Tattoo Magazine Young Talent Contest

21-year-old from Munich is Germany's new tattoo star

The best tattoo under high pressure: Melissa Flattinger has been named Germany's best young tattoo artist by a jury of experts

Germany's new shooting star in the tattoo heaven has been determined: Tattoo artist Melissa Flattinger from Munich convinced the five-person jury of experts in the big TätowierMagazin young talent contest on Sunday. The 21-year-old stabbed a large ornamental motif live on her customer's back at the Tattoomenta tattoo and piercing show in Kassel, beating her competitors Flo Gropper (26) from Memmingen and Rebecca Bertelwick (27) from Dortmund .

Nationwide competition

The nationwide competition has attracted great interest in the industry every year since 2004. After a months-long preliminary decision, which is carried out via Germany's oldest tattoo magazine TätowierMagazin, the jury only reveals the topic to the three finalists at the beginning of Tattoomenta - this year it was "Mixed Creatures" in reference to Hieronymus Bosch's 500th anniversary of his death. The tattoo combatants were able to spend the entire Saturday researching the topic, developing ideas and finally drawing the motif entirely on their own.

The tattoo is created in front of thousands of trade fair visitors

Then on Sunday things got serious: in front of countless trade fair visitors, the three finalists tattooed their motif into their customer's skin and in the evening underwent the expert evaluation on the big stage. This time the jury consisted of TätowierMagazin editor-in-chief Dirk-Boris Rödel, TATTOO-EROTICA editor-in-chief Boris Glatthaar, Tattoomenta organizer and tattoo artist Jenny from the studio Jenny B's Tattoo (Kassel, Göttingen and Paderborn) and the tattoo artists Lars Wilczinski from Blue Moon Tattoo (Berlin ) and Dea Vectorink from The Rusty Anchor (Gerolstein).

Fast-paced tattoo career

The competition is attracting a lot of attention in the scene because all of the participants in the finals tattoo at an impressive level, even from the perspective of experts - and none of them must have more than three years of experience. Those in the know generally predict rapid careers for all three finalists, especially the first place winner.

Munich woman stabs “oriental Wolpertinger”

The jury rated this year's winner Melissa's motif as imaginative and extremely good in terms of craftsmanship. The 21-year-old also scored points for adapting the tattoo to the wearer's body and her previous tattoo style. The Munich woman from the Corpsepainter Tattoo studio had drawn a cat with antlers and large ears and embedded it in a fine, ornamental mandala blackwork. In doing so, she creatively processed the jury's thematic brief - a kind of "oriental Wolpertinger" emerged.

2nd place goes to Memmingen, 3rd place to Dortmund

The runner-up, Flo Gropper from the Pain4Pleasure studio in Memmingen, chose a portrait with tentacles in the style of black and gray realism.
Rebecca Bertelwick from Atelier Rabbit Hole in Dortmund took third place with a colorful hybrid motif of a rat and a swan that was directly inspired by Bosch. The Tattoomenta tattoo and piercing show is one of the most renowned public exhibitions in the tattoo scene. It attracts thousands of visitors to northern Hesse every year.

Photo credit: TätowierMagazin/Annegret Arnold