LUD BRADLEY

What made you want to become a tattooer? 

Life happened that way I guess, all my friends would tell me I should have tried it and I never listened, till one day I met the woman that would change my life forever, she suggested I might be good at it and even tho I said I wasn’t interested she insisted and bought me 2 machines for my birthday. She’s been my muse ever since.

How did you start tattooing? Did you have an apprenticeship? 

Where I come from, 10 years ago tattoos were not a very popular or even a good thing, people back home used to have a very negative concept of tattoos so it was hard to get support. Due to that artists were very jealous of who they let-in in the industry, nobody was too keen to teach so I started on my couch. After 6 months of that I came to Canada and realized that things were very different so I had to put on my learning boots again and teach myself lots of the things I know today. I have to say that in my career I have encountered wonderful artists that have taught me a lot and who I owe a lot of my success today.

How would you describe your signature style? How long did it take you to find this style?

I would describe it as a surrealist mixture of black and grey and colour but I like to call it “between a dream and a nightmare “ in my eyes that is how life is. I feel im still discovering lots of new things about it and learning more as time goes but I’ve been working on it for the last 3 years.

Your tattoos have an amazing balance between realistic elements, highlight color, and insane detail. How do you create this balance? Does it vary based on the subject matter? 

I am a graphic designer by trade. I did it for around 13 years of my life, I started very young. The balance of a composition is almost engraved in my brain, it honestly comes very natural; now details, concepts and elements depend on what my client is looking to say with the piece. I like to create pieces that have a story so on that matter I pick colour scheme position of the elements and even textures.

 

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Can you walk us through your design process? 

First things first I ask my client for their idea and some images for reference of what they have in their brain, I also like to meet them in person so I get a “vibe” of my clients personality so that I can be more accurate with the direction I’m gonna take.

After this I kind of create a story in my head. Let’s say It’s a tattoo honouring a mother, I then proceed to create something that goes like this in my head “I want to do a female figure holding a seed but from that seed there’s gonna be a thread of sacrifices and love and tears and happiness” of course this is a very vague example.

Then I start looking for images that give me these feelings, it could be just a fraction of an image that I know I can combine with other images and create a new one. I like to have at least 20 images in hand for each project so I can make sure I can mix them and mesh them and create something original.

Then I jump into my design softwares and start putting everything together. I use Clip Studio, Zbrush , Nomad and sometimes photoshop but most of the work is done in Clip studio, I also make sure I have a picture of my canvas so I can design on top of it and have a accurate idea of were the creases and muscles are, and the piece flows properly with my clients body shape.

I proceed to put the images in and let my creativity take control, I try not to overthink so the art comes out more natural and organic.