At the box office with Sophie Elizabeth

Sophie Elizabeth is a 24-year-old social media/SEO executive and part-time blogger from London. We chatted to Sophie about her love for films, her fashion style and reactions to her ink at work… 

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When did you start blogging, how did you get into it? I started blogging around three years ago and it was more just an outlet to improve my creative writing and share what I was interested in. It started out as a way for me to write film reviews and then I introduced the odd outfit post and it sort of just grew from there. The more I posted, the more people started to take notice and now here I am. I think at the time, I felt that there weren’t many bloggers out there (who I followed anyway) that really represented me and my style and so I figured I’d just create one myself.

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What kinds of things do you blog about? My blog is essentially film and personal style although over the last year or so it’s progressed more in to London lifestyle, events, food and a bit of beauty also. It’s pretty much all the stuff I’m interested in and the random things I get up to.

How would you describe your style? I think my style changes like the wind – I tend to combine vintage inspirations with modern trends and I love all things 80’s and 90’s. I wear a lot of black (perhaps too much) and I love to play around with textures and prints.

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What inspires you? For me, it’s totally film. Filmmakers, directors and other critics really inspire me to write and learn more. I love going to the cinema and, for me, it’s always been the experience and the nostalgic values that come with it. I think I’m also inspired by other tattooed women – I’m very much in awe of them a lot of the time. I have a major girl crush on Hannah Pixie Sykes.

Do you have a favourite designer/artist? My boyfriend is a designer and so I’m probably supposed to say him! I follow a lot of tattoo artists such as Claudia De Sabe, Matty Darienzo and Thomas Hooper – I think they’re probably among my favourites.

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When did you get your first tattoo? Do you still love it? I got my first tattoo aged 16 and under age tattoos are never good tattoos. It was well done and by a good artist but it’s six stars on my stomach and very emo. I wouldn’t get rid of it though and I completely forget it’s even there now.

Tell us about your other tattoos? Most of my tattoos are traditional Navy inspired with thick, blown lines but I like to put a girly spin on it. Lots of flowers, animals and bright colours. I think my favourite is the Victorian lady on my thigh by artist Naomi Smith – I love the lines in her hair, the colours are amazing and how she’s got kind of a big nose. She’s perfectly imperfect.

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Do you have any future tattoo plans? I’d love to get more in the future as I haven’t had any in a while – I have some plans to get some dot work or menhdi and I find myself really drawn to bold, black tattoos lately. I’d like to add more to my legs and maybe get some more film inspired pieces too.

Do you consider yourself a tattoo collector? I don’t think I ever set out to be but given the amount I now have, I imagine I am. I am running out of space now though so not sure how much longer the collection can go on for.

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How did you get your current job? I worked in retail for about seven years, from turning 16 to finishing university, before finally making the move in to an agency environment. I applied as an Office Administrator originally, to get a foot in the door, but luckily I was able to work my way up very quickly.

Did you study, did you do work experience? I did my degree in Film Theory and Major Production and I don’t think I’d even heard of SEO or anything at that stage. I wasn’t 100% sure of what I wanted to do and had lots of experience but not necessarily in the correct fields. Luckily, because of my blog, I was able to use that as a sort of portfolio. I’m surprised how many doors it’s opened for me. If you can show you’ve done work off your own back and followed through with it then that’s good experience to have.

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What reactions do your tattoos get at work? Do you cover them or show them off? When I first started I was terrified of having them on show in case someone said something or it upset the directors. Thankfully, after a few months I eased up and they didn’t care either way anyway although I don’t think they’d ever seen anything like me before. I have them out sometimes at work (especially when it’s unbearably hot in summer) and hide them for some clients but that’s my choice to do so. I think I’m very lucky to be in an agency that’s very laid back and embraces individuality. I know a lot of other corporate companies may not see it that way. I’ve always said that if they asked me to cover them, that’s fine – I’ll do that; but it also doesn’t affect my work performance.

Careers: Tattooed Model Booker

We chatted to 22-year-old Laura who works as a model booker in London, about her beautiful tattoo collection and people telling her she doesn’t look like the tattooed type… 

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My first tattoo was (I’m embarrassed to say) those feathers with little birds coming out of them with the quote “Not all those who wonder are lost” I cringe so much looking at it but despite what it is it’s not actually a bad tattoo but just poor decision making on my part. I was 18 when I got my first tattoo and have learnt a lot about tattoos over the past four years so I try not to feel too bad about my first couple of tattoos!  At the time I loved it so I’ll never regret it but at the same time feathers and birds are so cliché;  I didn’t even realise the quote was from The Lord of The Rings (sorry!) so that makes me feel bad!

There are two people in my life that influenced me. My older cousins had tattoos and I used to think they were so cool. I’m like 12 years younger then them so they were my idols. When I was older (like 16/17) I worked with an Aussie girl at Dr Martens and she had beautiful tattoos, I can’t remember the name of the tattooist she went to but from then on I was set on getting at least one tattoo. I lost touch with her after leaving Dr Martens but I always think about her and her tattoos.

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I guess one of the first thing people notice is that the majority of my tattoos are ladies and animals, animals on my legs (there’s a couple of exceptions to that though) and ladies on my arms/chest. I have a tattoo by Daniel Gensch based on Rebecca from a novel by Daphne Du Maurier that’s on my arm, Sam Smith also tattooed a portrait of that author on the same arm. I love my Eckel tattoo, it took years to finally get a reply from him and I still can’t get over that I managed to get booked in with him!

My tattoos are quite girly apart from my chest piece that is a lady with daggers going through her head. Sam Smith tattooed that one as well, she finished it all  in five and a half hours, it’s one of my favourite tattoos but hands down the most painful. I’ve been really lucky with who I’ve been tattooed by;  Sadee Glover, Drew Romero, Kodie Smith, Magda Son, Georgina Jurd.. My most recent tattoo is a portrait of the actress Felicity Jones by Rose Hardy.

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There are so many artists that I admire and still want to get tattooed by, including Emily Rose Murray, Jacob Gardner and Sam Clarke, to name just a few! There are so many more though! I can’t wait to get my back started by Aimee Cornwall, I’m really excited but nervous because I hate not being able to watch myself being tattooed.

I saw my current job on Fashion Monitor whilst at my previous internship. I applied, got an email back 10 minutes later, had my interview the next day and got offered the job a couple of hours later! I started working at Scallywags which is a child’s modelling/acting agency and I’m starting up a little model division with Simon & How which is Scallywags big sister company. I look after Scallywags social media, answer the phone to parents but mainly look after new briefs that come in from clients I submit the children that match the briefs to the client, book in children for auditions, shoots. I do a lot of scouting as in town and have meetings with photographers and potential new clients.

Before that I was interning at the Anti Agency which was really fun, I learnt a lot and really enjoyed working there! Aside from that I’ve worked at Dr Martens, Fenwick’s, Whistles, Fred Perry, Office and Waterstones so yeah I’ve had quite a few jobs. I attempted university twice and changed my course three times. My courses were fashion based so I guess I tried to to study for my current job.

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Another thing I’ve been really lucky with  is doing lots of work experience. I started doing work experience at Vogue in the classified department when I was 14, I worked hard and eventually was allowed to work at GQ and Russian Tatler, I had done a lot of the packaging of clothing and accessories that had been on set for shoot. I assisted different stylists for a couple of years as well, interned at Tank, worked at Fashion week doing photography.

I tend to dress pretty casual for work as the office is super chilled. When I came for my interview I covered up all my tattoos and when I got my job I came into the office with most of my arms and legs on show. I’m lucky that my bosses actually don’t mind at all about tattoos. In general I usually wear a lot of dresses and skirts, little tops. I think I live in a constant mental state of summer, I hate winters clothing!

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I think my family have just accepted all of my tattoos now, they were never angrily against me getting tattoos but my parents were more worried about the financial side of things. I’ve got a twin brother who doesn’t have any tattoos and I just think that my family were more surprised that out of the two of us I started to get all the tattoos that I now have because I’ve always been the slightly awkward, quiet one. I think my work colleagues were surprised that I have tattoos just because they said I didn’t look like someone to have any interest in tattoos. That’s the most common thing I’ve heard people say about my tattoos that they were surprised I had any because I didn’t look the type, I don’t know like to me it feels normal and natural to have my tattoos but maybe to others it might not make sense.

I get a bit of a mixed reaction from strangers in the street, I get stared at A LOT and most the time I just ignore it but if I’m having a bad day and I’ve got someone glaring at me and shaking their heads it just makes me really anxious. People come up to me and start talking to me about my tattoos and that’s really nice when people have a genuine interest in the art that I have. I’ve had some mean comments as well from complete strangers like I was going to order a coffee from Costa and the guy serving we was like ‘oh you look really scary’ I only wanted my coffee not your opinion on me but yeah thanks! Recently I got told I looked like a public toilet which was very nice- people have such a lovely way with words!

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I would say to people thinking about their career when getting tattooed to think carefully about getting a obvious tattoo like on your hands, knuckles, face etc. just anywhere that can’t be covered just purely because some companies still judge someone on appearances as opposed to their skills and what they’re capable of. I think it’s a rubbish way of judging someone but at the end of the day that’s what people are like so before making a rushed decision and then being angry about not getting a job maybe just try sit down and have a careful think. As for getting tattoos on any other part of the body that can be covered then go crazy!

In the kind of job I have it doesn’t really matter about whether you have tattoos so I’m really happy about that, to be honest I’ve never really had a job (whilst having tattoos) that have a no tattoo policy, even when working at Waterstones I got my job because the manager liked my tattoos.

Rosey Jones Illustration

23-year-old Rosey Jones from the Netherlands creates bright and bold illustrations. We chatted to Rosey about what inspires her, her fashion style and her awesome tattoo collection…  

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When did you start up your company/big cartel store? I started my store exactly 10 weeks ago! It’s funny to think my intentions were never to make prints of my designs, it was coincidence that I got asked to make one of the designs I handpainted on a tote digital for a band from the UK – then I realised I could do this with more of my designs and eventually the main focus became making designs for prints instead of hand painting them on totes. That’s kinda how this all started!

What kinds of things do you create? My main focus is on making artwork for my prints, besides that I also handpaint tote bags that I sew myself too, but I haven’t got as much time for it at the moment. The designs on my prints vary from teacups to roses and from donuts to daggers, I literally just draw whatever I fancy at that exact moment which could be anything really!

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How do you create things, what is the process? I try not to think too much about what I draw so I usually just start sketching up some stuff that comes to mind, which usually happens when listening to music (might explain why half of my designs got lyrics included in them), then when I start seeing it come together as a whole I redraw my sketches with a sharpie, scan the image, and colour it digitally. I love the mix of it being both analogue and digital without it being super obvious how it’s done (if that makes any sense).

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Do you have a background in art? After I graduated high school I worked for Vans for three years so I had time to build up a portfolio – my biggest dream was to study photography. I eventually got accepted in the school of the arts in which I’m a third year photography student now!

What inspires you?  Literally anything and everything inspires me, I get fascinated by small things really easily which makes it quite easy to stay inspired all the time! Also cool looking people and nice tattoos inspire me a lot, and seeing amazing artwork of others always makes me want to get better at what I’m doing. I’m crazy lucky to be surrounded with passionate people, it’s really hard to be uninspired or unmotivated when the people closest to me are so supportive and hard working themselves.

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How would you describe your style? Both fashion and art.  I would say my artwork is pretty much the exact opposite of the way I dress, my artwork is all bold and bright while my clothing style is literally all black everything most of the time! I like simplicity, black jeans, black tee, black denim jacket and some sneakers to go with it (ok, maybe some dr martens when I’m feeling adventurous). I think for some strange reason my glasses make my outfit look a lot more fashionable as people keep on asking me where I got them from.

What does the word beauty mean to you?  Not much, if there’s one thing I learned over the past few years it’s that beauty is relative.

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Can you tell us about your own tattoos? I got quite a few tattoos for a 23 year old but then again, I started getting tattooed at the age of 16. My goal has never been to get covered as quickly as possible and I’ve never been one to get a whole suit planned out on my body either. Lately the main focus is on my legs as I just find that super pretty, finally got my second knee done too woo hoo! Couldn’t be more excited about that. Most of my pieces are done in the traditional style which is what I love most, there’s some very colorful ones and also some black ones but I think they go really well together. When I first started getting tattooed I always made sure I had some story to go with it but now I don’t really care about that anymore. Now I just want to get things tattooed that I find pretty or funny without it having to have a meaning – my latest addition is the donut design I drew myself. I’m super happy with how my legs are looking, all my favourite tattoos are on there.

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Which was your first, do you still love it? My first tattoo was Stay True on my wrist, got it done in Germany when I was 16 and knew nothing about tattoos or how they were supposed to be done. This might explain why it’s upside down too, but I don’t really regret it, it’s something I still stand for – wouldn’t say I love it but I wouldn’t get it covered either!

Mais2 Illustration

Alessandra Criseo, better known as Mais2 on Instagram, is an illustrator and crafter from Italy who has lived in London for the past five years. Inspired by Things&Ink Alessandra created this tattoo inspired girl for us… 

 

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How would you describe your style? Sometimes it’s hard for me to see- I love trying a lot of different things and techniques so sometimes I feel inconsistent, but apparently other people can see my identity better than I can. People that know often talk about my style mentioning the fact that it has humour and makes them laugh, and that it has something creepy about it as well. Both compliments.

What inspires you? From my side I get inspired by things happening to me and sentences that I form in my head in specific situations, things connected to my childhood and people and things I love. Externally I get my inspirations mostly from fashion, food, objects, strange combinations of items together. I realised that I get inspired more by photographic stuff than illustration, I guess because it is a different media.
I do of course follow a lot of amazing artists, but often when I see a drawing I really love and I think that is perfect, I don’t feel like I need to repeat what they already did.

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Do you have a background in art? I do, instead of high school I went to art school in my city, but it was quite crap at the time. It was the only art school in town and It wasn’t very good. In my third year I have chosen to specialise in fashion, where I met two of my favourite teachers though, so no regrets. I also did a two year course in a school of comics that allowed me to meet some of my artist friends and professionals and start my career.

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What medium do you use? I tend to draw and ink traditionally (with any pencil and graphic liners) because it relaxes me much more than digital. I colour digitally in Photoshop, or if I go for a more traditional technique I use markers.

What do you like to draw? I definitely love to draw silly people,oh and food- if together even better. I love spooky and dark subjects too, drawing street fashion and animals.

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Can people buy your illustrations? I have a bigcartel shop where people can buy everything I put on sale. At the moment you can find a few things in there and between those there is my first self published book Memento Bento that is an illustrated diary of my first trip to Japan- I’m very proud of it!

Do you have any tattoos? What do you think about tattoos? I love tattoos, I adored them from far away for ages before getting mine.
It’s always hard for an artist to decide what to get as a first tattoo because we change our mind easily and in my case my only certainty was that I didn’t want to design it myself- but I couldn’t stop picturing the composition in my head!

Tattoos are a big influence on my style, a lot of people get my illustrations as tattoos as well. Becoming a tattoo artist and tattooing my pieces myself is a dream of mine, I seriously have thought about that but I haven’t been brave enough to just do it yet. I wish some of my friends were tattoo artists to teach me and help me get started! Maybe one day, hopefully soon!

I got my first tattoos two years ago, on both of my calves.They are subtle references to two video games that really influenced my taste during my childhood and I’m sure I will love forever: Monkey Island and Prince of Persia. I also have a moon on my right wrist and I love it.

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Are there any artists that you admire? One of my biggest weakness is making lists of things I love or hate, seriously, that’s so hard for me! I don’t even know what my favourite food or song or colour are! Generally speaking I love a lot of Japanese illustrators, ancient and modern. I love their humour, I feel like they get me. I love a lot of graphic illustrations- I enjoy the process of limiting yourself with the amount of colour and detail. It makes the result so elegant and timeless, and I find it calming as well when I do it myself.

As I have already mentioned, tattoo art is a huge inspiration as well. I love symbolism and really appreciate the composition that a good tattoo artist is capable of creating. I love how a well done design can stand alone perfectly without even any need for a context. I also follow a lot of illustrators that don’t fit in any of these categories, especially on Instagram and Tumblr- I kinda like everything.