Most people consider Mister Cartoon a tattoo guy. Yet, after sitting down with the world-renown ink artist directly after unveiling his new custom Camaro SS last week in Metro Detroit, there was no doubt this LA native is clearly a car guy who just happens to be an amazing artist.
As part of Motor City’s annual Woodward Dream Cruise gathering, the latest creation from Cartoon’s SANCTIOND automotive lifestyle brand was recently debuted in Birmingham (MI), bringing some souped-up style to the swanky Townsend Hotel. Amidst numerous products bearing his famed clown logo and the custom-designed 2011 Chevy model in its full glistening glory, the sleeved-up renaissance man sat down with TSS Crew’s BEWARE and spoke on how taking an unforeseen path as a tattoo artist more than 20 years ago allowed him to fulfill his longtime infatuation with automobiles decades later.
TSS: You are known across the globe as one of the tattoo industry’s most prominent artists. Yet, here you are unveiling your own custom Chevy Camaro SS. How did you manage to parlay tattooing into customizing cars?
Cartoon: Tattooing and car customizing are generally two different worlds, but they do collide. Most guys that build cars are heavily tattooed. It’s just known, you know what I mean? The top builders, they always have tattoos. So, for me, I would trade my tattoos and get car stuff. Before I even knew how to tattoo, I would airbrush their cars to get my car done.
So, when I was 17, I didn’t have any money. I couldn’t to afford the cars I wanted. So, I had to find a way to get that sh*t. My dad says, ‘It’s easy. Just get a trade in that business. You want to be into cars? Just find a trade, work that every day and they’ll just give it to you.’ So…that’s what I did.
TSS: A little outside the beaten path.
Cartoon: I never planned on being a tattoo artist, man. I was a professional illustrator before I was a professional tattooer. I would work for Hustler magazine.
TSS: You did Larry Flynt’s limousine, right?
Cartoon: Right. I’d be airbrushing cars and they’d be like ‘Can you do this album cover?’ And, I’d be like…’Hell yeah’ and then I’d do the album cover. Then, they’d be like, ‘Hey, can you mural this wall?’ ‘Yeah, I can do that.’ Then, they’d ask, ‘Can you gold leaf this Harley?’…I would just bounce from all these different areas. I’d do graffiti on one end and then gold leaf on the other. It all intersected and seemed the same. It was just learning different tools to (go back and forth).
I was always doing all the same sh*t. I’d draw clowns, girls, swirls and those type of street images, but I love everything. I love American muscle cars, lowriders and luxury cars. I always have a little bit of each. As I’ve gotten older…I’m 44…I’m in a different place. I got four kids, I’m traveled. The whole time I’ve been doing cars. I haven’t stopped since I was 18 years old. I’ve always been working on cars. It takes a good 20 years to get it in.
TSS: Full circle.
Cartoon: Full circle. The idea of success is different for everybody. For me, it’s seeing my kids are happy, my wife is happy, and I get to do what I love to do. I love drawing, but I feel like I constantly…constantly….have to go to the next shit. I’m looking on how I can be bettering myself. How I can be faster? How can I be smoother? I’m trying to think bigger and build the right team around me.
So, I got artists I’m working with and people I’m kicking it with, I want to make sure they have a similar vision, with similar goals in mind. And that’s to f*ck with these cars, rock vintage J’s and make our sh*t right… feed our family, travel, go to Europe, go to Asia…go see that sh*t. Take your childhood and take it on tour, you know what I’m saying?
TSS: Well, you got the J’s. You got the cars. This ain’t quite Asia, it’s Detroit…but good enough.
Cartoon: Detroit is the sh*t, man. Detroit is the Motor City. Detroit is Motown. If there’s two things we’re into more than anything, it’s classic soul and cars. American cars. I f*ck with Mercedes and all that sh*t too, but if I could have one type of car, it’d be a Chevy. We have bow ties tattooed on us (lifts sleeve and points to his tattoo of the Chevy emblem), you know what I’m saying? That’s standard for us. All my friends got ‘em. We have our car club plots too, you know? Even with that stuff, car clubs…we’re kind of over that standard, that style. Now, we’re on some whole other sh*t.
TSS: I would say so. You’re working with the manufacturers.
Cartoon: Yeah. That’s beautiful. Recaro. Psssh. That’s retarded. We love what they do. Us putting our spin on it, that’s what we’re about.
TSS: As an ink artist, your ideas are only limited by your creativity. Yet, the scenario is much different when you’re working on an car. How was your creative process affected by the canvass you had to work with?
Cartoon: You know, going with cars is going to be different than skin. But, a lot of time with skin, you do have limitations. How long’s the person going to be able to sit? Or, what’s this tattoo going to look like in 10 years? You’re like, ‘I want to detail that sh*t, but in five years…it’s going to be together more and more.’
So, I got to think about what this person’s arm is going to look like in 20 years. So, there are some type of limitations there. And, what type of tattoo a person can afford. You want to do all this cool sh*t, but their budget ain’t there. I’ve got to do some extra sh*t to make this what I really what I want it to be.
Same thing when I look at a car. You know, I want to put glass floors in a car, but…
TSS: (Laughs) Not very practical.
Cartoon: Yeaaah. I would have to do some glass floor mats, looking on the ground, so I could make sure there’s no extra potholes I missed (Laughs).
But, nah, it’s like sometime there’s extra sh*t I want to do on a car and it’s either…there’s not the time or it’s not really practical. Like, I want to supercharge this (points to his custom SANCTIOND Camaro SS and makes supercharged engine sounds with his mouth). Not practical for what this needs to be, right now.
With cars, you also have to think you can get too wild and make this shit look ugly. You can do too much. You have to know when to fall back. You have to know when it doesn’t fit the car.
TSS: I’d imagine that has a lot to do with having the right team around.
Cartoon: Having the right team to be going in the right direction. You know, I can’t do the ice cream truck on everything. It’s just too gaudy. But for that, it’s an ice cream truck. It gets a pass for being loud and outrageous. Some guy might look at that and say it’s ugly. But, he don’t listen to Hip-Hop. He don’t care about graffiti and reading it on the side of the freeway. He’s not that guy, so I don’t expect him to like it. I’m not painting it for him to like it.
I paint for my peers and my culture to dig on it. And I had to design this Camaro the same way. I want every kid going, ‘Ahhh man. That’s what I want to drive. I want to roll that car. I get goosebumps when I see it’
And it looks different driving on the street, through the city. It looks good under these lights (*looks at car display*).
TSS: It’s beautiful. That’s a piece of art.
Cartoon: And that’s how we go about stuff (grabs the bottle of SANCTIOND Cartoon Car Cleaner Wax from the table and points to packaging). The embossing. The foil. I have a message to people that this ain’t some licensing deal I went and did. This is for real. Me and my homeboys’ company. We’re doing this out of our garage basically.
We keep pushing and trying to perfect ourselves and step it up to be an American household brand. We want to be in people’s garage, when they have that wax there. That’s how we big we want to think. I want my grand kids to inherit this. That’s what we’re trying to do with all this stuff (points to car).
TSS: What’s your favorite feature on the Camaro?
Cartoon: I got to say the hips. The wide body.
TSS: That thing’s definitely got an ass.
Cartoon: Yeah. I want to do the front, but then I don’t. The wide body in the front sometimes, it does change the car a lot. When it comes out, it looks too much like a…to me, it’ll be like an 80s Ferrari body kit on another car. So, you got to watch that, you know what I’m saying? There’s a guy in LA that knows how to do the best wide bodies. His name is Topo. He’s the wide body king. He knows how to make them look. This one (points to car) was done by DTN. They have their way.
You know, I love doing hand-painting on these cars because you’re not supposed to do that. You’re really not supposed to stripe these type of cars. And, the center exhaust is something that I love that you don’t see. A little smidge of carbon fiber. And, everyone kind of accents their sh*t in red, so I liked the Dodger blue. Kind of my trademark on my cars. But, I might flip it up. I got a 2014 S-Class coming. That’s gonna’ be another one that’s going to be hogged out, slammed…not on bags…but we lower it down. It looks like…’how the hell do you turn the wheel?’
TSS: That’s exactly what I was wondering about this one, man. My dudes work with big bodies, but they raise them to make the wheels fit. I know you say that’s something to stay away from.
Cartoon: Yup. You want to lower ‘em.
TSS: I could see it that for the big bodies. But on this one, I can’t even see how you turn the wheels without it rubbing.
Cartoon: Yeah, it turns no problem, man. No rubbing or nothing.
TSS: That’s amazing.
Cartoon: It’s pretty amazing that it doesn’t rub.
TSS: Yeah. I know it comes down to the centimeter with how that refinement works.
Cartoon: Yeah. It is down to the centimeter. They say, ‘are you sure there’s enough room?’ If you can fit a piece of paper through, there’s enough room.
TSS: That’s wild. Moving beyond the cars, what else is coming down the funnel? You’ve designed shoes for Nike, a phone for Samsung and now cars for Chevy. What’s next?
Cartoon: Next is I’m doing a lot of stuff for sports teams. The (Los Angeles) Kings right now, I redesigned all their apparel. They needed that D.O.C. and NWA look like they had before. That was my era, you know? So, that was definitely what I wanted to bring to it and they had the open mind enough to let me.
TSS: So, is that like an alternative jersey or logos?
Cartoon: I did the helmets. The goalie’s helmets. I hand-painted those. That’s like putting a lowrider in the demolition derby. Because they’re all hand-painted with pearls, then we bury them in clear. You don’t want them to get f*cked up, but they’ll get war wounds on there. They’ll be wearing those in the game. But, all their apparel, too. So, all the hoodies, t-shirts, the Starter hats and all that type of sh*t you see. So, that’ll be dope.
TSS: That’s awesome, especially because it’s hockey. That’s the last league I would have expected you to collaborate with.
Cartoon: Yeah. We’re shooting a crazy documentary with them. I’m doing a graph wall with a group of kids they work with there locally, where I include them and have them help me paint a little bit. We’re going to bring out all our cars to the parking lot of the games. They want to bring other people to hockey, too. More minorities. Have them see how dope it is.
TSS: That’s a sweet promo run. And the team’s good and the market’s there, so that makes sense.
Cartoon: Yeah. They’re doing great right now, so it was good timing. There’s a lot of other stuff I wish I could tell you about man, but, you know…
TSS: This point comes in every interview I do. I get it. Can’t let the cat out the bag. (laughs)
Cartoon: Yeah, there’s cool stuff on the way and that’s what’s important. We got to be careful with our collabs. We can’t just take any collab that comes our way.
TSS: I was wondering that. How do you pick and choose?
Cartoon: You’ve got to consider different things. You know, I wear Vans and I wear Nikes. So, that’s easier. I’ve got to use the company stuff. I’ve got to love the company. I can’t go up there and lie at the podium. It’s just not for real, you know?
TSS: It all comes back to having peace of mind with what you do.
Cartoon: Yeah. I got to say my name and their name and it’s got to be…with that picky company. Like, if you go in their factory and they have a little smidge on something, they’ll circle it and won’t use it. You know, we might go, ‘Yeah, that’s cool. We’ll stretch it.’ Not them. They’re real picky. They say like something like 70% of their material goes into the garbage, because they can’t use it.
TSS: That’s insane.
Cartoon: We like to have high standards like that. I like to hear that. I like to hear that kind of stuff when I go visit other places. Like, I did this watch with Diesel. They’re nuts. They’re so detailed and anal with their sh*t. That’s how Nike and them are, too.
TSS: And that’s why they maintain such a high status. For my last question, I wanted to move back into tattooing real quick. You’ve inked everyone from Justin Timberlake and Dr. Dre to LeBron James and Kobe Bryant. You’re putting elaborate pieces on them, which take hours. Of all the people you’ve inked, who had the most trouble dealing with the pain?
Cartoon: I haven’t had any of those big guys tap out. Eminem sat there for a good six or seven hours. He sits like a stone, you know what I mean? It’s good to see those guys though…they got it made. Em, though? Real dude. Real guy. See him arguing with his old lady on the phone, while I’m tattooing him. Real guy. Everyone gets a hard time by their old lady.
TSS: (Lifts left hand) Oh yeah.
Cartoon: (Laughs and does the same) I’ll tell ya.’ But, yeah man, Proof. I tattooed Proof. Those guys were just fired up to be there you know. I love it. I wish I had a cool story about someone who tapped out and couldn’t take their sh*t. But, I think when they come to my shop…they got to be ready. They’ve got to come correct.
For more on Mister Cartoon and his SANTIOND brand, head to their official website, follow the brand on Twitter (@SANTIOND) and make sure to keep an eye out for his custom 2011 Chevy Camaro SS when it’s showcased in full during the 2013 SEMA Show this November.
Photos: Mister Cartoon/SANCTIOND, Michael Wayland, MLive
