Dan Henk on Tattooing, D-Day Is Here, and Drawing From Life

Dan Henk is back — tattoo artist, novelist, illustrator, and a guy who got his head tattooed because brain cancer treatment left patches where his hair wouldn't grow. He's on his fifth novel, D-Day Is Here, and he's painting the cover and nine interior illustrations himself, the way the old pulp magazines used to do it. Jo and Dan get into how tattooing changed from a secret society to something you can order off Amazon, why your body puts nerves exactly where it wants protection, and the art school lesson Dan still passes to his apprentices.Key Moments- Radiation left patches where his hair wouldn't grow back, so he had his head tattooed instead- Why the ribs hurt worse than the throat — the body puts nerves where it wants to protect- Interviewing his Vietnam-vet father for the book, and the parts his dad still won't talk about- Photos flatten everything. Hold your drawing up to a mirror and you'll see what you got wrongThe TakeawayIf you justify it, you're not going to get better. Dan tells his apprentices he's harder on them because he wants them to be the best — and the reason it works is they know he's not tearing them down.Guest Linksdanhenk.com — H-E-N-K, not HankFacebook, Instagram, and TikTok under Dan HenkDan's novels on AmazonJo's crime mystery Scarlet Shadows, book one of the Scarlet Mysteries: https://amzn.to/4wJk4ccAs an Amazon Associate, Empty Hell earns from qualifying purchases. Buying through our links costs you nothing extra and helps keep the show running.Everything Empty Hell: https://linktr.ee/Emptyhell