Son of a British Army, Bhuwan Thapa never imagined himself as an army officer, carrying a gun, wearing combat dress and marching in the street under somebody’s control, though his father always wanted him to become an army officer. Instead, he was very much interested in Rock and Metal music and, was attracted by the tattoos on rock stars bodies. He also used to do body suspension as extra art.
“As I was very much interested in this field, I was in search of training and workshop related to tattooing. Coincidently, I got to meet a group of foreigners who were expert in tattooing and had an opportunity to learn from them,” Thapa reminisces his initial tattoo training days.
“My journey into tattoo art formally with the making of Bhairava tattoo, some 9 years ago,” Thapa shares. Since then, there has been no turning back as he has continuously been in the field.
“I have unique concepts for making tattoos, and as my 80% body is covered with tattoos, I am very much conscious about the quality of tattoo a customer expects from us. Me and my team can decorate customer’s body as per their choice,” he shares his tattoo styles and skills.
Sharing the reason behind opening the tattoo studio 2 years ago, Thapa says, “As I have spent almost a decade in this field, I started the business as I wanted to establish a career as per my own hobby and interest, furthering my passion and work in that direction.” He started the business with an initial investment of 25 lakhs.
Sharing that he wanted to choose a kind of a unique name, he says, “Devils came in my mind as it is a strange and unique name and Body Suspension is the activity in which a person hangs himself/herself on a hook. Thus, I named the business as Devils Tattoo and Body Suspension.”
As tattoo culture is growing by the day in Nepal and the number of local customers is on the rise, he wants to promote tattoo culture, and make Devils as the best tattoo inn in Nepal.
Sharing the best thing about the job, he says, “We make people happy gifting them with the art they always carry on their body, and can never forget in their life.”
Currently, the price range of tattooing at the Devils’ starts from Rs. 3,000 Rupees and goes up to Rs. 40,000.
In the past, tattoo was considered as rough and punk, but nowadays people are being more positive towards tattoo culture and I can see many youths looking for good tattoo in their body, shares Thapa about the tattoo trend in Nepal. “In the past, it was mostly boys who used to come for tattooing, but these days, Nepali girls too have started to come for the service in a significant number,” he adds.
Thapa further says that the business is going very well as he himself is an experienced artist and the group of artists at his studio are expert in making quality tattoo in a safe way. Currently, the business serves 3-4 customers in a single day.
Sharing about the marketing of the business, Thapa says that as he has a good personal network with both Nepalese and foreigners, he didn’t get hard time searching for clients for his business.
Responding to a query that people are too skeptic about tattoos, and consider it too risky for their skins, he says it’s all because of negative concepts of people and rumor. “There is no any such harmful effect of tattooing if a person doesn’t have serious skin-related disease, and as we use hygienic and high-quality instruments, one needs not to fear about safety.”
Giving advice to those who are interested in tattoos and want to get inked, he says that one first needs to be sure about the type of tattoo they want to make, as erasing of the tattoo will be more expensive and won’t be perfect too.
Coming this far, he now wants to grow the business, making it much bigger with opening of branches in various major towns of Nepal.
Giving suggestions for the aspiring tattoo artists, Thapa says that one should follow his/her dream and never give up. Similarly, for those wanna-be entrepreneurs, he asks them to choose a profession of their interest, as it will be easier to work in such a business and they can easily reach the peak of success in the business, sooner or later.
Startups for a better Nepal!
Presented By: Bibek Sapkota
