Human skin has way too many variables.

Skin tone and undertone affect how colour shows. Condition and age vary, and thickness changes from one part of the body to another. These are all factors a tattoo artist needs to consider before starting.

Hideout Tattoo is located in a quiet neighbourhood by the riverside in Taoyuan, Taiwan. The founder, Hong, specializes in wabori, the traditional Japanese style. He trained the artists working here, and while their styles differ, the discipline of craftsmanship carries across.

Sean, trained under Hong as his first apprentice, specializes in black and grey realism.

The Anubis piece is months in and still in progress. Sean cut paper shapes to use as a guide, drew the outline onto the arm, and kept adjusting until the geometry sat right against the muscle.

On his station there are several greys, mixed from light to almost black. Getting the shading right is what makes a black and grey piece look three-dimensional.

It was a long process. Sean was extremely focused, stopping now and then, sometimes to rest his eyes, sometimes to let the client’s skin rest. The body moves, so he asked the client to stand and relax the arm while he checked the proportions from a distance.

“I told Sean I wanted Anubis, and he designed the whole thing,” the client said. They’ve been working on it for three months, across multiple sessions.

Guang-Tou is another tattoo artist at Hideout Tattoo, specializing in American traditional. While Sean was working on the Anubis piece upstairs, Guang-Tou was at his desk on the first floor, drawing on an iPad before his client arrived. The desks down there are where the artists work when they’re not tattooing.

He was wrapping up a months-long project that day, colouring the last section of a back piece, referencing back and forth to his own drawing as he worked.