Less pain, higher definition artwork and artists get paid royalties. Those are three of the key features of a new Austin-based automated tattooing company that's emerging from stealth.
Blackdot's tattoo machine starts by injecting a small number of concealable test dots in a person's skin and compares the depth of those dots with a database of different skin types to select the optimal depth for the tattoo ink. Then machine vision is used to identify the location of the tattoo, typically on a semi-flat part of the body, such as forearm or tricep. The machine uses suction to remove any excess ink.
Blackdot founder and CEO Joel Pennington said this approach, using dots roughly the width of a human hair, results in higher definition tattoos, as well as less pain for the customer when compared to traditional tattoos. Pennington said it's hard to say how long the company's automated platform takes to complete a tattoo to traditional methods. But he said some of the high resolution works they've already done took around three hours.
"If it was a human, I'm not sure if they could actually reproduce this or make it quite as high of a resolution," he said, showing a small tattoo on the inside of his left forearm.
The startup is currently operating out of an undisclosed location just east of downtown Austin. But it plans to set up a full retail storefront here, and in the long-term it aims to open shops in several other big cities such as New York, Miami and Los Angeles.
Initially, Blackdot plans to offer tattoos just a few times a month before accelerating to daily tattoos and multiple tattoo sessions each day.
"There are a lot of different ways that we can make smaller facilities available," Pennington said. "That could be pop ups or in-store where we could tattoo in a Louis Vuitton or whatever if it made sense."
Blackdot has raised about $4.6 million in venture funding led by FusionX Ventures. It plans to seek out future accredited angel investors to help fuel future funding rounds, Pennington said, though it will also consider institutional investments, as well.
Initially, Blackdot is offering select art from generative artist Tyler Hobbs, tattoo artist Omer Tunca and John Craig, who is perhaps best known for the album cover of Smashing Pumpkins' hit album "Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness."
"For the foreseeable future, we are curating the artwork and the artists and just making sure everything's really top-shelf, amazing art," Pennington said. "In the future, maybe there's opportunities for people to either bring their own artwork. I think the precursor to that though, is that we have a lot of different tattoo artists and visual artists that are part of our Blackdot certified artists program."
Blackdot pays the artists a royalty for their artwork, although Pennington said the amount varies based on the artist and the structure of their agreement. For example, Hobbs will work with customers to create custom designs, whereas other artists license their existing work to be reproduced in limited numbers. The startup plans to continually update its designs and artists.
"I just want it to be kind of one surprise after another to keep it fresh and exciting," he said. "It's really hard to have something that has mass universal appeal. So my goal is to try to bring all these different forms of art so that as many people as possible can find something that resonates with them."
