Behind the Hard Links Collection by Anna Outkin

Meet Anna Outkin, a talented fine line tattoo artist in Philadelphia and the hands behind our new custom Rig collection. In collaboration with Anna, we recently launched The Hard Links Collection — a limited, hand painted series of custom Rigs. Each of these three pieces is a one of one and a wearable piece of art.

Please introduce yourself!

"Hi! My name is Anna Outkin. I'm a 28 year old female tattooer here in Philadelphia. I specialize in fine line and micro realism designs, and I'm here to talk about the new collaboration that I did called Hard Links."

What inspiration went into the Custom Rig designs and what was your process? 

"For the Rigs I was inspired by the city, a lot of metallic and urban work. I also do a lot of chrome tattooing, so most of my designs either are reflective or metallic, so I kind of blended them together for my inspiration."

Were there any difficulties you faced in the hand painting process? 

"The only difficulties I thought that I faced was I had attempted to stencil the design onto the Rig, thinking it would be kind of cool to blend in tattooing into my painting. And it was a little bit challenging, so I only really stenciled one of the Rigs, and then the rest of them ended up being completely free handed, totally hand painted, which I realized later on that I liked that method way more. But otherwise it was really easy. It just took a while, but I'm really stoked about them."

What does hair mean to you as far as expression? Do you have any connection to the world of barbering? 

"So I don't do hair. I've always wanted to do hair when I was younger, but instead of doing hair, I ended up picking up art. But luckily for me, my partner is actually a barber, so I've seen the career and the art form kind of grow with her. And being able to collaborate with SLCKR and work on a rig has kind of helped me blend the two together. So I'm in it, but not in it."

Your take on these “Wearable Pieces of Art”

"I'm just really excited that I made them. All of the rigs took me about 40 to 45 hours in total to make. I think that creating it, I put a lot of heart and soul into it. So I'm just really excited for whoever does buy them, and I would love to actually be able to make more in the future.

But I think it was, there was so much good intention that came into those Rigs and I feel like they're not just made to be useful for barbering, but also to just show personality, and, you know, they have a little charisma. I'm just really proud of them, and I'm really excited for whoever may get them."

Make sure to keep up with Anna on Instagram @ao.tats for more of her work!