Our very own Victor Modefferi went to the Inked office in New York City to tattoo a John F. Kennedy portrait on rapper Post Malone.
See the full video and interview with Post Malone and find out what J.F.K. means to him!
Author Archives: Victor Modafferi
High-caliber artists make Bullseye the Staten Island Readers’ Choice for ‘Best Tattoo Parlor’
Interview With Victor Modafferi
I recently had the pleasure of interviewing Victor Modafferi, Owner and Tattooer… Bullseye Tattoo. A great guy and some killer answers for my stupid question! Read and enjoy!
Joey Caps:
First off i’d like to thank you for getting online so early to answer some questions for our new site www.fuckthedumb.com
Victor:
My pleasure!
Joey Caps:
What are your feelings on the Asshole movement? Basically artists uniting and trying to keep a brotherhood and sisterhood in an industry that seems to just keep its own little sects and heavy on the politics?
Victor:
Seems to be a good thing, it is always a good thing in my opinion to share ideas, techniques, thoughts etc…. I think there is something to learn from everyone
Joey Caps:
Do you have any particular feelings on the heavy politics in the tattoo industry?
Victor:
There will always be politics in any industry…who likes who and who is kissing whose ass… it is unfortunate
Joey Caps
Agreed! It’s a never ending cycle that just seems to be getting worse… IMO
Victor:
You are probably right.
Joey Caps:
Enough of that, let’s get onto your story and background. I understand you practiced at the Fashion institute, what was your major?
Victor:
haha seems like a lifetime ago… yeah I majored in Illustration at FIT in Manhattan. I graduated and found the art business to be a tough one so I took a job delivering mail for the Post Office. haha. I was a mail carrier for about 3-4 years and then I quit to pursue art again.
Joey Caps:
I was a mail carrier in the air force… i know where you are coming from… right back to the art, the love of your life
Victor:
Yeah man, mail wasn’t my thing. I worked hard and eventually got on my feet as an illustrator and painter. By chance I ran into a friend I went to FIT with and he told me he was drawing tattoo flash and selling it to shops. Seemed like a good way to make some cash….and that is pretty much how Bullseye the flash company started.
Staten Island tattoo company making its mark
The Bullseye Tattoo shop at 282 New Dorp Lane is an offshoot of a Web-based business with an established – and somewhat unusual – niche in the tattoo industry.
Launched in December, the shop is a brick-and-mortar complement to BullseyeTattoos.com, which was founded in 2002.
The online firm creates, sells and distributes its own original designs to tattoo shops and individual consumers.
Tattoo-studio owners log onto the site to purchase “tattoo flash, (sheets containing a collection of tattoo designs, arranged in sets), which are part of the ‘tools of the trade’ for tattoo artists,” said company co-founder Victor Modafferi.
Individual consumers seeking tattoo illustrations also visit the Web site.
“We are experts in the creation of tattoo designs and running a business around it,” Modafferi said of himself and his business partner, Eric Iovino.
Bullseye Tattoos’ Artwork Featured In BIC Lighter Series
Staten Island, NY (PRWEB) May 22, 2008 — Tattoo enthusiasts who want to flick their BICs in honor of this form of body art will once again find themselves showing off the creations of two Staten Island-based artists. BIC Lighter has again selected artists from BullseyeTattoos.com to create the covers for its popular limited edition series dedicated to this distinct form of artwork.
Both Eric Iovino and Victor Modafferi will contribute to the project for the third year running. The lighter series was initially launched in 2006, featuring the works of both Modafferi and Iovino. The worldwide release was deemed incredibly successful and was subsequently followed up with another limited edition series in 2007.
As BIC poises to release its 2008 line, it has selected the same artists that have headed the project to success so far to create the 18 designs for upcoming release. This year’s lighters are expected to garner worldwide attention from tattoo enthusiasts.
“We are extremely honored to have our creations featured in the 2008 series,” said Iovino, co-founder and president of BullseyeTattoos.com. “The series not only gives us a chance to show off our designs, but it also pays homage to this ancient and popular form of artwork.”
Iovino explained that tattoo art has been a part of the human experience for centuries. In some cultures, tattoos are designed to show rank or belonging. In others, they are a form of self-expression, for example the somewhat recent popularity in lower back tattoos. In either case, tattoos represent the works of serious artists who simply choose to use a different type of canvas.
Because of the beauty of the artwork, the BIC series has been popular with both tattoo enthusiasts and art lovers alike, Iovino said. “You don’t have to get a tattoo to appreciate the intricacy and detail involved in many of these creations,” he said.
The limited third edition series will make its debut in early summer on a worldwide scale. This year’s lighter designs are distinct and different, Iovino said. Some of the tattoo designs enthusiasts can expect to find range from traditional tattoos, such as a skull and an anchor, to butterfly tattoos, to Asian-inspired themes like a geisha girl and dueling dragon tattoos.
“We’re very pleased with this year’s selection of artwork,” Iovino said. “The tattoo designs featured are going to blow fans of the series away.”
About Bullseye Tattoos
Bullseye Tattoos is an industry leader in tattoo flash artwork. Since its inception, Bullseye has become one of the most popular and heavily trafficked tattoo Web sites in the entire world.
The company specializes in the creation of downloadable designs for tattoo enthusiasts to buy and print out for personal use. Printed designs created by Bullseye can be taken to local tattoo parlors for permanent application by skilled artists. The driving concept behind Bullseye is to give tattoo fans a one-stop source for new designs to have artists apply.
Bullseye is located on the Internet at http://www.BullseyeTattoos.com. Visitors will find an extensive collection of ready-to-print tattoo designs and lots of information about tattoos in general on the site.
NY Daily News: Amid tattoo resurgence, artists put their talents to work
When artist Eric Iovino wandered into a city tattoo shop a decade ago, he had no idea how deeply the ink business would get under his skin.
The Staten Island native had studied at Manhattan’s Fashion Institute of Technology in the early ’90s in hopes of becoming a comic book illustrator. By 1996, though, comics giant Marvel had declared bankruptcy, and Iovino felt that his chances of finding work in the industry would be slim.
But at the tattoo parlors springing up just after the city relegalized the practice in 1997, Iovino began to see the writing on the walls in the form of flash, the designs that tattooists use as stencils for their work.
“Once I understood what it was, I knew how I could make money off of it,” said Iovino, 34, who co-owns Bullseye Tattoos, both a shop in Stapleton, Staten Island, and an online flash retailer.
A novel tattoo parlor paints the mark in New Dorp
It started out as another page on the World Wide Web. Now, one of the most popular tattoos design sites has taken concrete shape on Staten Island. Dead center on New Dorp Lane, Bullseye Tattoos doesn’t have the facade of the average tattoo parlor. “I didn’t want it to look like bikers and criminals come in here,” said co-founder, Victor Modaferri.
He and his business partner Eric Iovino opened the shop just last December, and Modaferri says business is already doing better then expected—not bad for a guy who claims to have never taken a business course in his life. From the 18 year-old who’s been itching to get one legally, to a 65 year-old woman who wants to walk on the wild side, the shop is attracting all types of people to come see what tattooings all about.
However, the two native Staten Islanders had become successful tattoo artists years before the shop opened. Graduates of the Fashion Institute of Technology, they’ve been designing tattoos since 2001—before Modaferri even had any tattoos (he now has five). He says getting off the ground wasn’t easy. The duo started off selling sheets of tattoo designs, known as “flash”, to parlors through eBay. Modaferri says the business really took off when they marketed the flash in bulk (so to speak), selling 50 sheets at once for a discounted price to tattoo shops and supple companies.
In 2002, they launched bullseyetattoos.com. The innovation allowed people to shop for tattoos at home and was the only site offering such a service at the time. Customers can log on, buy their tattoo design online, print it out, and bring it to their local parlor to get inked. Modaferri and Iovino are still the two primary designers, although more than 100 artists all over the world design for Bullseye. Google the word “tattoo” and bullseye is among the few choices on the first page.
“We get about 10 million hits and 35,000 unique visitors everyday,” Modaferri said.
Now, local customers are printing out their tattoos and bringing them to bullseye tattoo’s location on New Dorp Lane. While the Shop’s owners are usually designing and running the day-today business, they say their reputation in the industry is attracting some of the country’s most talented tattoo artist to come and work for them.
One featured artist is Shane O’Neill, who has garnered national attention in the industry for his portrait work. O’Neill comes up to Staten Island from Delaware once a month to take customers…by appointment only.
Tattoo and piercing artist from all over the country are also flocking to work at the shop. “The company has a solid name behind it,” said Pete Carreno. Now one of Bullseye’s Main tattoo artists, the New Jersey native used to be a partner in his own tattoo shop in West Palm Beach Florida. Looking to move back up North, he took the shop’s opening as the opportunity to come back home.
Bullseye Tattoos is still a community business and it’s currently giving one Islander the opportunity to practice his craft. South Shore resident, Eric “Deuce” Goldenberg is a piercing apprentice. He says it took him more then a year to find a place that would even give him the chance. For now you can see him working the cash register or cleaning up the shop. He says he spends a lot of time “looking for guinea pigs,” as most of his customers, thus far, have been friends willing to let him practice on them.
While there are no immediate plans to open a second shop, the owners say it’s always a possibility. Right now, they have other ventures at hand. Bulleye has been selected for the third year in a row to design a limited series of tattoo designs for Bic lighters. They’re also coming up with tattoo design for cell phones, i-Pods, and other electronic staples. They are also launching a clothing line, which comes out in August and scheduled to debut at the magic Tradeshow in Las Vegas.
While they’ve got a lot on their plates these days, Modaferri and Iovino say they are glad to be keeping bust. When looking back on their days of called themselves “starving artist,” working dead-end jobs to pay the rent, they say they’re appreciative to have jobs they enjoy waking up in the morning for. Modaferri said, “if Bullseye were to ever fail, I would not go out and get a real job.”