Emerging alongside other classic fatalist tattoo themes like “Born to Lose” or the iconic skull and crossbones, Man’s Ruin is a celebration of the dark side of human nature, glorifying that, while we will all die eventually, some vices are more fun than others.
Joe Capobianco, an iconic contributor to the lexicon of tattooing, was a pioneer in developing his own illustrative voice, capturing classic tattoo themes in a style that was uniquely his own. His flash on the walls inspired countless tattooers to learn and practice illustration, and in doing so, develop their artistic style. With that in mind, Joe developed this stamp set based on one of his favorite themes, enabling you to jump into the mind of a tattooer with decades of experience, exploring the nuance and how to think about expressing complex ideas in interesting ways.
Classic Man’s Ruin designs featured a pinup in an oversized alcohol classic with an assortment of other images of vice around her. In designing the pinups for this set, Joe drew many of the pinups to easily combine with cocktail, beer, and martini glasses. They are also versatile enough to use without the glassware, or in other designs outside of the Mans’ Ruin theme. This stamp set gives you a huge toolkit of imagery, including the female and male pinups, as well as drugs, alcohol, weapons, and gambling. Use them to create classic Man’s Ruin combinations or as elements of your own designs that celebrate some of the more fun corrupting influences.
“What I really dig about the Tattoo Smart stamp set is the idea of bringing back tattoo ‘flash.’ Early on in my career I spent countless hours producing dozens of sheets of flash. Practice in drawing and techniques for me, and making imagery available to other tattooers. This isn’t about cheating, or making bad tattooers/artists lazy, but offering that imagery as a starting off point for a design. By using these stamps as a jumping off point to lay out ideas, it’s sort of like the old days of tattoo flash when a tattooer could look at the walls of their shop, find inspiration from them, and then create their own take on what had been started around them…”
- Joe Capobianco
Learn how to install Tattoo Smart brushes:
Procreate Brush Installation (iPad)
Clip Studio Brush Installation (Mac/PC)
Clip studio Brush Installation (iPad)
Procreate® is a registered trademark of Savage Interactive. iPad Pro and Apple Pencil are registered trademarks of Apple Inc. Manga Studio® and Clip Studio Paint® is a registered trademark of Smith Micro Software, Inc. Wacom products are registered trademarks of Wacom.
