Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Levi Hilton. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Levi , appreciate you joining us today. What’s the backstory behind how you came up with the idea for your business?

So, I think I could talk about how I came up with my “tattoo style” which is what people seem to come to me for. There are a lot of different styles of tattooing and, personally, I love them all. They all present a unique take on similar subject matter and it’s hard to see something beautiful and not want to start trying to emulate it or even copy it. There are so many different categories of tattooing, how does anyone choose just one to fall into? For me, I have such a love for animation and illustration that my influences mostly come from that source. Animation and illustration are both mediums that have a very simplified approach due to the production of their mediums. Old illustrations were only printed in black and animated films were drawn and colored very simply due to how many drawings and paintings had to be done just to get 1 second of film. You would think with such limitations it would be hard to produce impactful and meaningful art, but there’s a famous quote by Orson Welles, “The enemy of art is the absence of limitation.”
You have to be creative in order to problem solve all the limitations that you’re dealing with and tattooing offers very similar limitations. Tattoos age and spread and can only hold so much detail, so simplicity is key. The artist I grew up influenced by all had specific ways of handling the task of taking complex movements or images and simplifying them. Bruce Timm, who did The Batman Animated Series from the 90s and Hayao Miyazaki from Studio Ghibli are both huge influences on me. I also take a lot of influence from the look of Pixar and other digitally animated films.
When I was young I always drew popular cartoons like Batman and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Anime became very influential in my teens and once I started tattooing I knew I wanted to find a way to incorporate that into my style. I really enjoy trying to give things a sense of shape and lighting so I’ve brought that into my approach and I’m pretty happy with the overall style I have, but I am constantly trying to refine and improve it.
I believe that sums up how I knew, in the beginning of my career, this style would be the one I wanted to present and pursue over the years. When people ask me to define my style, I always say “hand drawn illustrations with digital-animation rendering.”

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I’ve always wanted to be an artist, as long as I can remember. I feel very fortunate to have found tattooing when I did. I started my apprenticeship in 2007 and haven’t even dreamed of doing anything else. Growing up, I was always drawing and being able to pursue that as a career has been a blessing. I’ve learned so much about art and become a much better artist than I ever could’ve dreamed as a kid and that comes directly from tattooing. There’s a weight of responsibility that comes with marking someone else’s body permanently. It will certainly drive you to take each project seriously and make it your best. Now my goal is to offer people the highest quality illustrative style tattooing I can. I love creating my own characters or drawing animals in my style. I also do a lot of pop culture tattoos. Disney, Pixar, anime, comic characters, etc. I love being able to filter popular characters through my style and create a unique and custom piece that is specific to what my client is looking for. Each tattoo is custom and only done once. Also, now I’m really trying to apply all my sensibilities to large-scale tattooing.
The industry has changed so much over the last 20 years and one thing that’s changed is people being open to coming in and starting a full sleeve, or their full leg, or even a full back, from neck to the back of the knees. I’m trying to take that large format layout and adapt my style to it. Those pieces can be so strong and impactful. Seeing a beautiful, well executed tattoo the size of someone’s full back can definitely take your breath away and leave an ever-lasting impression, especially when it fits the body and accentuates all the right curves and bends.

We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?

As an artist, this is so hard. Everyone constantly complains about the algorithms on social media sites and it’s hard to blame them. The people I see thriving all have a few things in common tho, and I try to remember these things when handling my own accounts.

•They are personable.
They really go out of their way to show themselves and their personalities to the audience. This seems to build a sense of connection and familiarity that makes the audience want to continue to support and interact.
•They post regularly.
It doesn’t necessarily need to be daily, but just in a predictable way. You want your audience to be engaged and stimulated, even if it’s a different post featuring something they’ve seen before. Tell them something they didn’t know.
•They are unique.
Their style or product just stands out. It’s different and their page is the only place you’re gonna see that kind of stuff. I really believe this one and put a lot of weight into it. I want my work to be able to be picked out from a crowd of similar things. I want something about it to just stand out and be impossible to replicate.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

I personally don’t see myself as any more or less resilient than anyone else. I have a strong belief that what could be a positive in one scenario could easily be a hinderance in a different situation. With that said, I really do believe in my style and the quality of work that I do. Tattooing, like most things, has an ever-evolving style preference. One year, fine-line black and grey may be popular, the next year could see large-scale Japanese tattooing take over. It’s always changing and there are plenty of tattooers that just try to ride those waves and change to better fit the preferences of the majority. I am not that kind of artist, for better or worse. I feel like I’m really trying to push myself in one specific discipline and can’t leave this path. I’m always exploring different styles and elements, but with the intention of learning what I can to bring back into my style and to help me better refine myself. It’s not about being the most popular tattooer, but about being honest with myself about the things I’m trying to achieve in my own art. I believe that shows resilience and determination, but it also may not be the best business model to follow. It’s definitely not the most financially lucrative model, but that’s the thing with artists, I guess. We all have a specific vision and we’ll go for that vision at our own expense. I’d feel like a fraud if stopped my pursuit in order to please other people. I’d feel like I’d have sinned.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.levihiltonart.com
• Instagram: @levihiltontattoos
• Twitter: @levihiltonart
• Other: E-mail: [email protected]