One of the Best Tattoo Shops in Los Angeles

Custom tattoos in Los Angeles & Santa Monica

A custom tattoo studio built around the design, not the queue

Apollo is a full custom tattoo studio at 2625 Main Street in Santa Monica, and almost everything we tattoo is drawn for one person. You come in with a reference, a photograph, a piece of writing or a half-formed idea; the artist works out how it should sit on your body, what size it needs to be to still read in twenty years, and which style will carry the subject best. Then we book the chair time it honestly needs. The alternative — squeezing a design into whatever slot is open this week — is how people end up with tattoos they quietly regret.

That covers small first tattoos, sleeves and long-term projects, memorial and portrait work, cover-ups and reworks of old ink, and restorative cosmetic and paramedical tattooing such as areola restoration and scar camouflage. We also keep flash on the wall for walk-in tattoos when you want something good today rather than something perfect in six weeks.

The styles our artists work in

Style is the first real decision, because it determines who should tattoo you and how the piece will age. Apollo covers fine line and single-needle work, black and grey, color realism and realism, Japanese and modern Japanese, American traditional and neo-traditional, blackwork, ornamental and dotwork, geometric and sacred geometry, illustrative and watercolor, minimalist, and script and lettering. The full comparison — how each one looks, how it holds up on real skin, and which artist specializes in it — is on the tattoo styles hub.

If you know the feeling you want but not the subject, start from the other end: tattoo ideas collects our most-requested motifs with placement notes and real examples, and lore & meanings digs into the symbolism behind them, from roses to Medusa.

The artists

Four resident tattoo artists work out of the Santa Monica studio, and each of them has a portfolio page of their own healed work — worth reading before you book, because matching the artist to the style matters more than matching the shop.

• Blue Mason — founder & master artist. Tattooing since 2007, with fine line, photorealistic portraits, traditional and tribal work, and a long specialism in cover-ups. Blue also pierces, and is the studio's senior piercing artist.
• Raa (Ramel El) — photorealism specialist. Hyper-real portraits, nature scenes and black-and-grey realism, at a level of detail clients travel across the country for.
• David DaVinci — portrait & color realism. Fine-arts trained, and it shows in the likeness and emotion he gets into portrait and memorial pieces.
• Hannah Newman — fine line & minimalist. Delicate fine line, script and small-tattoo work with meticulous attention to detail; a good first-tattoo artist.

Healed work from the Apollo chairs — see more in the studio portfolio or on each artist's page.

How a tattoo happens here

Every custom piece runs the same four steps. Consultation comes first — in person or over a message thread — where we look at your references, talk through size, placement and budget, and work out which artist should take it. Design follows: your artist draws the piece for your body, and you see it before the day, with time to ask for changes. The session is booked for the hours the work actually needs, with a fresh single-use setup and breaks whenever you want them. Healing is the part clients underestimate; the first two weeks decide how the tattoo looks for the next twenty years.

If it is your first, read the first tattoo guide and placement guide before you book, plus how to choose the right artist and what to bring to a consultation. If you tattoo with a medical condition, on medication, or with sensitive skin, start with tattoos and health.

Aftercare

Healing is not complicated, but it is unforgiving of shortcuts. Leave the wrap on for as long as your artist says, then wash gently with clean hands and unscented soap, pat dry and apply a thin layer of fragrance-free moisturizer two or three times a day. No baths, pools or ocean, no scratching or picking, and no direct sun on fresh ink. Full detail, including what normal healing looks like and when to call us, is in the tattoo aftercare guide.

Pricing & booking

Tattoos are quoted either hourly or as a flat price for the whole piece, and like every professional studio we carry a minimum that covers a fresh sterile setup. Size, placement, detail density and color-versus-black-and-grey all move the number, and an honest quote depends on seeing the design — which is why the consultation comes first and costs nothing. The full breakdown of what drives cost in this city is on our tattoo prices in Los Angeles page; if you are weighing shops, how to choose a tattoo shop in LA is worth ten minutes.

Getting pierced too? The same studio does needle-only body and ear piercing with implant-grade jewelry, and plenty of clients book both in one visit.

Frequently asked questions

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