Sanchez Santi Tattoo

The Sanchez Santi Tattoo is originally from Cuba, where, still young, got the first experiences with the tattoos.

Moved by the desire to find an artistic open environment, he came to London, hearing that something was calling him there.

With a behavior, not typical “Latino”, more focused on following his artistic way and kind of “white heart”, he found his way in a city where people are more focused on the own business and he now he has been tattooing for more than 10 years.

With a background of painting and Living in London, where the tattoo scene was much well developed, he decided to start learning by himself, watching videos online (Carl Grace) and practicing a lot of fruits and animal or synthetic skin.

Realism usually is not the first style to start tattooing, because you need to have a good skill in managing shades, colors, and contrast to make the tattoo looks as real as possible.

After he the first works Sanchez focused more on tattooing realism: he explained that the mind of a tattooer, when tattooing realism, should be focused not only on the reference and the final result, but also in the process to achieve that final result.

As an outsider of tattooing, I have been quite impressed (and the customer agreed with that), to watch all the process of this surrealistic tattoo: at the beginning, from the first steps, I couldn’t imagine the final result, and in a way the not completed tattoos look wrong. Just when Sanchez finished tattooing all the colors and layer the image came to light. This reminds me a lot the process of film developing and printing in the analogue cameras: the real picture can be seen just at the end.

On the marketing side of the tattoo he explained to me that compared to places like northeast Italy or others in the world, the big competition in London is pushing up him to provide the best quality service to the client. During the lockdown he got the opportunity to study and pay more attention to social media, how to photograph the works and show to his follower

What impressed me:

• How much take care of the skin of the customer (every skin is different and every part of the body needs a different care)

• How he has in his head the process to get the tattoo: watching tattooing I learned that one of the most important skill of realism tattooer is in the process to achieve the goal and not the design. The reference is just a reference to follow. They don’t copy that, but think always the best way to get that result.

• His behaviour his humble, kind and very professional: he takes care of the client’s needs and take care a lot of the skin of the customer.

• He is able to add his artistic touch and personal details to the designs he makes.

*tattoo in the video and gallery took one entire session. Now must be finished in another last session just to complete some details.