 "Photo: Ramona Flume")
 "Photo: Ramona Flume")
Like Austin and its inhabitants, Diablo Rojo, the tattoo and piercing shop on Guadalupe Street, is independent, artistic and eclectic.
Just over six years ago, three partners and friends, Jimmy Buddha, Doug Curtis and Philip Montoya, decided to open a new tattoo shop on the Drag. Buddha, who does piercings, and Curtis, who does tattoos, met while working at another tattoo shop, and joined with Curtis' friend Montoya, who handles the business. Curtis came up with the name Diablo Rojo, which means "Red Devil" in Spanish.
Originally located above Pipe's Plus, Diablo Rojo is now located on Guadalupe between Ming's Cafe and Kerbey Lane. Two years ago, the three partners also opened an additional shop on South Lamar. Diablo Rojo currently operates with five tattoo artists and six piercers.
Although Diablo Rojo has a wide variety of customers, their largest clientele are local Austinites and UT students.
"We've been in the business and in Austin for a long time, and we have a really solid following within the local Austinites, which is probably our core business, and then the students are on top of that," Buddha said.
In addition to local Austinites, UT students and travelers, a few celebrities have also stopped by Diablo Rojo.
"We've tattooed people from bands; we've had Lou Diamond Philips come through the shop, and the wrestler, the Undertaker," Curtis said.
Like their customers, the types of tattoos done at Diablo Rojo vary.
"People come in for weird stuff quite often, whether it's inside the lip or on weird places on the body," Buddha said. "There's just a million and one things people want. I pierced a frat boy the other day. It was for a bet, and he had to keep a pink dangly belly button ring in for a week."
Curtis, who has been in the tattoo industry for about 16 years, has tattooed people from 18 up to people in their 70s. The duration of tattoos done varies as well, from as short as five minutes for small tattoos to as long as years of periodical work for large tattoos.
"I've done back pieces, whole backs, whole arms, and those take months to do, sometimes years, depending on the person," Curtis said. "You have to let the tattoo heal after the work you do and they have to come back after it heals, and sometimes you can put 100 hours into one person."
Although some large and complicated tattoos may take years to complete, the longest sittings they work on people are about five hours, because after that it gets unbearable for both the client and the artist.
Early this January, Diablo Rojo joined other tattoo artists from around the country at the Tattoo Art Revival Convention at the Palmer Events Center in Austin. Due to the high interest for tattoo art in Austin, Curtis and his partners get to do many custom and complicated tattoos.
"We pretty much focus on custom work," Curtis said. "On the weekends and some of the nights, you get the little walk-ins and little tattoos, but we're probably about 90 percent customs, so we get to do tattoos that we like, not the kind you pick off the wall."
"It's a great job," Buddha said. "You get to meet a lot of interesting different people from Austin and from all over the place, and it's a fairly creative and relaxed atmosphere."
One of the main goals of the Diablo Rojo owners is to
provide high-quality tattoo guidance and work.
"Tattoos and piercing are very popular these days, so there has been a large influx of people trying to learn," Buddha said. "Its actually a really difficult skill to pick up, so there's a lot of sub-par tattoo and piercing work being done out there. Our main goal right now is to differentiate ourselves from those shops."
Unlike many other shops, all of the tattoo artists at Diablo Rojo have been tattooing for at least 10 years.
"If you get a tattoo or piercing here, it's done right the first time, and we stand behind our work," Buddha said. "That's the important part."
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