Halo Body Art

I had been flirting with the idea of getting a tattoo for years and after a few months of saving up I was finally ready to begin my quest to find a tattoo artist. Unlike most I knew exactly what I wanted and where… but since my piece so so big and detailed (a 4×6 inch Alphonse Mucha painting) I needed to find an artist that could capture the essence of this painting and help me make it mine with tweaks.
I contacted lots of artists whose portfolios were impeccable but when I went in to meet with them I never got a good vibe from the venue (I am looking at you New Tribe). Now maybe I sound silly to tattoo veterans, but if I am going to sit in a chair for 4 hours, and put my trust in a stranger to translate ink into art, I need to feel a good vibe!
I stumbled on Halo Body Art through my Google search and thought the Website was horrible! It looked like a 10^th grade web design assignment and the Pinup girl featured on the main page was random and didn’t go with anything. Despite the shitty site, this guy had a pretty impressive portfolio and I was particularly intrigued by the private studio idea (just in case I started to cry like a loser, lol)
I emailed the owner, named Tsunami and made an appointment to meet with him and discuss my tattoo. The studio is TTC accessible and located in a cute clean loft in the Danforth. Vibe was good and I was greeted by Tsunami who walked me through the process and talked about my ideas. I showed him the pic and right away and he immediately new that the piece was Art Nouveau (bonus…my artist actually knows about art!)
He quoted me a price for the work which was a bit more than
i thought it would be but unlike other places this price was not based on hours. I have seen way too many people who paid great prices for their ink… but sadly it looks like shit! When it comes to tattoos, you get what you pay for. He said it would take about 5 hours to do the entire piece in once sitting.
I was impressed by how much Tsunami knew about tattooing different ethnicity’s… I am half black/​half white and my original design had some very opaque lines and crosshatching he believed would cause my skin to keloid (which is typical with dark skin types). He worked with me to modify the design and used pointillism (which is his specialty) instead of cross hatching.
The big day arrived and he walked me though everything, opened all the packaging in front of me and started working. 3 hours later I finished and my beautiful tattoo was complete! He sold me a natural healing wax instead of tattoo goo or lubriderm and I swear this stuff was AMAZING. I didn’t peal, scab or scar and still love my tattoo (the picture is uploaded to this review).
Highly recommended!