Orly took care of my fiance and gave him one heck of a half sleeve! We first heard of Orly and Humble Beginnings through mutual friends on Instagram and my fiance loves his work. We called and booked an appointment with Orly via text and was advised that it would be a few months out. This is fine as we're sure he's in high demand and a tattoo is not supposed to be an impulse decision. Orly specializes in Polynesian/Filipino tribal designs, which he sketches out by hand on your body. Since this was my fiances first tattoo, he was a bit skeptical of the method, as we thought that a rough sketch on paper needed to be done first. Orly did sketch something out on paper for us, but notified us that it will change depending on my fiances arm. The time then finally came and we were en-route to San Jose filled with nerves.
Let's talk about the shop, it's clean, roomy, the staff are friendly and the artist portfolios matched their Instagram/online accounts. Orly and his wife greeted us on arrival then he began prepping the work station. He called my fiance over and hand drew the design on him. My fiance expressed "half sleeve and incredibly detailed" and Orly just gave him the look and said, "sure." Little did my fiance know that he would be in for a world of pain. But I'll get into that later.
After drawing the sketch, Orly asked my fiance if we liked it. I thought it looked great but my fiance wanted the design to go up a little higher. Orly then drew boar tusks pointing up his shoulder. His arm literally looked like a shield when everything was done. My fiance explained what he wanted through texting, and Orly crafted the design based off of what he wanted and through getting to know him. They talked for a while before Orly even started tattooing. When everyone was happy, he then started.
Orly was very gentle and used a lot of ink in this process. He also numbed my fiance quite a bit. Orly talked and engaged us in conversation to distract him from the pain. Little did I know that he was drawing my fiances story right onto his arm! My fiance is a provider, loving, strong, and family oriented, and that's what the piece represented. The finished piece...what can I say, we LOVED it! The level of detail that went into it was amazing. Orly managed to do all of this with one arm in a sling. He tatted my fiance for about 8 hours, one session with a couple breaks in between. My fiance was so satisfied when he was done and just stared at the finished product in awe. Well worth the trip and price in our opinion. We also tipped him rather generously :)
Fun facts: Not only did we hear about Orly through mutual friends, but also when we were in Oahu, HI! Our Uber driver, who's tattooed from neck to hand in Polynesian tribal actually threw Orly's name out when my fiance asked him on a recommedation of artists in California for Polynesian/Filipino tribal designs. Hearing that from an Uber driver in Oahu for some reason sold my fiance. Orly's fanbase didn't stop there. We were flying home from L.A a few months ago and a random person saw my fiances tattoo and asked him if he got it at Humble Beginnings.
The tattoo is still very vibrant, granted it's still relatively new (3 months now). There was no bruising and the bleeding stopped after half a day. Again, very gentle. Thank you Orly and the staff at Humble Beginnings! Not only for your work but for putting up with his screaming the last hour Lol! Highly recommended! We'll be back soon to finish the rest of his arm! read more