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The work · six styles

Six styles. Four hands.

Nobody here works outside their own portfolio. That is the whole reason the list is six long instead of thirty, and it is why the consult starts by routing you to the right hand rather than the first free one.

Ironwood / What we tattoo
01
Fine line & single needle

Single-needle and three-round-liner work at low weight. Script, botanical, small figurative, anything where the drawing is in the restraint. Sloane, and only Sloane.

2–4 hr
from $400
02
Blackwork & ornamental

Solid black at scale: ornamental panels, sleeves, backs, blackout and negative-space work. One piece per session, one session per day.

4–8 hr
from $800
03
Neo-traditional

Bold outline, packed colour, illustrative subject. The style that ages the most predictably of the six, because it was designed to.

3–6 hr
from $600
04
Geometric & sacred

Mandalas, dotwork, ornamental symmetry. Measured on the body before a needle goes near it, because symmetry on a curved surface is a drawing problem first.

3–6 hr
from $600
05
Illustrative & narrative

Multi-figure compositions, full backs, half sleeves that tell one story rather than collecting six. An hour of talking before any sketching.

4–8 hr
from $600
06
Cover-up & rework

Two sessions minimum with a four-week heal between them. What can be covered depends almost entirely on how dark the old piece is.

2 sessions
from $800
The rate $200
per hour

$1,200
per day

$200
consult deposit,
applied to the work

Why the menu is a range and not a price

A tattoo is priced by chair time, not by design. The ranges above are honest floors: the smallest thing each artist will book, at the minimum session that makes it worth setting up a station for. Above that, the number is hours.

What moves the hours is not complexity in the way people expect. Detail density matters less than surface area and placement. A palm-sized piece of dense blackwork is a shorter session than the same drawing spread across a ribcage, because ribs are slow and skin that moves needs more passes.

You get an hour estimate at the consult, in writing, before the deposit. If a piece runs over the estimate we finish it at the estimate. If it runs under, you pay under. That is the whole pricing policy and it has not changed since 2014.

What we do not take

No flash days, no walk-ins, no finger or hand work, no cover-up as a first session, and nothing on anyone who has been drinking. Four of those five are in the house rules with the reasoning attached.

Ageing, by style.

Holds best

Blackwork

Solid black at proper saturation is the most stable thing you can put in skin. It softens at the edge over a decade and stays legible for forty years.

The failure mode is not fading. It is a design that was too busy to read at arm’s length on day one.

40 yr
Holds well

Neo-traditional

Heavy outline holds the shape while the colour inside it settles. That is exactly what the outline was invented for, on sailors, a century ago.

Colour saturation drops perhaps fifteen per cent in the first two years and then largely stops.

25 yr
Needs care

Fine line

Low-weight line spreads. Every tattoo spreads; fine line simply has less material to lose before the gap between two lines closes.

On forearm and outer arm, at a sensible scale, it holds beautifully. On fingers, feet and ribs it does not, which is why we decline those.

10–15 yr

Asked often.

Do you take walk-ins?

No, and not on any day. The door is locked between sessions. Everything starts with a written brief and a consult, which is a policy about the work rather than about being difficult.

Can I bring a design from Pinterest?

Bring it as a reference, absolutely. We will not copy another artist’s tattoo. What happens instead is that your artist works out what you actually liked about it, which is usually not what you thought, and draws that.

How much does a tattoo cost at Ironwood?

$200 an hour, $1,200 for a full day, with a $200 consult deposit applied to the final session. You get a written hour estimate before you commit, and we finish at the estimate if the piece runs over.

Which artist should I ask for?

Say what you want and let the consult route you. Everyone here works only inside their own portfolio, so the right hand is usually obvious in about two sentences.

Start with a brief.

References, placement, scale, and roughly when you want it. Five business days for a reply, and no deposit until you have met the artist.

Yeti·Design Co.

Example interactive prototype. Not a real business. Names, photographs, reviews and figures on this page are illustrative. Identifying details on real client work are changed to protect their privacy. This is what Yeti can build for a tattoo studio in seven days.

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