I found Nudy’s tattoo account by accident when Instagram suggested it to me and he was the first artist I contacted in Korean with Kakao Talk, a Korean messaging app, using what I learned self-studying and with the help of Papago.
His linework is very clean and he just does blackwork tattoos without shading. His lines are relatively finer and the subjects are usually animals or something nature-themed.
Sometimes, he posts flash tattoos – tattoos that are pre-designed rather than custom-made for someone. Anyone can choose one and have it tattooed on them. They’re usually on the smaller and cheaper side.
Out of all of his flash designs, the one that stuck out to me the most was two rabbits jumping with a black crescent moon in the background. It was a reference to Asian folklore about a rabbit that lives on the moon, grinding something with a mortar and pestle.
The contents of the mortar vary depending on the country. In Chinese culture, the Moon Rabbit is pounding the elixir of life for the moon goddess, Chang’e, but in Korean culture, the Moon Rabbit is making rice cake (떡 or “tteok”). I always liked the story, so that was enough reason for me to get the flash tattoo. I thought about it for maybe a month before I messaged him to book an appointment.
He was very nice too, but we couldn’t really talk much because of the language barrier. At the time, my Korean was very low-level. But he was very polite and patient with me. The tattoo was over in thirty minutes. He did take a picture, but my skin was very red and irritated because it was on my wrist, so he never posted it. I tried to reduce the redness in the picture:
It was my first and only flash tattoo so far and I still love it two years later!
I got tattooed by him in Seoul, but now he works for a studio called Blue Five on Jeju Island.
