Andy Stuart Mills
A lifetime of indulging in fantasy and mythological literature had me drawing monsters, knights and fair maidens as early as I can remember when I was meant to be studying. When finally catapulted into the real world I obtained my BA Illustration and MA Publishing degrees from Plymouth University and set out to pursue a career in publishing, hoping to bring the books and stories that influenced me to others. But the artwork was never far from my mind, and the shadow of a pencil in my hand meant it was all but inevitable that a career in creating art was my calling.
Without tattooing, I would never have found that community and sense of purpose. The revelation that artwork and fantasy were not just hobbies to be filed away with other childhood dreams like wanting to be Aragorn or a Brontosaurus. That actually; the years of doodling knights and castles, griffins and dragons, was just practice for a lifetime of artwork to come. The indelible influences of Aubrey Beardsley, Harry Clarke, Yoshitaka Amano, John Howe and Arthur Rackham permeates throughout my work. While the worlds of The Lord of the Rings, FromSoftware and Final Fantasy provide endless inspiration for designs and characters. I am eternally grateful to have so much creativity in the world to inspire me. I am eternally grateful to have found my tribe. I wish I could tell young, awkward gangly Andy that Cedarwood Tattoos would be the destination that drawing would take him.
That tattooing became the vessel for my creativity was a surprise to me most of all, having never had any interest in pursuing such a career. But after much encouragement, or nagging, depending on your definition of things, I tentatively made my first enquiries about a tattoo apprenticeship at the age of thirty-two, fully expecting to find I was too old, too ill equipped, and frankly, too much of a dork to fit into that world. What I found was my calling and my tattoo family. The years of burying my head into books, films and games, ashamed of my interests and feeling embarrassed to share, somehow evolved into bringing these characters and stories to life through artwork and permanently etching them onto my fellow enthusiasts who had been there all along, eager to revel in their passions for such things with me.