About Wes
About Wes
One artist, one studio, one way of working
At Tattooshop Schoffie you are not queuing at a big shop. You are with Wes Thomas: the man who reads your enquiry, draws your design, does your tattoo and replies when you have a question about aftercare.
Wes has built his craft on two traditions that are all about skill: the Japanese tattoo and the traditional tattoo. Styles where nothing can be hidden. A line is clean or it isn't, a composition works or it doesn't.
That is why he works alone and by appointment only. Every client gets his full attention, and every design gets the time it needs.
What Wes stands for
Every design drawn by hand
Wes does not copy other people's work. He draws your tattoo for you and for the spot on your body, so it moves with your muscles.
Respect for the tradition
In Japanese work, motifs, flowers and seasons belong together. Traditional is all about line and contrast. Wes respects those rules, so your tattoo still works twenty years from now.
Honest advice
Too small, the wrong spot, a combination that won't work: Wes tells you when something is not a good idea. Better an honest talk beforehand than regret afterwards.
Specialisations
Japanese, traditional and cover-ups
Japanese tattoos (irezumi)
Dragons, koi, tigers, hannya masks, geishas and Darumas, connected by wind, water and clouds. From a single motif to a sleeve, back piece or bodysuit built up over several sessions.
Traditional tattoos
Panthers, daggers, swallows, nautical stars, lady heads and lettering. Bold lines and a limited palette: tattoos you still recognise from a distance twenty years from now.
Cover-ups and touch-ups
An old tattoo you no longer want to see, worked into a new design. Or a faded piece made sharp again.
The studio
Schoffie, on Czaar Peterstraat
The name is a nod to Ciske de Rat, the story from old Amsterdam. Schoffie brings that history back to the Czaar Peter neighbourhood in Amsterdam East: a street with its own character, small shops and craftspeople.
The studio is small and personal. It works according to the Dutch RIVM hygiene guidelines for tattooing, with sterile, single-use needles and materials. For every tattoo you fill in the consent form together with Wes.
