Carlos Velasquez, also known as Velco, is a tattoo artist who specializes in creating unique textured tattoos. Although he didn’t start tattooing professionally until 2019, he’s already a master of the grimy style.

His tattoos, designs, music, and streetwear studio are a hybrid. When I first started tattooing, “I only did fine line work,” he told Demilked, “because I wanted to get familiar with the skin, the needle, and the ink before trying different styles.” My current go-to approach, the dotwork effect, was discovered after a year of effort when a client asked me to incorporate shade into one of my designs. To my joyful surprise, I really liked the grainy texture that resulted, and that changed the direction that I went in with tattooing.

In addition, Velco stated, “The effect gave me the sensation of the beautiful vintage, grainy texture in photographs recorded with a film camera, and since then, I’ve been working on designs where I can combine this effect.” You may see some examples of his amazing tattoos in the gallery below.

Credit: demilked

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Image source: Velco

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Image source: Velco

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Image source: Velco

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Image source: Velco

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Image source: Velco

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Image source: Velco

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Image source: Velco

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Image source: Velco

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Image source: Velco

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Image source: Velco

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Image source: Velco

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Image source: Velco

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Image source: Velco

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Image source: Velco

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Image source: Velco