The right artist for your next tattoo

al Minz:

Our top tattoo artist Oleksandr Minec, 'Al Minz' to the Fleming ;), will frequently return to our tattoo studio Inksane in 2023.

He has frequently been our guest since 2019, and we would like to introduce him a bit more in detail to you, so scroll on down!

Al does work in both color as black-and white, in his own picturesque realistique style.

Here you can see a portrait of two children on a thigh. A small portion of it served as a cover-up for an old tattoo (under the shirt of the boy, you can still see a bit from the previous version coming out at the bottom).
Done in 2 sessions.
This style simply is black and white with colored ink.
Instead of simply using black and water like in regular black and white tattoos Al uses grey (covering) colors. This is ideal for cover-ups. cover-ups, and is often used by the best artists specializing in portraits.

Wolves are always a popular subject for tattoos in realism. Still, Al always makes his own version of them. Here you can see his typical paint stripes as a detail in the background. This tattoo is on the upper arm, and was done in 1 go. The date in the "negative" (=there is no ink) has a personal meaning for the client.

Immortalize your faithful four-legged friend while you still can

Dog portrait in color

This client came to Al Minz specifically to have his dog portrayed on his shoulder. This portrait was done in one day, which is normal for a pet portrait.

 

realistic guest artist in Belgium.

THERE ARE SEVERAL GUEST SPOTS FIXED FOR AL MINZ SCATTERED THROUGHOUT 2023.

That means you can easily start a larger project with him, and spread your sessions over longer periods of time.

Family and animal themes

Al likes old pics.

1 session, portraits and flowers

And also animals

2 tattoo-sessions

Child's portrait

Half of the lower arm on the inside, 1 session

Portrait of father who passed away

This man was a crane man, and his daughter had a drawing of her late dad immortalized by AL. 2 sessions on the upper arm.

What our customers have to say

I am very satisfied with Al Minz. He's a very friendly and calm man. And obviously delivered beautiful work. True Artist. Real art.
"They assign you to the artist that is best suited for the style of the tattoo that you want. Good prices and very friendly staff."
“Amazing artists, spotlessly clean shop, friendly staff. Everybody was super sweet and helped translate forms and aftercare instructions into English for us.”

How does it work?

Sometimes a bit of a model

"Confession of a tea-drinker"

At Inksane, we have a range of artists who each specialize in their own style.
AL Minz is one of them: a realistic tattoo artist, guest in our tattoo studio. Al comes to Inksane Sint-Niklaas (near Antwerp), and Roeselare. He lives in Poland, but does not have his own tattoo shop there. Rather, he goes on tour between different European tattoo studios.

It is the job of our Inksane reception to match all the client's wishes to the best artist. When you send us an email, we deduce from your detail what genre you want and therefore which artist is best suited for your idea. Sometimes this requires us to email a few questions back and forth before we have enough info to select the right artists. Feel free to sum up your ideas, and if not clear enough we will still invite you to come by and discuss your tattoo(s). If you email us we normally reply within the first few days.

 
01

Make a tattoo appointment

If you already have a preference for a certain artist, e.g. Al, we will still double check to make sure said artist fits your project.

If not, we will make you a customized proposal. For example, if it appears from your mails that you especially want a fineline tattoo, or beautiful geometric figures, but this artist specializes only in realism tattoos (which doesn't include linework or geometry), then we're going to suggest you a linework specialist instead. Al doesn't place small tattoos either. But we have another suitable permanent artist for that too. Each of our tattoo artists is especially specialized in his own particular technique.

When fixing your appointment, we ask for a deposit. Such a deposit can be paid in cash or by bancontact (if you booked in the studio itself). Or digitally if you booked via email. Advance payments are retained if you cancel late or do not show up. If you cancel in time, you can reuse your advance later, or request it in the form of a gift certificate.

 
02

Choose an artist yourself

Married!

With Xenia <3

Given the fact that Al is a foreign guest artist, he is not permanently available with us.
When you make your appointment, he will most likely not be here in Belgium.

You can send us examples of tattoos you like, but you don't have to. Ideally they are examples of Al himself.
The best thing you can do is explain in words what you'd like, for example: 'I want the portrait of my dog, in color, on my under arm'. If you don't know everything, it's not that bad, because we are here to help you with the thought process and reason, by asking questions. After that, Al is going to make his own design with your delivered picture.

03

Tattoo idea

At the beach

In his free time Al likes to be outside, amongst nature.

Your Al Minz design will show up on the day of your appointment. After all, there is always only one client booked in each day. We start at 11 a.m.

This allows plenty of time for possibly an additional conversation, or to modify your design (although that is usually not necessary).

If you insist on seeing your design in advance, e.g. a few days earlier, you most certainly can. It is also possible that Al may need to ask further questions during this meeting before he can finish the design.

An appointment like that takes +/- 30 min. This means that your tattoo appointment is not at the start of his guest spot (=period when he is with us in the shop), but rather in the middle or the end.

With each of our artists, the duration time and way of consulting in advance varies a bit. The way of working also depends a bit on the desired styles for your tattoo(s), applied inspiration, supplied photo, etc.

04

See the design

More examples of Al's work

Nature theme

Inside upper arm, part of a sleeve. Sensitive skin!

Result

Same sleeve as the previous one, but now the outside of the upper arm.

Wolf

This one is a classic. Combination of black and white with colors. 1session.

Border Collie

Pet of the client.
Inside of forearm, 1 session

Fantasyversion of the pet cat of the client.

1 session, femur, with a nice story.

Golden Retriever

Shoulder, 1 session

Entire sleeve

Japanese theme, done in realism.

Inside of that same sleeve

+- 6 sessions in total

Sleeve with animals

+- 6 sessions in total

realistic tattoo artist belgium

Request price and date proposal (free):

Via this form you can tell us what tattoo project you have in mind.
We will give you more information if necessary and a price proposal.
When the idea doesn't seem to be ideal for Olga, but more ideal for another artist, we will tell you as well.
With the price proposal, you will also get one or more available dates.
You are free to decide if you want to fix a date or not.
This information is entirely free!

 
Step 1 of 4

The free dates under here are always up to date and only an indication:

Inksane Roeselare

03-04-2025 - 15-04-2025
Available dates
Thu 3/4Fri 4/4Wed 9/4Thu 10/4Fri 11/4
Tue 15/4
22-05-2025 - 03-06-2025
Available dates
Tue 27/5Wed 28/5Thu 29/5Fri 30/5Sat 31/5
Tue 3/6
28-08-2025 - 08-09-2025
Available dates
Thu 28/8Fri 29/8Sat 30/8Tue 2/9Wed 3/9
Thu 4/9Fri 5/9Sat 6/9

Inksane Brussels

25-06-2025 - 07-07-2025
Available dates
Thu 26/6Fri 27/6Sat 28/6Tue 1/7Wed 2/7
Thu 3/7Fri 4/7Sat 5/7
27-08-2025 - 09-09-2025
Available dates
Thu 28/8Fri 29/8Sat 30/8Tue 2/9Wed 3/9
Thu 4/9Fri 5/9Sat 6/9Tue 9/9

Al doesn't always tattoo, he likes drawing as wel.

Digital painting is done by him on his Wacom drawing tablet. Or simply by using a pencil on paper.

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One final thing

These 2 clients of Al are a couple, and had a photoshoot with their tattoos. Enjoy!

PS: Did you know that we have our own photographer? Who wishes to have a shoot like this as well, can always mail to: tom@inksane.be

FAQ

All shops are open from Tuesday until Saturday, from 11h00 - 18h00.

Appointments with guest artists can also take place on Sundays and Mondays

Our reception takes care of the bookings, organization and appointments.

Often the high artistic qualities of our artists are accompanied by a lack of social and organizational skills 😉
That's not always the case though, but it's a handy guideline.

Most of the time we are indeed, but don't hesitate to contact our reception to be sure!

Our reception is open from Tuesday until Saturday.
You can walk in without appointment, with all your questions.

Appointments with our guestartists could be on a Sunday, Monday or holiday because they usually work 7/7 for the short period they are here.

A guest artist is a high level artist from another country coming to our shop for a short period of time (for example 3 weeks).

Checking the design always happens in our shop. We don't send the design by e-mail. Because your guest artist is not in the shop permanently, checking your design beforehand is not always convenient. If you really want to see your design beforehand, we could for example schedule an appointment of 15 minutes on day 1 and have you tattooed on day 5.

We schedule one client per guest artist a day. On the day of your appointment you will have enough time to discuss and adapt your design if necessary.

Would you like to see the design beforehand? Be sure to let the reception know when booking your appointment.

No, that is not an option.

You can pay with cash, card and Inksane gift vouchers.

You can! Visit our shop online or buy one at the reception!

Inksane Gift Certificate

You can choose the amount you want to put on it yourself.

Gift vouchers are valid for 1 year (the appointment has to be made within 1 year, the tattoo can be placed afterwards).
During the pandemic we obviously don't pay attention to the expiration date. 😉

You can use this gift voucher for tattoos and piercings in all of our shops.

There is no general price list. We work with a wide range of different tattoo artists: each of them has its own price rates and waiting period.

Some artists work with an hourly rate, others prefer a set price.
Our guest artists mostly have a day session price rate.

If you send us an e-mail with the tattoo you have in mind, we can give you a price estimation. In order to do this of course, we have to know what you want, which style, size, color or black and grey and body placement. If you don't know how big the tattoo should be or where to place it.. don't worry, our reception is happy to help you!

With the necessary information our reception can hook you up with the right artist and give you a price estimation. All this with a smile and free of charge.

For sure!

Every Inksane shop has a reception ready to answer your questions. You don't need an appointment to come in.

If it seems necessary to have a chat with the artist, we'll check if that is possible. If not, we will book in a short appointment to discuss your idea with the artist.

That depends on several factors:

  • The style (and thus the fitting artist. Every artist has their own price).
  • The size of your arm.
  • The complexity (or simplicity) of the design.
  • Color or black and grey.
  • Your skin type: We only know this when we start tattooing. Some skin types take the ink easily, for other skin types it can take up to 3 times more time before the skin takes the ink well.

A couple of ground rules:

  • expect around 4 sessions with styles such as biomech subgenres, scripting and other classic allround.
  • 5 to 7 sessions with black and grey photorealism.
  • 9 sessions for full color realism.

Our reception is professionally trained in estimating the amount of sessions needed for any given tattoo.
If you mail us (or show us in person) your idea, we will ask the necessary questions in order to then point you towards one or more artists and give you an estimation of the price and waiting time.

A day session with the same tattoo artist has the same price, whether it's color or black and grey.
An artist specialized in color is not more expensive than an artist specialized in black and grey.

Though black and grey tattoos go faster, so you will see more result after one day session.

Fun fact: our realism artists almost always prefer to do full-color 🙂

Yes, when booking an appointment we ask to pay a deposit.
With a guest artist that's usually around 150 euro.

If you book in via e-mail , you will receive an automatic e-mail with a payment button.
Via this button you will go to our deposit section and you can pay online.

If you book in via the reception, you will have to pay the deposit in the shop. This is possible with cash, card or an Inksane gift voucher.

You may bring maximum 1 person to your appointment.

If you are booked for a day session, we do not recommend you bring anyone along. It will be a long day for your partner.

Regular artists are our Belgian (local) tattoo artists, that are in the shop every day.
Most of the time these artists are trained by us. They also speak (most of them) Dutch.

Guest artists, on the other hand, are highly skilled artists that we select from all over the world.
They almost never speak Dutch, but most of them can speak English.

A guest artist is only here for a limited period. For example 3 weeks.
95% of our guest artists return on a regular basis, so you can book in bigger projects with them and spread that over a longer time period.

If you don't show up to your appointment, your deposit will be lost.

This is also the case when you cancel less than two business days before your appointment.

Guest artists are only here for a limited time, and their Inksane schedule has been fixed for a while. They count on you to show up to the appointment, since it is not possible for them to find another client last minute.

When did you cancel? 

  • No show = deposit lost.
  • Cancelling less than two business days before (business days = Tuesday until Saturday) = deposit lost.
  • Cancelling more than two business days in advance (business days = Tuesday until Saturday) = deposit stays.

What if you cancelled on time? 

  • You can leave the deposit in our system until you book in again or you can receive it back as a gift voucher. The gift voucher doesn't mention a name so you can give it away as well.
  • If you book in again immediately after moving the appointment, we will transfer your deposit.
  • If you change from Inksane shop or Inksane artist, your deposit stays valid.

A deposit is never refunded in cash or by bank transfer.

This, again, is different for every artist, but here are some ground rules:

  • The session starts at 11h.
  • It will take approximately one hour to discuss the design, the anatomy, placing of the stencil, setting up the booth...
  • After that, your tattoo artist will continue until your design is ready. This could be at 15.00h but this could also be at 18.00h.
  • So don't plan your day in a way that you need to be home at a specific hour.

The hour at which your session is finished does not affect the price. Your price is a fixed daily price, and serves to finish that day's design. Some clients' skin absorbs ink easily, so we finish quickly, but it may as well be the other way around.

Some of our artists do cover-ups, some do not.

If you want a cover-up, say this from the start.

Most artists can cover a small tattoo with a much larger design. That being said, we have 2 cover-up specialists available: if your old tattoo took up your entire upper arm, your new tattoo obviously can't be much bigger. Our specialist will show you what is possible.

What you need to know about cover-up tattoos

  • A cover-up is always darker than your original tattoo.
  • You cannot use light elements or styles to cover (for example a portrait or a rose).
  • Give your artist as much freedom as possible. This way you will get the best result.
  • Ideally you laser your old tattoo a couple of times. The tattoo doesn't need to be gone completely but if the tattoo is already a little bit lighter, a lot of new possibilities open up for your new design. 

Are you looking for a good tattoo laser company? Ask our reception.

Yes, but we first need to see your old tattoo. Send us some clear photos if you want to book in via email or even better, if you stop by the shop.
Our reception will propose some possible Inksane artists for you.

If your tattoo is still fresh, it is important that your skin doet not get too moist.
Moist skin holds less ink, resulting in a faded tattoo.

Bathing, swimming, sauna, sweating, though work outs... they make your skin soft and moist. So we recommend you do not practice any of said activities before your tattoo is fully healed.

We recommend about 3 weeks of carefully taking care of your new tattoo.

No: we do not recommend you go out sunbathing. Not only during the first weeks after your tattoo, but also afterwards: a tattoo is only fully healed after 3 months.

Moreover, a tattoo is based on contrast. The lightest part of your tattoo is your skin color. The darkest part is the blackest ink. If you sunbathe often, your skin will get darker, and so will the lightest part of your tattoo. This leaves you with less contrast, and makes your tattoo less 'readable'.

Finally, long exposure to the sun can break down the tattoo pigment. You should pay attention to that for the rest of your life.

It doesn't matter really, as long as you don't expose the tattoo too much to the sun, and don't go swimming...
Getting your lower arm tattooed right before you leave for a holiday is not very wise.

Getting a tattoo during the winter/autumn/spring makes more sense but that shouldn't hold you back from getting one in the summer.

No.

There isn't a direct side effect between tattooing and a pregnancy but it's better to not take any risks during this period.

Enduring the pain of getting tattoed for a whole day also weakens your immune system a bit. You will be tired after such a session (pregnant or not 😉 ).
You want to avoid that, because you'll need as much energy as you can get a hold of in order to take care of your baby.

Of course! We have a webshop with high-end piercing jewelry. You can also book an appointment online to get pierced.

This is possible in each of our five studios (Roeselare, Sint-Niklaas, Brussels,Ghent,Sint-Truiden).


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