Thomas Möllers
Left to right: Thomas Möllers (artist) and Nala (cat)
Thomas Möllers AKA Tom Foolery Tattoos, is an artist specializing in Illustrative Color tattoos. Tom mostly focuses on anime, video game, and pop culture characters as the main subjects for his works. Well known across the Maritimes despite being both a newcomer to the industry and taking a light handed approach to social media!
Tom’s whimsical and playful personality is a very cold splash of water on the usual serious and “badass” demeanor of the stereotypical tattoo artist. We were excited to be able to ask him a few questions about his career and life before his guest spot with us at Pale Horse Tattoos!
I understand you started your career during the COVID lockdowns, how did that affect your apprenticeship?
“I started my apprenticeship before Covid came around. I believe I started in July of 2019, and I ended up taking clients around November. So for the first few months things were pretty normal. I would say it wasn’t until March when things finally closed that things started to change, like most things.
This was a challenging point for me. During my apprenticeship I worked at a grocery chain. A week before lockdown had begun, I put in my notice to inform them that I’d be leaving to pursuing tattooing full-time.
A week later, we were in the break room at the grocery store watching the new and we learned that lockdowns were to happen within a few days. It was pretty disheartening for me because I had to ask for a job I hated back.
In Newfoundland we had a 3 month lockdown, I ended up working the grocery store the entire time. Unfortunately for me, due to other factors, I ended up working 50-60 hour work weeks because we were short staffed during that time due to people feeling unsafe (I can’t blame them, just unfortunate circumstances).
The best I could do in the minimal time I had, was draw designs for when we reopened. As soon as lockdowns were lifted, I left the grocery chain and have been working in this field ever since, I’ve literally never looked back.
Upon reopening, it was a lot different. Clients couldn’t bring people with them, masks at all times, and we couldn’t do walk ins. That last part was one of the biggest changes, as a large part of my clientele would come from walk ins. Switching to appointment only definitely made it difficult to build up clientele in the beginning, and if I recall correctly, the studio I work for kept the appointment only status for well over a year, even after the restrictions were lifted.“
You seem to have landed pretty solidly into a style quite early in your career; did you find it hard to build a clientele that wanted anime and pop-culture tattoos?
“I grew up drawing anime, so it was a pretty natural transition once I finally started tattooing. However, building up a clientele base for anime and pop culture is a lot harder than people would think. I definitely feel like it’s a little niche in the tattooing community. There’s a lot of people that, reasonably, have concerns about committing to getting anime characters tattooed on them. For a lot of people, it’s a big step from getting more traditional tattoos to committing to a fandom for life, so with that mindset, it limits the amount of people willing to get work done. “
Anime characters are pretty set in stone otherwise they wouldn’t be those characters. In what ways do you add your creative vision to these established characters?
“Anime characters can definitely be set in stone, especially when it comes to the face and the hair. Those, in my opinion, are the most defining parts of any anime character, the same way that our faces are what define us as people. So I often rely more heavily on my references when it comes to the facial part of a design. Once I moved beyond the face I give myself more freedom to make changes.
One of the biggest ways I add my own creative vision is through the colouring/shading. I find with a lot of anime, they’re pretty minimal in terms of the amount of shading and highlighting that they use. I often find they end up looking very flat and I’m not a fan of things looking flat. So I have fun and try to create as much depth as I can with something that’s a 2D character. I actually use this logic in everything, even beyond anime tattoos.”
Your portfolio features a lot of Pokémon tattoos; what kind of client is getting tattoos like this? Are they our age reliving the nostalgia or is it a younger generation?
“So first let me say that I have this dream of completing the entire Pokedex. And when I say that, I mean everything from the first 151 to the newest generations they have coming out currently. However I realize this is a very unrealistic dream as there are literally over 1000 Pokemon and counting as we speak. But to try and do this, I started offering a flat rate deal on Pokemon that I haven’t tattooed before.
Now to answer the question, when I first started offering the deal I do, I had a lot of the first two generations of Pokémon going pretty quickly. What was surprising to me was that the age range was pretty big. The first person to get one was 6 years younger than myself, and then some have been in their 40’s and 50’s. I’ve been offering this deal for almost 2 years. What I have noticed is that as the younger generations have gotten older, I’ve slowly been doing some of the newer generations of Pokémon.
I’ve also got some die hard Pokemon fans that have come back to get multiple. I believe I have one client that currently has 7 and is considering what he’ll be getting next.
Speaking of a newer generation, how do you feel about the current state of the industry where tattooers must also be social media content creators?
“I feel like social media is necessary to a certain extent. It’s important to have your work out there for people to see. I primarily use my Instagram account as my portfolio, however I’m an infrequent poster and I don’t feel the pressure to be a social media content creator, so I definitely feel fortunate for that. I actually think that there was a time at the end of 2023 where I hardly used my social media and I didn’t notice a change in my schedule.
What I’ve noticed in my personal experience is that despite everyone feeling the pressure of needing to be a content creator, word of mouth is still very prevalent. Majority of my clientele base is simply from word of mouth.
With that being said, of course I still continue to post stuff because social media is still a tool to use to help build in other avenues.
I see newer and older artists always complaining publicly saying stuff like “I’d be busier too if I put any time into making Instagram videos but I focus more on the art” or “gotta make shitty videos just so people can come get tattooed”.
Personally I think making content for people is a great advertising tool for newer artists to build their clientele, and if other artists don’t like, that’s too bad. Maybe it’s a personality or artwork issue?
Was learning social media and marketing part of your apprenticeship? If not, do you wish it was?
“Social media and marketing was not part of my apprenticeship at all. In fact, the studio I work at didn’t even have an Instagram account until after I started and inquired as to why. They used Facebook but that was about it. In some ways, I wish there was some information given to me about marketing as there’s a ton for me to learn. If I’m being honest, I’m mostly just winging it when it comes to social media and marketing.
I honestly just wish I could take better pictures of my work haha.”
Technology has changed the tattoo landscape quite drastically, from equipment we use to create, to trending styles. Is there anything in your career you still do the “old fashioned” way?
“I definitely consider myself part of the newer generation of tattooers. Not having to hand stencil shit is one of the best advances in tattooing. Thermal copiers are the best and I’ll stand by that. Second best advance is the convinience of stuff like Procreate. Being able to design faster and make changes faster when needed. And then having wireless, lightweight, quiet machines, it’s awesome.
Long before I ever held a machine, I was getting tattooed the “old fashion” way. Stencil was hand drawn in front of me, if we needed to make adjustments.. well you’re waiting even longer while we draw it out again. God forbid you need to reverse the design, especially if got specific patterns that flow in a distinct way. However there is something about the buzzing of a coil machine that is warm feeling to me, it really brings me back. But as far as it goes for me, the only thing I really still do the “old fashioned way” are my preliminary sketches, like the really rough shit that makes no sense to anyone except yourself, and even sometimes it doesn’t make sense to you. For whatever reason when I switched to my iPad, my brain couldn’t wrap itself around doing the sketches on that. So a lot of times I’ll do a super rough sketch on paper and then do my second or third sketch on my iPad.
Its always interesting to hear what goals newer tattoo artists have. What goes do you have for yourself within the next 5 years?
“I’m just about 4 years in so far, and in 5 years I’ll be 9 years in. I have two goals in mind for the next 5 years. The first would be to opening up a co-op shop with, at most, two other people. Maybe that’s a bit ambitious on my end, but I definitely feel like with having such a niche clientele base, it would be more achievable sooner than later in my career. The second is gonna sound a little silly to some people, and maybe it’s a little vain, but I want to win an award for my tattooing. Not any award, but specifically an award for color tattoos. I just wanna do the best I can and I think having an award to strive for is a fun goal to have.
When you aren’t doing one of the twenty jobs required of a tattoo artist, how are you spending your free time? Do you find your after-work hobbies influence your career at all?
“I’m a big homebody. I don’t party a lot, and I’d prefer to just stay in with my cats. If I do get free time, I’m probably playing a video game. That’s definitely something that influenced my career because I always end up wanting to draw characters from the games I’m playing.”
Lastly, if you could go back in time and give yourself a single piece of advice when you started tattooing, what would it be?
“Do it sooner”
I went to university to become a high school teacher. I’d go back to tell myself to quit doing that sooner. I always wanted to tattoo but never really thought I’d be able to do anime tattoos, or even make tattooing a viable career. In hindsight that was really silly of me, and I’m so incredibly grateful that I’ve been able to find something that I love doing for a living.
Tom will be with us March 4th to March 11th this year tattooing and hanging out! We thank him for his time to tell us a bit about himself and his career!
Tom currently works at Studio Max in St. John’s, Newfoundland.
If you’d like to book with Tom you can send him an email at “tomfoolerytattoos@gmail.com” and check out his Instagram below!