With more than 30 years of tattooing under his belt, Fip Buchanan is one of the most experienced artists in southern California—an old-style tattooer with no boundaries whose repertoire ranges from Japanese to realistic to traditional pieces.

Crazy Philadelphia Eddie

For centuries people have said that idle hands are the devil’s workshop, meaning that when people are left with nothing to do they turn to vice. When the phrase was coined in medieval England, no one imagined that tattooing could be the virtue in such a situation, but that is the case in the life of Keith Underwood.

Chris Garver is a reluctant rock star of the tattoo world. Being celebrated in tattooing’s inner circle is one thing but being a reality star was another, so he’s tried to skirt the limelight since Miami Ink.

While it might not have been the California penal system’s goal, the jails in that state also fostered the prison tattoo art of Freddy Negrete...