My trip to Australia
On March 17th I started a month long tattoo tour of Australia. I traveled to 4 different cities including: Brisbane, Perth, Melbourne, and finally a vacation in Cairns. Everyone I met was very hospitable and seemed very excited to get tattooed by me. My first week in OZ was spent at Black Throne Tattoo in Brisbane, with Rachi Brains and Clint Steele. I took the first few days off to adjust to the time difference, then went to work doing some real fun tattoos. I did manage to schedule some time to go to Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary, where I got to hold a little Koala named Indigo. While I was there I got to feed kangaroo and check out plenty of other animals I’d never seen in person before. After a week in Brisbane I headed to Perth to work at 5 Star Tattoo. The whole crew at 5 Star was great to work with, and the owner, Rick Luder, is extremely hospitable and full of wonderful stories of tattooing in Australia. I didn’t do quite as much tourist stuff in Perth as I got to do in Brisbane, but had a great time checking out the city. There were a lot of great tattoos for me to do while I was in Perth, but after a week it was time for me to move on to Melbourne where I was lucky enough to work at Dynamic Tattoo with Trevor McStay and his very solid crew. I stayed very busy there and even had some people fly in from Sydney to get tattooed. I worked for 6 days at Dynamic and had Sunday to explore the city. After Melbourne I spent a week relaxing in Cairns. I had never seen the Great Barrier Reef and was fortunate enough to get to go scuba diving and check it out. Cairns was a great place to relax after 3 weeks of work.
My trip to Australia was one of the best I’ve ever taken, but I really missed Smith St. and all the fellas. Everybody I met on my travels was extremely nice and very welcoming. Thank you very much to everyone at Black Throne, 5 Star, and Dynamic and thanks to everybody that let me sleep on their couch. I hope to make it back to Australia sooner than later. -Eli Quinters
n.y.c tattoo convention
I will be working the New York City tattoo convention next weekend May 13,14,15 at the Roseland Ball Room.
I will be taking walkups all weekend . -Bert
Heres a few flicks of the new shaders i will have at the convention.
New Steve Boltz print available
I recently had prints made of one of my latest paintings. Its pictured below, along with a close up. 28 pin-ups for tattooing, a money-maker for sure. The size is roughly 24″x41″, and was printed on fine digital watercolor paper by the very skilled Jay Foran at Alpha-Repro Graphics. The price is $200, and you can come by the shop to pick one up, or send a money order. Please include $15 for shipping and return address. Sorry international customers, but you will need to send an additional $40 for shipping. NO PAYPAL, NO PERSONAL CHECKS. I also posted a ‘ship in a bottle’ tattoo that i really enjoyed making. Thanks for looking. -Steve Boltz
New tattoos from Dan and Steve
So its been super busy at the shop lately, and making updates on the blog hasnt been so easy. I have some new pics to post from myself and Dan Santoro. The little picture of the striped lion is by Dan. He also gave me another pic of a tiger head with an NYC inscription, and that crazy egghead lookin dude, a Tony Polito design. Dan also did this super solid panther head with a snake. The rest of the pictures in this post are from me. The first one (the Mom tattoo)is on Alex, one of the new assistants at Smith Street. The Mickey Mouse tattoo (one of the funnest tattoos i’ve ever done) is on Fergus, who got 15 tattoos at Smith Street in under a month!! He and his buddy Lloyd, who also got at least 5 tattoos,came from Australia and basically spent every other day at the shop getting tattooed. They each got work by everyone at the shop, and ended up raising the bar for our customers. They now have the distinct honor of having gotten the most tattoos at Smith Street in the shortest period of time. And they had some pretty stiff competition. There are some real tattoo addicts frequenting our shop (Zuck, TMiller, Jessie, Seth, and Peter Fisher to name just a few), but Fergus and Lloyd waltzed into Smith St and showed them all how it’s done! Fergus and Lloyd–we miss you guys! Next we have an hourglass on John, a really nice guy who has been piecing together a sleeve from me, and a sheep in wolf’s clothing, both of which i just drew right on the skin. There is a bulldog tattoo on a Brazilian tattooer named Leo, who was a very nice dude. The last tattoo is on Jessie, who showed us just how much she loves the shop by getting the name tattooed on her. We love you too, Jessie. Thanks alot! -Steve Boltz
Dan Santoro
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Steve Boltz
blak krak
The wolf is on golden gloves champ Zack Wolf from L.A. All his other tattoos were done by Baby Ray at Spotlight. The boar head is on a customer who came from out of town . The portrait of Louie is on our friend George . The tiger is on my buddy Steve Z from L.A. Thanks for looking.
-Bert Krak
Steve Boltz Tattoos
Here are some new pics. We are doing our best to update this blog weekly, but sometimes there just isnt enough time for more than a string of tattoo photos. The C-Lo dice and FTW wolf are on Jason, one of the assistants at Smith Street, who’s also wearing an indian girl from me, and a shark from Santoro in one of the photos. There’s a mini clipper ship in there, and the wingtip was pretty fun. Finally a cross on Chuck in memory of a good friend who died way too young. R.I.P. Charlie Murphy. -Steve Boltz
orange county
Just got back from visiting California with Mike Wilson. We went out there to attend the Musink convention in Orange County . This was my first time working the convention . Mike worked it the year before. We both kept busy and had a really good time. Heres a few jobs I did at the show. 
The wolf is on Cory from Will Rise . He was our assistant at the convention. It was his first time working one and he killed it. Thanks Champ. 
Heres one that Mike did while we were out there. 
This is a healed one on my buddy dave from my last visit to L.A. 
On our last day we went to Greenspans in Southgate and then lunch with Bob Roberts. It was such a good day I didnt even have to use my AK ! -Bert krak
Daniel Santoro
Here are a few new ones from Dan. Enjoy and thanks for looking.
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Manizales, Colombia
In January I went to Colombia with my buddy Fernando. I was invited to the Manizales Tattoo Convention for the 2nd year, and could not resist returning to Colombia again. Last year Eli and I went to the show and had an awesome time. Manizales is a small but beautiful mountain town, and Juanse, the man in charge of the show, is an excellent host and took supreme care of us while we were there. After the tattoo show, Fernando and I went to Cartagena for 4 days to relax and soak up some sun. The weather there was perfect and the ocean was so warm it was nuts. Cartagena has a beautiful ‘Olde City’ and we ate some amazing food and fruit in Colombia is to die for. Here are a few photos from our trip. -Steve Boltz
Of course when I’m on the road, I spend most of my time bent over a tattoo, and Manizales was definitely no exception. On the first day of the convention people were pretty shy and no one really came near us..haha. But of course after starting the first tattoo I got swamped with work, and at the end of the 4 day show there wasnt enough time for all the tattoos, and I had to turn away at least 6 or 7 jobs. I did get to do some fun tattoos. I did this tiger and snake on the front of a thigh in just under 3 hours.
As per usual lately, I did a bunch of girl heads and pin-ups. 
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At the convention they provided each booth or artist with a blank banner and large permanent markers so they could design a banner for the show on the spot, which actually turned out to be good fun, and this task kept us busy on that first day before the floodgates opened up. Nando and I collaborated on this beauty. First I drew on the tiger and then he hooked up the block letters. Throughout the first two days we just tag-teamed it between jobs until it was fairly complete looking. Its obviously a little loose, as we just went for it and only had the markers to work with, but I think it came out pretty cool. Forgive the low quality phone pictures.
——————————————————————————————————————————————-Our hotel in Cartagena was pretty nice, and we had a fantastic view of the beach.
There was a 3-toed Sloth hanging out on the hotel grounds. One day on our way to the pool we came across him climbing down out of the tree above the walkway. We were able to get pretty close for an inspection, and I can tell you that this guy is completely bizarre looking in every way. His body proportions seemed to be way off. His head was too small, his arms were too long, pot bellied and although slight in appearance, you could tell that he possessed more strength than his size might indicate. He also looked as though he were moving in slow motion. He turned slowly and recognized our presence, his face was dirty looking, like all crusty around his eyes and mouth, and yet he kind of had a friendly smiling human-like expression. It was very unnerving and completely surreal. And those wierd long claws, 3 of them, like Wolverine claws. Creepy. I really felt as though i might be looking at an alien creature, as it was so outside what my brain would recognize as a ‘natural looking’ animal. I hoped we’d see him again, but we didnt.
On the last day we took an hour drive to Volcano Totumo to take a dip in the volcanic mud baths which are said to have therapeutic qualities, along with being good treatment for your skin, etc. For us, it was just something fun and interesting to do. They gave you a nice little massage, and took pics for you, then helped you get the mud out of your ears afterwards. It turned out to be one of the many highlights of the trip.
Eli Quinters is coming to Australia in March
I’m excited that after years of saying I wanted to go to Australia, I am finally making the trip. Brisbane, Perth, and Melbourne are the cities I’ll be visiting. I’ll be at Black Throne Tattoo in Brisbane March 21-26. In Perth I’ll be at 5 Star Tattoo from March 29 through April 2nd, and I’ll be in Melbourne from April 4-9 at Dynamic Tattoo. If you are interested in getting an appointment while I’m in Australia, please call me at the shop. I know it’s not easy to call the US from Australia, but it’s a good way to separate people that are serious about getting tattooed. Consider the phone call your deposit. To call Smith Street Tattoo Parlour from Australia the number is 0011 1 718 643 0463. We’re closed on Mondays, which is Tuesday for you guys. I will also have flash and prints of a new sheet of flash I painted specifically for this trip. I’m really looking forward to my visit down under. We’ve all had tons of Australians come to see us in Brooklyn, now it’s my turn to make the voyage. See you there. -Eli Quinters ESQ
Its been awhile since I’ve posted on the blog, so here are a few recent tattoos I’ve done at Smith Street. Thanks for looking. -Eli
