Illustrators with Ink: Tarmasz

I’m real­ly excit­ed, ya’ll. Today’s install­ment of Illus­tra­tors with Ink is extra spe­cial. Not only do we have a tat­tooed cre­ative, but one that tat­toos oth­ers with her won­der­ful draw­ings! Faus­tine Tar­masz, sim­ply known as Tar­masz, is a tal­ent­ed French illus­tra­tor whose works look as love­ly on skin as they do on paper. Check out my inter­view with her below!

How many tat­toos do you have?
Well, it is quite dif­fi­cult to count tat­toos, but I would say around 20, big and small pieces.

How old were you when you first got tattooed?
I was 17, I did 3 tat­toos the same day, and now all of them are cov­ered… tat­toos before 20 years old are mistakes. 😉

Did you design any yourself?
I would say the half are designed or tat­tooed by myself. It was a way to train myself at tat­too­ing when I start­ed to prac­tice, but since few years I stopped tat­too­ing myself, because I want to save some space for all the super great tat­too artists I am tat­tooed by!

Are there any spe­cial sto­ries attached to your tattoos?
I like tat­toos for what they look like and not for what they mean, so I do not have deep per­son­al emo­tions relat­ed to my tat­toos. But each of them of course have a sto­ry, depend­ing on the tat­tooist, the sit­u­a­tion, the place and the way it has been done. I don’t have so many things to tell about them, except that each time they’re great human encounters!

One of the things I real­ly like in tat­too­ing and get­ting tat­tooed is that it makes you meet so many peo­ple! Illus­tra­tion is a lone­ly activ­i­ty, you spend your time draw­ing all alone at your desk; tat­too­ing is for me a way to go out and social­ize. I already met so many awe­some peo­ple thanks to tattoos!

How did you get in to tat­too­ing? Did you ever envi­sion your­self doing it?
Well, I start­ed to tat­too because I was in a peri­od of my life I real­ly want­ed to exper­i­ment dif­fer­ent art medi­ums. It was basi­cal­ly curios­i­ty but, I start­ed to like that and this shit got seri­ous… but before I nev­er planned to do it as a job since I nev­er thought there would be enough peo­ple request­ing my draw­ing to get tattooed.

How much of your time is spent tat­too­ing and how much of it is spent illustrating?
I tat­too 1 week a month and the rest of the time, I spend it draw­ing illus­tra­tions and work­ing on comics.

You men­tion on your Tum­blr that you don’t design any tat­toos — they are all exist­ing draw­ings you’ve done. Why is that?
I used to take orders and draw from com­mis­sions for each cus­tomer… but I stat­ed to have more requests and I could­n’t find the time to do all of it any­more, since tat­too­ing is not my sin­gle job. So I had to make a choice: give up illus­tra­tion and just tat­too full-time, or just draw some flash­es and let peo­ple pick. I chose the last one because I am not able to chose which project is bet­ter than anoth­er; peo­ple have a lot of great ideas! I just chose to stop com­mis­sions, so nobody’s jeal­ous. 😉 And since I tat­too each flash draw­ing only once, my tat­toos are still unique and the cus­tomers still take own­er­ship of it.

Where do you nor­mal­ly tat­too? (At a spe­cif­ic shop? Do you travel?)
I tat­too each month at the stu­dio Sweet Nee­dle in Fonte­nay Sous bois (Paris’ close sub­urb). Some­times I trav­el in France but it’s real­ly rare. France is not a big coun­try and most of peo­ple pass by Paris at least once a year, I do my best so I can fit the appoint­ments when they come. I don’t usu­al­ly leave France for tat­too­ing, but last Novem­ber I went to Brasil with 2 of my tat­tooist friends, for 1 month, and it makes me feel we should do that more often!

What is the most mem­o­rable tat­too you’ve given?
I have a lot of good mem­o­ries relat­ed to the tat­toos I did because I tat­tooed a lot of my friends (and even my moth­er!). But my most awk­ward tat­too expe­ri­ences were the real­ly firsts, these were the most impress­ing ones and also the fun­ni­est. My friends who were my guinea pigs were so relax and trust­ful, while I was freak­ing out.

What’s the inspi­ra­tion for your illustrations?
I am real­ly a big fan of the mythologique, antique, medieval arts… I like all of this because it is real­ly fixed, graph­ic, pic­to­r­i­al, and void of any per­spec­tive and dimen­sions. I like strong pic­tures where sym­bols are more impor­tant than real­ism. My favorite artists are Mike Migno­la, Car­son Ellis and Kei­th Nei­gley.

How long have you been illustrating?
I’ve always been draw­ing as far as I can remem­ber, but it start­ed to be my job since 3 years. After high school, I went through 2 years of illus­tra­tion formations.

What tools do you use for cre­at­ing your work?
I do my sketch­es with pen­cil and then I use light table for the clean ver­sion. Some­times I use ink or water­col­or, and most of the time I final­ly col­or it by Photoshop.

Any excit­ing projects on the horizon?
Well, I’ve a com­ic book project which should be ready for Sep­tem­ber. And as I said ear­li­er I plan to go back to Brazil tat­too­ing, and maybe to reach USA and Cana­da. I’d like to trav­el more and to make more books in the future.

Thanks, Faus­tine! Be sure to fol­low her on Tum­blr and check out her online shop.