Suburban tattoo show boasts all the ink that's fit to print

At InkFest Live 2011, the international tattoo show playing all weekend in Rosemont, the antiquated notion of “getting a tattoo” is for wimps. Sure, a tattoo artist will give you a polite smile and accommodate your request for a butterfly on a shoulder or “Mom” on a biceps, but that is the equivalent of going to the Naperville Ribfest and ordering up one rib, instead of a slab or two.

Tattoos have gone from a small, single moment frozen in time to a living, growing, ever-evolving work in progress.

“You see more sleeves and full backs,” says Beto Munoz, 32, an Itasca kid who went from drawing cartoons in school notebooks to being arrested on charges of spray-paint graffiti to becoming a sought-after tattoo artist at Rising Phoenix Tattoo in Addison. “I'd say 90 percent of my customers are getting more extensive work. I do a lot of big work.”

A single tattoo might start at a foot and wind its way up to the neck. Or a customer may keep a series of tattoos during the years to create an entire art collection confined on the skin.

“Some have it planned out for years,” says InkFest creator Jose Martinez, a 34-year-old graphic artist from North Carolina who has portraits of his parents tattooed on his left arm, a colorful sleeve under construction on his right arm and “King Kong” spelled out on his knuckles.

“Sometimes people want to put a meaning behind it,” Munoz says, acknowledging people who want to memorialize a dead relative, pledge their love to a partner or put a personal credo into words. “But it's more about what looks good.”

Munoz and his brother and tattoo partner, Jimmy Munoz, 27, say most patrons shun the selections in traditional books of tattoos to request one-of-a-kind, hand-drawn tattoos.

“Sometimes you'll have people who say, ‘I want something now,' but we try to discourage that,” says Jimmy Munoz, who turns away a tattoo-wanting 17-year-old with his dad because state law says a kid can't buy a tattoo until he's 18. Customers who think about their tattoo decisions end up happier than people with spur-of-the-moment tattoos, the artists say. Thoughtful designs please tattoo artists, too.

“You've got graduates with art degrees,” Beto Munoz says of his tattooing peers. Just as painters want to exhibit their best work on a museum wall, tattoo artists want to display their best work on a human body.

Tattoo customers have also gotten a little more highbrow.

“You can't be a drunken, unemployed sailor and get a lot of tattoos,” Beto Munoz says. “They are kind of expensive.”

Small tattoos start at $50 and take less than an hour. But many complex tattoos quickly run into four figures, or even five, and can take years to complete.

The sleeve on the arm of fellow tattoo artist Jerry Cross, 40, of Addison, took about 75 hours. That's more than 27 million pricks from the tattoo machine.

Not only are today's tattoos more complex, but the materials needed to make them also have been improved in the last decade.

“Inks have gotten better. Machines have gotten better,” Beto Munoz says. “We have brighter, concentrated ink with smaller flakes. They stay bolder and brighter longer.”

Just as high-definition televisions improve the picture by putting more dots of color on the screen, tattoo artists using smaller flakes can stick more detail and color into a square inch of skin.

“If you want realism, we'll take a photograph,” says Jimmy Munoz, explaining how artists can reproduce the finest details from a photo portrait.

InkFest aims to be more than tattoos.

“It's a lifestyle,” Martinez says. In addition to artists from both coasts, Germany, Hawaii and several states in between, InkFest (http://inkfestlive.com) includes a music fest featuring hip hop artists such as Na Palm, Cutty Boy and The Branded, a DJ competition, a tricked-out car show, a break-dancing contest, clothing booths and graffiti displays.

The specter of the unwanted or soon-regretted tattoo still exists. Danny Ponce, 23, of Hanover Park and his new girlfriend, Salina Lerma, 22, of Elgin, drop their heads and smile as they confess they need to cover tattoos from old relationships. Trailers for the “Hangover 2” movie opening before Memorial Day get laughs when one character wakes up shocked to discover a tattoo on his face.

“I tend to shy away from that because it's a big change in a life,” Beto Munoz says of face tattoos. “I did a little cross by the eye and a little scorpion by the mouth, but nothing big.”

While the typical person getting his or her first tattoo is 18 to 25, Beto Munoz has worked on older, much older, clients.

“I tattooed an 82-year-old. It was his first tattoo,” Beto Munoz says of the suburban dad who wanted the tattoo of a cross and a birth date as a way to honor his dead son who had lots of tats. “He ended up coming back some more times. He got a symbol for his propane company and his dog's name.”

Tattoos, it seems, are like potato chips in that few people stop after just one.

“Once they lose the fear of getting something so permanent,” Beto Munoz says, “they come back again and again and again.”

Even in this bad economy, Martinez predicts InkFest will draw 5,000 paying customers.

“It's a luxury item,” Martinez says as he rubs his tattoo sleeves, “but this is the only thing you can take to the grave with you.”