Retro gaming comes in all shapes and forms, and we all know that you don't need to be sat in front of a TV screen to enjoy or even think about your favourite games and characters. There is so much memorabilia and art out there for us to immerse ourselves in, from character design books and fan artwork to figurines and plushies for decorating your office or games room. Still, there is no act of devotion to your favourite series or hero greater than having them tattooed on your body for everyone to see forevermore, a symbol of your undying devotion to a game or story that has had a profound impact on your life.
One artist, in particular, is making huge waves in the retro gaming world with his incredible Pokémon tattoos, creating pop-culture mashups that combine all of the things we loved through the 90s that made us who we are, the code that shaped us through our childhoods. And yes, that includes, Pokémon, WWE, and Gremlins.
I sat down to chat with Dublin-based tattooist Matsy on the latest episode of the Retro Dodo Podcast and talked about his career, how he finds his inspiration, how he got into tattooing Pokémon, and much more. The following article is made up of sections from that interview, but if you want to hear all of the extra juicy parts like how Matsy developed a Pokémon Go addiction and a secret X-Factor audition, then you'll need to listen to the full podcast episode!
Right, that's enough intro; it's time for you to meet the Pokémon Tattooer you've all seen on your 'For You' page and delve into his life. Take it away, Matsy!
Getting To Know Matsy The Pokémon Tattooer
Retro Dodo: Today we are joined by tattoo artist, retro gaming enthusiast, and fellow Pokémon lover, Matsy. I'm really excited for you to join us on the podcast because I'm a big fan of your work and you represent a medium where art and retro gaming can combine in such a unique way. But before we get too far ahead of ourselves, give us a quick introduction for the readers, where you live, and what you do.
Matsy: Hey, so my name is Matsy. My real name is Matthew Larkin. My nickname as a kid was always Matsy, so that's how that became a thing. I've been tattooing for over eight years. I'm from Dublin, Ireland, and I mainly do anime, gaming, pop culture, and reference tattoos.
Retro Dodo: The first thing that I saw that you had worked on was a little Game Boy that looked like Kirby, and next to that Togepi eating some Mcdonald's chips. If you're doing a Pokémon Tattoo or a retro gaming-inspired design, are you going back and playing Pokémon red or pulling out a Game Boy, or are you drawing upon the memories and everything that you've had from playing these games as a kid. Are you revisiting old cartoons or anything like that? What's the process?
Matsy: So, I think from the start, I saw this pocket in the market that no one was doing Pokémon or anime or whatever. You go into a tattoo shop and if you asked for a game reference or an anime reference, they wouldn't stick you with someone who not just specialised in it but knew about it. They put you with the colour artist or they put you with the best tattooer in the shop. Which at the time was probably fine. But I went in once to a shop and I asked for the three starters; Charmander, Bulbasaur and Squirtle, and they put me with a colour artist.
Matsy: I came in on the day and he showed me the image and it was just three Google images of the characters Photoshopped close together to fit the area and I was like 'This is this is not what I wanted.' So, I put an image together myself; they were intertwined with each other. You know, they weren't just random images. I wanted them communicating, to be a full cohesive piece. The market just never had anything like that, so when I started, I knew what I wanted to do instantly. Like I obviously did a lot of styles from the start. I did every style to see what sort of worked and what didn't. But I knew that gaming, anime, especially Pokémon, was what I wanted to focus on.
Matsy: I would love to be the Pokémon tattooer. I would love for people to be like, 'Oh, Matsy, the Pokémon tattooer.' That's it. That's all I want. If I can get that status, I've nailed what I saw I had to do. And whatever happens after that is amazing. Yeah, so I started just drawing up loads of mashups of just kind of funny Pokémon designs because as an apprentice, I was drawing more rather than tattooing more. So I had loads of time to draw and learn and everything else.
Matsy: So I posted all these Pokémon pieces. They were taken, everyone came in and I was posting them. As I was just posting them online, it just became more popular and you could see this market for gaming anime Pokémon tattoos was growing. And I was like, 'I told you, I knew this was gonna happen.' Like I knew there were so many people out there at my age, in my generation that wanna get this stuff tattooed on them. So why isn't there anyone out doing it?
Matsy: There was a small pocket of people around, but not in Ireland. There was maybe one or two lads that were doing great work, but they weren't pushing it because the shops maybe they were walking in, didn't want them pushing this. were like, this isn't going to flow. So I was given that opportunity in my shop. I was told to learn this, this, this, but I was given the freedom to draw what I wanted and post it and see if it worked. I remember once I drew like...a lot of Zubats all together. And it was a real traditional piece, but it was just a lot of Zubats. There was a banner underneath it that just said, 'F*@k Off.' It's for like, in the cave... my emotion in Rock Cave or whichever one it was of just like that feeling I had. It was just every single time, like, you know, you got into an interaction. I was like, f*@k off.
Retro Dodo: So how did you get into tattooing? Have you always been into art, and was tattooing always a natural progression that you knew you wanted to move into?
Matsy: Years ago, like many of us, I fell in love with Dragon Ball Z. I was a huge Dragon Ball Z fan. Like my mom and dad, Goku was someone who taught me compassion, taught me how to just be a good person all around. I took a lot more from the show than the epic fights and the amazing story and stuff. So that show, it's etched in my heart and I know it is for a lot of other people.
Matsy: I was watching it one day and my dad came in and he was quite artistic. He came in and he just asked 'Do want me to draw one of those characters for you?' And I just kind of stopped. And I looked up and I was like, okay. So he put this little table down. He had a few coloring pencils and a pencil and he paused the TV. And he paused the TV on Krillin. Out of all the characters that I would have loved him to draw, at that moment, he paused it on Krillin, right? And I was like, I'm not gonna say anything, he's doing something cool for me, let's just see what happens. And my dad just started drawing, and I couldn't believe it.
Matsy: I must have been like seven or eight at the time. And I remember just like sitting there watching him, looking at the drawing, looking up at the TV and looking back at the drawing and just putting this thing down on paper. And I was like, this is pure magic. I was witnessing pure magic. I was entranced. He finished the drawing and he showed me and I was like 'This is unbelievable.' I was like, this is the Da Vinci of Krillins. It's unbelievable.
Matsy: He was about to put his signature at the bottom, and I said no, I just wanted the picture. So, me being young and just stupid, I went outside to the road I lived on and three of my friends were messing around. And I went down and I showed them, but I said I did it. And my friends were like, 'Wow, so cool.' And I was like, yeah, trying to be popular and stuff.
Matsy: My dad saw me doing it. He said 'I saw you tell them that you drew that, that's not cool.' I apologised and felt stupid, but instead of being angry, he said that I should learn how to do it for myself. So he got a lot of tracing paper for me, and I had a few magazines with like Pokémon and Dragon Ball Z and stuff. And he just told me, to trace these images over and over again, get a feel to it.
Matsy: I remember doing it the first couple of times and just looking, like, you when you take the paper off it. And it's the most, like, complimentary kind of thing to yourself. Because, if you want to get good at football, you'll kick a football around for, a few weeks or whatever, and you'll get better at kicking it, you'll get better at heading it, whatever. But drawing, I just copied it, I just traced an image, and I took away the paper, and I looked at it, and it instantly was, like, 100 times better than what I was actually doing.
Retro Dodo: And how did you land your first tattoo job?
Matsy: I got my first role in a tattoo shop from a friend who ran the laser removal service. He was leaving the ship and told me I'd be great behind the reception desk, so that's where I started. At the start of the day, you'd have clients come in and they'd say who they're getting tattooed by. And I'd say, 'Yeah, no problem, they'll be with you in a few minutes. Sit down there,' etc. So the clients would come in really reserved and really quiet and everything else. And that's all well and good. That's cool. But by the end of the day, when they finished the tattoo, big or small, doesn't matter, they'd come back up to pay and they would be a completely different person.
Matsy: They would just be full of energy, like this tattoo is after giving them like a coat of armour nearly, like a new personality. They were confident, there was something different about them. And I was seeing this every single day and I couldn't believe that tattoos were doing this to people, they were giving people this... there's so much confidence and it changed people. And I was like, 'That's what I want to do. I want to do this every single day to people. I want to give people this like coat of armour. I want to give people this new personality.'
Nerdy Nostalgia
Retro Dodo: I'm assuming we're kind of similar ages and grew up in a similar time, we both experienced the retro gamers guide to growing up as a child through the 90s and beyond, the blueprint for being a 90s kid. Getting into Jurassic Park, we all loved Pokémon, we all had something Sonic-related, etc.
Matsy: I feel like our generation is very special in that sense because I don't think there'll ever be a better moment in life growing up the way we did with the games we had, with the freedom we had without social media and everything else. I think it's a really special time that a lot of people will definitely take for granted and they won't appreciate it. And I think that's why I'm definitely, I speak about it and I... my job is basically tattooing these characters and these games for people. Because I know how special it is to them. I know what it's done for me and how much it makes me be me. So it's so important.
Retro Dodo: We talk about this quite a lot because it's one of those things where we do discuss whether retro gaming is going to be as big for the newer generations. Is my copy of Pokémon Red that's boxed going to be of interest to them? Are Genesis games going to just be tossed into an 'Everything you can get for 10 pounds' box? I don't want to get too deep early on, but I see so many kids on TikTok and Instagram and not connecting in the way that we used to do when we'd sit down and play Mario Party on the N64 or when we'd get two people playing, you know, on the Sega Mega Drive together and actually sat in the same room with wired controllers, actually spending that quality time that we all had as kids. So what you do I think is really important because you're preserving these characters and these games on the people who love them and keeping the feelings they evoked alive,
Matsy: That's it, yeah, sort of having it on your body for life. It's a big thing. I think a special thing about getting tattoos like these... I was only talking about this the other day actually, is that if I'm walking down the street and I have a Kirby tattoo on my arm, someone that also likes Kirby... that sort of wall breaks down instantly and it's like, 'That's a Kirby tattoo, that's amazing.' And we both instantly have something in common and we, you know, we'll talk about it and it's a real friendly thing. Whereas like other tattoos, and I'm not saying anything bad about them at all, but they don't have that same appeal. I'll see someone walking in the street and if I see them having a cool realism statement, that's cool. But I don't really feel like I should walk up and be like, 'That's really cool.' Whereas if it's like something that you like as in something game and anime related, if it's an anime character, you could look at him like, 'Oh, Goku, that's amazing. He's my favorite, he's amazing!' It sort of breaks that sort of barrier of like, you know, having a good conversation with someone just randomly.
Pokémon Mashups & Coming Up With Ideas
Retro Dodo: Talk to us about how you come up with the ideas for your mashups. The tattoos that have gone viral across the internet and have made you a social media sensation. Are you just drawing again upon knowledge of retro gaming or are people coming to you with these ideas? Are you playing a lot of retro games in your spare time to prepare?
Matsy: Yeah, it's literally that. So, there are games that I played years ago as a kid that I take inspiration from, but when it comes to mashups, the characters have to, mashup in the right way rather than just, 'Oh, he kind of looks like him,' you know? It's like I used to love the play-on-word kind of mashups. I did a Cubone and Post Malone mashup, so it was Post Cubone. It has that word on play. I did an Ariana Grande-Goldeen mix-up, so it was Ariana Goldeen.
Matsy: You can mash things up, that's all well and good. But if there's a deeper meaning to them, if there's a funny humor thing as well with them, it just makes them better. So to come up with a mashup, generally what I do is I always open up 151 and I just look down and I'm like, what was I thinking about this week? What was I thinking about this month? Game-wise or pop culture-wise? What's cool now? What's current? And Stranger Things might be there and I'm like, what? What Stranger Things references would be cool as a Pokémon? And I'm like, which one suits the best? That's how we sort of go from there. So yeah, 95 % of the time it's me. And then 5 % of the time it would be a client specifically asking for, I want these two mashed up. And I'm like, absolutely, no problem. And some of them are amazing. Like that Stranger Things one; I did an Abra-Eleven piece on a girl in America and she gave me that idea. I was like, 'This is incredible.' Abra is also my favorite Pokémon because he sleeps it. He sleeps 18 hours a day and when stuff gets real, he gets the f*@k out of there. He's like, 'Nah, I'm not having this.' I'm like, bro, I'm literally Abra, bro. I want that.
Matsy's Retro Gaming Past
Retro Dodo: So other than Pokémon, if you had to pick a second series gaming-wise, what would it be? Are you going for Sonic? Are you going for Mario? Are you heading towards Smash Brothers?
Matsy: So I am a massive, massive Metal Gear Solid fan. The three for me probably would be Pokémon, MGS, and The Last of Us just because they're the ones that have had the most impact. Obviously, my earliest ones have their own little pocket. But Metal Gear Solid, I remember playing that back in the day. I think it came out in like 99 or 98 or something like that, but I remember playing it and I was just blown away by the whole new way of playing the game. The stealth, the angles, the story – it was all incredible. And the fact that it's like... it's very Japanese-based as well. It had it all. And the first game was a masterpiece. The second game was also a masterpiece.
Matsy: I will also die on this hill - playing as Rodan was a massive letdown, but it had some of the best boss battles in a game at that time, probably the best. And the story was like, it was so messed up at the very end when you're riding and you're naked and you're trying to like escape from the… what were they called? The shells or whatever. And you get these calls from the Colonel and he's telling you about this alien abduction and it's just, it's all gibberish. It's, it doesn't make sense. He's telling you to turn off the game. Like, and you're sitting there playing it. You're like, you think there's someone inside the TV talking to you directly. Like they break the fourth wall so well in a very creative, haunting way. And that game stuck with me forever.
Matsy: Then Metal Gear Solid 3 comes out and blows them all out of the water. And again, it's a completely different story. It's a completely different group of characters that are just incredibly easy to fall in love with. And it's done so well. That's probably one of the best games ever, probably one the best games ever for boss battles too!
