Dr. Woo, the Tattoo Artist for the Hollywood Set

Brian Woo, center, with Mark Mahoney, right, and Freddy Negrete at the Shamrock Social Club. Credit John Francis Peters for The New York Times

By: Sheila Marikar 

LOS ANGELES — A dog on a finger. A hummingbird behind an ear. Mickey Mouse on a wrist.

These intricate, unconventional tattoos are the handiwork of Brian Woo, a 33-year-old tattoo artist in Los Angeles with a huge following on Instagram (more than 320,000) and a string of celebrity clients including Drake, Ellie Goulding and the actress Sarah Hyland.

                                                

Quick-witted and eminently chill, able to render all manner of subjects with a level of detail that might have made M. C. Escher raise an eyebrow, Mr. Woo (friends and fans call him “Dr. Woo”) has become an in-demand tattoo artist for the Hollywood set. To sport his signage is to be at once trendy and timeless.

“I do a lot of palm trees, but I try to make each one different,” he said. “I don’t want to do the same tattoo over and over again.”

Word of mouth and the glow of Instagram have helped Mr. Woo drum up a monthslong waiting list at the Shamrock Social Club, the venerable tattoo parlor in West Hollywood where he works.

“The other day, there was this line of people out in front of the shop,” said Mark Mahoney, the owner of Shamrock, who has his own share of celebrity clients like Rihanna and Johnny Depp. The line included a gaggle of 20-something women and an older man in a suit. “I was like, ‘Is that a professor and his class?’ ” he said. " ‘Is this a field trip?’ ”

“But it was Woo making appointments for next year, and people wanted to come in person to do it,” he said, shaking his head in disbelief.

To hear Mr. Woo tell it, he is simply following a tradition taught to him by veterans like Mr. Mahoney, who gave Mr. Woo one of his first legal tattoos at 18. At this point, Mr. Woo has so much ink — an anchor on an earlobe, the word “cope” written in cursive on his neck, a 1952 photograph of his Taiwanese grandfather on his arm — that he can’t remember what, exactly, was his first legal tattoo.

“I think it was some birds,” he said, shrugging. “I forget.”

Growing up in a suburb of Los Angeles, Mr. Woo became fascinated by tattoos at 13, around the same time he stopped taking violin lessons. He and his friends would experiment with ink and needles after school. It became competitive when one of his friends got a professional tattoo. “I just wanted a lot of tattoos,” Mr. Woo said. “I wanted to be covered in tattoos.”

After high school, he tried community college but paid more attention to partying, skating and going to concerts. He was managing a clothing boutique and toying with the idea of creating a skateboarding-inspired clothing line when Mr. Mahoney suggested he apprentice at his shop.“I knew he could draw, I knew he was good people, and I just liked the kid,” Mr. Mahoney said. “I knew he had a style.”

Mr. Woo spent about three years apprenticing (scheduling appointments, cleaning the bathroom, watching Mr. Mahoney and other artists work) before he touched a machine. Around that time, he picked up the nickname “Dr. Woo” from a regular.

“My dad always wanted me to be a doctor,” Mr. Woo said. He charges upward of $250 for a standard tattoo and upward of $650 for more-intricate ones. His fans don’t mind paying a premium. The fashion blogger Chiara Ferragni has a half-dozen tattoos by Mr. Woo and wants more. “I really love his art,” she said. “And he is a really nice dude.”While Mr. Woo will tattoo just about anything, clients often see his work on Instagram and ask for their own versions. A compass-like arrangement of circles, arrows and dots is particularly popular.
“People started calling them Woo arrows, which is not the most creative name, I guess,” he said. “I don’t know what those are. We just call them the ‘circles-and-lines things.’ ”

The doctor sometimes takes on a therapeutic role, letting his clients vent as the needle does its work.

“Sometimes I will just sit and listen, that’s kind of the job,” he said. “It’s a very personal thing. You’re spilling someone’s blood, together, right there. It’s very spiritual, in a sense.”

He isn’t fazed by celebrity (famous clients, he pointed out, sit in the same chair atop the same linoleum floor as everyone else), though he’s able to gauge star power based on a certain type of pre-inking angst.

“Most of the time, when they tell you how much they need a tattoo covered for a shoot, it means they’re not that famous,” he said. “If they’re big enough, a tattoo’s not going to matter.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/21/fashion/dr-woo-the-tattoo-artist-for-the-hollywood-set.html