Leo Olmos
Traditional/Neo-Traditional
Leo was born and raised in Chile, South America and has over seven years of experience tattooing in Perth, Australia. He specialises in traditional and neo-traditional tattoo styles, creating artwork inspired by a wide range of subjects including pop culture, gaming, nerdy designs, dark fantasy, animals, movies, western themes, and everything in between. Whether it’s a meaningful piece or simply a cool tattoo for a cool person, Leo enjoys bringing unique ideas to life through bold and timeless designs.
How did you get your start or become interested in tattooing?
Since a kid, I was always interested in tattoos. The whole idea of doing something that was a sort of “taboo” while I was growing up was fascinating to me, so badass.
Permanent marks and decorations were like customising your rpg character and making it unique. However, I never thought of it as a career until I moved to Australia. Realising that other countries had a bigger appreciation for tattooing and art in general gave me the confidence to pursue it as a legitimate career. As soon as I did my first tattoo i was hooked and I never looked back.
It’s my life!
What drew you to the style that you specialise in?
I was always involved in alternative subcultures, metalheads, punks, skinheads, goths, nerds, etc. growing up and hanging out with older kids and seeing their badly done “traditional” tattoos was always cool to me. When you mix that with skateboarding, fantasy books, video games and horror movies it’s hard not to want to incorporate all that into my work. I want my tattoos to look cool and timeless but I also want to create something for people like me who want a little more personalised and niche traditional tattoos.
What's on your "one day I'll tattoo this" wishlist?
I think the easy answer would be that one day I want to tattoo all my flash all day everyday haha. But I would also like to work on larger scale backpieces or leg sleeves and torsos, a big piece telling a whole story like a medieval fantasy war, knights and dragons necromancers,wizards elves, dwarves and undead warriors all in one big battle! Think army of darkness, lord of the rings, Elder scrolls or world of Warcraft!
But in all honesty, I’d be happy to just tattoo a huge traditional skull on someone’s back!
Do you have a favourite subject matter to tattoo?
I think it’s pretty obvious by now just how much of a fan I am of dark fantasy, medieval weapons, monsters and the whole lot but also I love finding the balance of those concepts while mixing them with softer things like ladies, flowers or animals.
My aim in tattooing is making sure my clients get what they want but also making sure that my style comes through in every tattoo I do.
What do you get up to when you're not tattooing?
I usually spend most of my free time enjoying a cold beer with the company of my cool wife and good friends.
Also I enjoy nerding out about stuff, from painting warhammer miniatures to discovering new music, learning about motorcycles, playing videogames, watching horror movies or simply having a walk around looking for dogs to pet!
