Little Rock, Arkansas / Nine years in the trade
The stencil comes off. The line stays.
Every piece that leaves this shop was drawn first, laid on the skin in purple, moved until it sat right, and only then tattooed. James Brassfield Jr. has been doing it that way in central Arkansas for nine years.
The stencil table
How a tattoo actually gets made here.
Five steps, in order. Most of the work happens before the machine ever comes on, and the part people worry about is usually not the part that matters.
Talk it through
Come in with whatever you have. A photo on your phone, a scribble on a receipt, a sentence you have been carrying around for years. All of it works as a starting point, and none of it has to be tidy.
What gets settled at this stage is size, placement and how many sittings the idea honestly needs. A design that works beautifully across a shoulder blade may not survive being shrunk onto a wrist, and you will hear that here rather than three years from now when the detail has closed up.
- BringReferences, a rough size, the spot on your body
- TakesA short conversation, in person
- Ends withAn honest yes, or an honest not like that
The drawing
Nothing gets pulled off a page and slapped on. The design gets drawn for your body, at the size it will actually be tattooed, with the curve of the muscle it has to sit on taken into account. A design drawn flat on paper and a design drawn for a calf are two different objects.
You see the drawing before anything happens. If a shape is wrong, this is the cheap moment to say so. Ink is permanent; graphite is not.
- DrawnAt final size, for your placement
- You getA look at it before the stencil
- ChangesEasy now, impossible later
The stencil
The drawing gets transferred to a carbon sheet and laid onto cleaned, shaved skin. What comes off the paper is a violet outline that will be gone by the end of the day. It exists for one purpose: to let you stand in front of a mirror and see the piece on your own body before it is permanent.
This is where placement gets argued about, and it should be. A stencil can be peeled and re-laid as many times as it takes. Move it up, rotate it, walk around with it. Nobody is in a hurry.
- PurposeSee it on you before it is permanent
- Re-laidAs many times as placement needs
- Gone byThe end of the same day
The session
Single-use needles out of a sealed package, opened in front of you. Fresh gloves, a wiped and covered station, and everything that touches you going in the trash afterward. That part is not a selling point, it is the baseline, and you are welcome to watch every bit of it get set up.
Line work first, then shading, then color if there is any. Small pieces finish in one sitting. Anything large gets broken into sessions with healing time between, because pushing a whole sleeve in one day damages skin and the work suffers for it.
- NeedlesSingle use, opened in front of you
- OrderLine, then shade, then color
- BreaksSay when. Getting up is normal
Healing
You leave wrapped, with the instructions said out loud rather than handed over on a card you will lose. The first month decides how the tattoo looks for the next thirty years, and it is entirely in your hands once you walk out the door.
Clean it, do not drown it, keep it out of the sun, and leave the flaking alone no matter how much it wants picking. If something looks wrong, call the shop instead of asking the internet. A two minute phone call settles almost all of it.
- Rule oneDo not pick, do not scratch
- Rule twoOut of the sun and out of the pool
- WorriedCall the shop, not a forum
What the first month looks like
Nothing here is unusual and none of it means something has gone wrong. Knowing the shape of it in advance stops the week-two panic phone call.
Wrapped and sore
It looks like a scrape because that is roughly what it is. Leave the wrap on as long as you were told, then wash gently with clean hands.
Tight and shiny
Swelling settles. A thin layer of ointment twice a day, no more. Drowning a fresh tattoo in cream causes more problems than it solves.
Flaking and itching
The worst week for willpower. Color looks dull and patchy under the flake. This is normal. Do not pick it, do not scratch it, do not help it along.
Settled and clear
The surface has healed and the color has come back. Sunscreen from here forward is the single biggest thing you can do for it.
Touch-ups get talked about once it has fully settled, not while it is still flaking. Call the shop at (501) 442-7360 if anything looks off before then.
James draws it before he tattoos it.
James Brassfield Jr. has been tattooing in central Arkansas for nine years. Most people around here know him as Catfish Jimmy, which arrived long before the shop sign did and has outlasted every attempt to use the other name.
A description over the phone and a drawing on skin are two different animals.
That is the reason this shop asks you to come in rather than settle everything over text. Skin is not paper. It stretches, it curves, it has scars and moles and old ink already on it, and a design has to be drawn for the body it is going on rather than resized to fit.
Nobody is going to talk you into something bigger than you walked in for. If the idea does not fit the spot you picked, you will hear it before you are in the chair rather than after.
What gets drawn on Arch Street Pike
Five things this shop gets asked for most often. Any of them can be talked through in a consultation before you commit to anything.
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AAmerican traditional
Heavy outline, a short list of colors, shapes built to read from across a room. It is the oldest working style in the trade because the bold line holds its edge while finer work goes soft. Usually the honest recommendation for a first tattoo.
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BNeo-traditional
Traditional structure with deeper shading and a wider palette. More detail per square inch, which means more time in the chair and a little more room on the body. Animals, florals and ornamental frames live here.
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CBlack and grey
Black ink and grey wash only. No color to shift unevenly over the years, and it reads clearly on every skin tone. Most large back and sleeve work starts in this range.
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DCover-ups
Bring the old piece in and let it be looked at in person. Phone photos hide the two things that decide a cover-up: how dark the old ink really sits, and how far it has spread under the skin. Some cover clean, some need lightening first, some are better reworked than buried.
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ELettering
Script, block, names, dates. The work is not the drawing, it is the sizing and the spacing. Letters set too tight or too small close up as the ink settles and the words stop reading. Spelling gets confirmed out loud before the machine comes on.
Finished lines.
Day to day work goes up on Instagram at @catfishjimmytattoos.
130 people already wrote the review page.
Nine years of work in one part of Arkansas builds a particular kind of reputation: the kind where somebody heals up, shows it off at work, and sends the next person out to Arch Street Pike.
There are 130 reviews sitting on the shop's Google listing. None of them are reprinted here, edited down, or dressed up for a website. Read them in the words the people actually used, then come and look at the wall yourself.
Start with a consultation.
Walk in when the chair is open. For a specific day, a large piece or a cover-up, call ahead and set a time so the drawing can be ready before you arrive.
The shop
- Address
- 14021 Arch St Pike
Little Rock, AR 72206 - Phone
- (501) 442-7360
- jmsbfd33@gmail.com
- @catfishjimmytattoos
Hours
- Tuesday to Saturday
- Afternoons into the evening
- Sunday and Monday
- Closed
A booked day moves everything around. One phone call saves you the drive out.
Bring with you
- A valid photo ID, every visit, no exceptions
- Reference images saved offline in case the signal drops
- A real meal beforehand. An empty stomach goes badly
- Clothes that let somebody reach the spot easily
- Time for the stencil. Placement is not wasted effort