Winter's first professional tattoo experience came two years after his first at 18 years old, when he got a Celtic cross on his back in honour of his grandma. At the time, Winter wasn't considering tattooing as a profession; he was on the path to becoming a freelance artist but his medium was clothes and paintings.
He continued getting tattoos for another 10 years and then it hit him: "I just had this dream to try it and see what happens," Winter said. He had always loved creating superfine line works of art but instead of using pencils and pens, he wanted to give it a try with a tattoo gun.
"I had a few people tell me that I shouldn't be a tattoo artist and that just lit a fire under me," Winter said. "I took that as a challenge and got a machine and just started." He was on a mission to prove naysayers — who, ironically, told him he wasn't a "good enough artist to be successful in the trade" — that he could do it.
Image Source: Courtesy of Daniel Winter