Flash is the sheets on the wall. Eagles, panthers, daggers, roses, ships, a heart with a banner, a swallow with a name in it. Every one was painted by a tattooer to be tattooed, over and over, on whoever walked in and pointed at it. Our walls are covered in it, floor to ceiling.
Some of the sheets are by people who shaped this trade and have been gone for decades. Some we painted ourselves. Most shops keep a little flash by the counter. Here it’s the whole room. The family side of that, and why a street shop keeps its flash up, is on the family site: Walk-in flash and the working shop tradition.
How a flash tattoo goes
Come in, look at the walls, pick one. Whoever’s free sizes it to the spot, makes the stencil, and puts it on. Most flash is done the same afternoon. No appointment, no drawing to wait on, no consultation. That’s the point.
Small changes are fine. We’ll size it up or down, swap a color, put your own word in the banner. If you want it redrawn into something that’s really yours, that’s custom work, and we love that too. It just turns into a drawing and an appointment instead of an afternoon. Here’s how that goes.
What it costs
Flash is priced by the piece like everything else here. Shop minimum is $100, which covers a small name or a simple design with limited shading or color, and a lot of what’s on the wall lands right around there. Bigger designs cost more, and you’ll hear the number before anything starts. Cash, 18 and over with ID, and everything else that applies to any tattoo here is in How to Get Tattooed at The Custom Tattoo Company.
Why it holds up
A flash design has usually been tattooed hundreds of times before it gets to you. The lines sit where they sit because they work in skin. The shapes read from across a room. The colors were picked to still look right in twenty years. That’s why the old sheets are still up. Nobody has improved on a well-drawn eagle.
Who does it
Any of the four of us. Lauren, Dave, Cabot and It’s Glitter all tattoo flash, and each of us has painted some of it. Want a particular hand on it? Ask who’s in.
Open 12 to 7, seven days a week. 123 Roosevelt Blvd, Havelock, across from the main gate at Cherry Point. Walk in.