New web series on tattoo artists set for launch

Urban fashion brand New Era and Vice TV have partnered on a new documentary series on the work and life of the world's most famous tattoo artists, launching mid-July.

"Tattoo Age" follows the likes of Freddy Corbin, Troy Denning, Dan Santoro, and Grime, and accompanies them in their creative process as well as their family lives.

The trailer, which was released on YouTube, gives explanations as to why the featured artists became as iconic as they are today. Corbin, for instance, who has been tattooing for almost 30 years, says: "It'll be five years until you'll be doing even halfway-good tattoos."

And Mike Rubendall adds: "There are all these books written in Japanese, it takes years to even learn the smallest amount. Even Japanese people, they talk like it takes a lifetime to get a hang of this stuff, so I try to do it to the best of my ability. But I'm still an American, so it's difficult."

What really makes the difference in the end, however, is this: "I'm able to get a lot of my personality through in my work," says Grime. "And I think I'm kinda crazy."

While there will also be a lot of personal insights like Corbin's - "The two things that always petrified me the most were getting clean and having a kid" - the documentary mainly tries to capture this "whole small world to itself of tattoo culture, tattoo characters, and tattoo ways of life...that are unlike what a lot of people experience."

New Era doesn't appear in the series apart from apparently providing caps to customers that are interviewed in it - a subtle but successful approach that is increasingly popular in fashion and beauty marketing.

Watch the trailer at http://youtu.be/BZGON1G45A8.

The web series starts on July 13 at http://www.vbs.tv.