I know I’m going to get rid of my ass from tattoos for the rest of my life, and I think I’ll try. “

For now, Pitman is sitting in his artwork, adding various clothing, looking at Pitbulls and making them into NFTs.

He isn’t stepping up by the possibility that someone will copy and sell his work.

“If that happens to me, I’ll advertise the scam,” he says. “More recognition.”

Some tattoo artists say they like the idea of ​​selling artwork on online marketplaces without government oversight, despite the potential for fraud. However, some welcome regulatory oversight due to intellectual property thieves and the overall volatility of the crypto market.

Taxes are another consideration. Government involvement in the sale of NFTs will place buyers and sellers more clearly on the Internal Revenue Service radar.

“Many artists in the city work at home or in shops and only trade in cash because they don’t read books,” said Arnold Sanchez, Jr., a 39-year-old tattoo artist at Ink Couture. Says. Three studios in San Antonio.

Pittman is one of the few tattoo artists who will be okay with NFT and cryptocurrency surveillance. “I want to read books as much as I can and be legal,” he says.

For Sanchez, less regulation is better.

Born in San Antonio, Sanchez worked as a boy detainee in Bexar County for 10 years before becoming a tattoo artist seven years ago.

“I wanted to be my boss and be with my kids,” he says. “Now I’m an independent contractor.”

He currently doesn’t accept cryptocurrencies as tattoo payments, but most tattoo shops believe they will accept digital money in the near future. He also believes that NFTs are a digital asset that stays here. He has invested in Bitcoin and has been studying NFTs on the internet.

“If you have money, it’s wise to invest in cryptocurrencies and NFTs. It would be ridiculous to ignore them,” says Sanchez. “I see it growing. I have no choice. Even if it goes against my beliefs and standards, it needs to change over time, such as getting a new tattoo device.”

Returning to Pleasant Dreams, Lopez recalls being arrested as a teenager for graffiti and serving a short stint at the Juvenile Training School. He fled San Antonio in violation of probation and learned how to tattoo a lamb while drifting between Dallas, Chicago and Seattle. He returned home three years later, turned to police, and took a break from a judge who slapped his ankle monitor instead of his sentence.

Lopez was not an outlaw at the time. He states that there is no problem with self-reporting NFT sales to the IRS. He sees the sale of his digital artwork as a legitimate business venture and will financially support him in the coming years.

“If you don’t want to do it, you don’t have to do it,” he says. “The worst thing that’s likely to happen is losing a few dollars, but what if it doesn’t?”