MANSFIELD — Caleb Neff got his first tattoo at age 17.
The Springfield native got hooked, and by 20, he started inking his own clients. Now, at age 29, he owns his own parlor, Blacklist Tattoo, in Beavercreek, and his body is covered in tattoos big and small, and colorful.
“Except for this little spot here,” he said, pointing to a pale spot on his left bottom bicep.
Neff won Best of Show in 2018 as a tattoo artist at Ink in the Clink, the early prototype for what is now Inkcarceration, a three-day festival at the Ohio State Reformatory that attracts 25,000 people every day.
Now a veteran of the music and tattoo festival, he began judging tattoos two years ago. He was one of three “Celebrity Judges” during the Inkcarceration.
The annual festival has become one of the most popular in the nation for its music variety. But tattoos have always been a theme, attracting tattoo artists far and wide.
This year, more than 65 tattoo artists convened at the Ohio State Reformatory — and most of them competed to be the best as bands like Slipknot, Pantera and Limp Bizkit jammed in the background.
“You gonna make me famous?” asked Kristina Pafford, a tattoo artist with New York-based Bare Knuckle Tattoo, needling a black design on a client as a reporter snapped a photo.
Her client, Austin West, was one of hundreds of clients who paid ahead of the festival to get some ink on his arm during Inkcarceration.
There are seven categories the artists compete in. There are small, large, black and white, and color, he said. Other subcategories include traditional, neo-traditional, and portrait.
There are three winners in each category, and then Best in Show is crowned on Sunday.
Artists are judged on a 1-10 scale, based on creativity, line work, color saturation, shading and the tattoos’ placement on the body, Neff said.
Neff described himself as a neo-traditional tattoo artist, one who prefers “wonky color palettes.” But he also enjoys black and gray.
“I don’t do hyper-realistic black and gray. But my black and gray has realistic touches to it with neo-traditional flare to it. I just like the illustrative style,” he said.
On Friday, only five artists entered designs for the competition.
One of them was Tiffany Sutton, owner of Envious Ink in Mansfield. She won third place in Friday’s competition under the color category for a tattoo of a flower she gave Sara Napier.
Sutton has competed in the festival every year, even when it was known as Ink in the Clink. Sutton also won Friday’s cover-up category, for another tattoo she gave to Napier.
“It feels good,” she said of the wins. “Definitely feels good since we’re from here. It feels good to win at home.”
