Going on Ink Master, Wildest Tattoo's & Transitioning into Shoes with Bull Airs | Thom Bulman DSH #292

Which part of the body hurts the most to get a tattoo?

The ribs.

Ribs.

It's still like one of the hardest spots.

It's the only spot on the human body that when you're getting tattooed, your body will actually go into

like you almost get symptoms of the flu.

Your body like is trying to fend off the ink that's going in it and you're getting those symptoms.

And like anywhere else in your body.

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ladies and gentlemen tattoo artist and sneaker legend tom bullman here in the building how's it going man hey thanks for having me man yeah i love the hair oh you know you got us you got a peacock when you're in the room so why not neon pink hair yeah how many colors have you tried uh I've done neon green, neon blue, and neon pink.

Okay.

Sometimes I do bleach blonde, but like pink to me is just, it looks the best.

It photographs nicely.

I have all these caricatures that I use for branding, so it's got the pink hair.

So it's kind of like my staple now.

So you do a lot of neon, a lot of bright colors.

Yeah, I mean, everything we do is pop culture.

So like, you know, why not make the hair pop culture bright too?

You know what I mean?

So I know you made a big living in the tattoo space.

We'll touch on that first.

What made you so passionate about getting into that industry at first?

Tattoos.

Well, I just came from

being a musician for years, touring around the country.

And then obviously, as you're a musician, you got to get tattoos.

And getting tattoos, and I've always drawn, when I was a little kid, I wanted to work at Disney as an animator.

But obviously, I got into the music business and was kind of doing that for a while.

But I was always drawing everyone's tattoos.

And then as you get a little bit older and you're mid-twenties and you're like, I don't know if music's gonna work out, you kind of say, What what can I do next that I love?

Yeah.

And at that time, it was tattoos.

Yeah.

Got an apprenticeship at a shitty biker shop, you know, got whipped with cables and cords and doing crazy stuff.

But that's a whole different podcast if you want to hear those stories.

But yeah, did the apprenticeship.

And then I was just kind of working from shop to shop, learning.

When I would reach the, you know, the peak of that shop, I would move on to the next shop where there's somebody, there's always somebody better than me because I always wanted to push myself to be better.

I didn't want to just be stale and kind of stagnant.

So it's like levels to the.

Yeah, exactly.

And I think a lot of tattoo artists, especially, you you know, they get to the top and, you know, it's a small little, you know, big fish in a small pond and they love where they are in that and they don't, they don't want to leave their comfort area, you know.

Whereas I was always like, I was always aiming higher and higher and higher because I didn't want to be the best tattoo artist in the shop or in my town.

I want to be the best tattoo artist in the world.

Right.

You know, so I would constantly be like, hey, I love you guys.

I got an opportunity to go, you know, learn from these guys.

They're way better than me.

Then you get there, you learn what you can, and then you move on to the next one.

That's cool.

Yeah.

I feel like a lot of tattoo artists don't think that way.

I mean, I used to like at one point, I was flying down to Atlanta like once a weekend, like once every couple months to just learn under Dave Cruzman, who was another guy that was on Incomaster.

He actually won season five, I believe it was.

And Dave was amazing.

I'd fly down there and he would just show me all his tricks of the trade.

Yeah.

I just can't imagine too many people, especially these days with the young kids like

flying someplace to learn something for a weekend.

And then, you know what I mean?

Like, it's just like, now they just want to go on YouTube and learn it really with tattoos it'd be tough to learn digitally it it is and it isn't there's a lot of really good media out there um there's one called i think it's called fireplace or fire fireside tattoos and he does an amazing job like he'll do like full episodes or full a full season of like how long you know should your needle depth be you know this is the way i shade if you're doing this type of style it's very in-depth so i mean like anything like today if i want to learn something like i i'm right now learning how to cgi and digital sculpt i'm just going on youtube and i'm learning how to do it you know there's so many uh websites and you know me uh what's the word i'm looking for there's so many

videos yeah there's so many videos out there of these people that are masters of it and you know like i almost feel like you really don't need to go to college just on youtube and you know or there's college for tattoos There is.

There actually is tattoo schools.

I think there's one here in Las Vegas.

I know that for a fact.

um there's a bunch in portland they do a huge um to-do about it up in portland um they're not everywhere but i know in las vegas there's a really big one um joey hamilton who was also on ink master he runs it um with a guy named sausage Shout out to today's sponsor, Rocket Money.

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I know, sausage.

What a name.

Yes.

He's hilarious.

He was on Ink Master too.

Like I said, I mean, being on Ink Master, it's like a fraternity.

So we all kind of know each other.

But yeah,

the tattoo school thing is great.

You know what I mean?

Cause you're actually learning from like, you know an actual person that's been doing it for a long time apprenticeships at times can be a little redundant a lot of times you know an old tattoo master kind of just wants somebody there to be their slave and kind of you know go get them a water like an assistant yeah clean up after them you know what I mean and they're not really learning you know they're not invested in teaching someone whereas the tattoo schools they're you know you're paying premium dollar and you're going to be taught properly so it's pretty cool so as someone who was one of the most known tattoo artists how insane was the money at that level?

So it's nice, but I think

being in upstate New York, you know, you have a roof that you hit.

You know what I mean?

If I lived in New York City or L.A.

or San Francisco, you know, I could have had my

hourly rate or my day rate could have been $3,500.

Damn, for an hour?

No, no, for a day rate.

My day, yeah.

So being in those areas, if I wanted, $3,500 would have been my day rate or my hourly rate could have been $600 an hour.

You know what I mean?

You can make a million.

Oh, yeah.

But I'm in upstate New York.

I have a house there.

I have a family.

I have kids.

So like I'm not planning.

I wasn't planning on going to those places.

So like mine was only $250 an hour.

And that was kind of like the max that you can make in upstate New York.

So it's still great.

No, it's, I mean, it's great.

You know what I mean?

Obviously, you got to do your taxes at the end of the year if you want to.

But

you kind of see the ceiling, you know?

And the only way you were going to go above that is one, do a lot of conventions.

And I did a lot of them.

I was doing at least once a month going to.

People get tattoos at the time.

Yeah, so like there, you can have a convention rate where it can be $600 an hour and you can get those, you know, premium rates that you would get in New York and Adams.

So I did that a lot, which is fun.

But then also you have to deal with being away from your family.

And then that's a whole nother

person.

Yeah, I'm a huge family guy.

I love my kids, drive me crazy.

But, you know, I love them.

I love my wife.

She's amazing.

That's awesome.

Has anyone come to your shop with just terrible tattoos and you had to kind of redo it?

I mean, so

towards the end before I retired, I'd have like a whole, like, when you go on the website, you fill out like a form.

And, you know,

there'd definitely be a lot.

They'd be like, oh, I saw you in Inkmaster.

I'd like to get like a unicorn on my shoulder.

And I'm like, that's cool.

It's just not my thing.

Towards the last three years, I would say I was very picky on what I did because I was very much into the cartoon, realistic, new school type stuff.

So I was very fortunate I was able to pick and choose.

But I also tell people, like a lot of young tattooers, I say, you know, I didn't get to pick my style or turn down tattoos until 12 years into it.

You know what I mean?

Like I'm 17 now if I was still going.

But I was seven, you know, I could pick them and, you know, and stuff like that.

But like a lot of these younger tattooers, I mean, I'm like an old man yelling at clouds right now, but a lot of these younger tattooers are like, oh, I've been tattooing for six months and I only do anime tattoos.

I'm like, that's cool, but like, I still think you got to to pay your dues and kind of also like doing a color portrait, doing a black and gray, doing a tribal tattoo, doing a stipling tattoo, all these things are going to make you learn the fundamentals.

And then when you're ready to be at that point in your career where you can just pick one thing, you've kind of mastered all the fundamentals.

A lot of people skip that.

You know what I mean?

Like when I had a few apprentices, we would actually start on a coil machine because if you know how to put down an actual coil machine and put down lines, your tattoos moving forward are going to be amazing because everybody switches to like the rotary machines.

They look like a vibrator.

So you switch to that, but you need to learn the fundamentals of a coil machine before you do that.

Are there any tattoos on you that you did yourself?

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I don't think I'm trying to think if I've ever tattooed myself you know once in a while I would like when I before I got the sleeve blacked out I had tattoos here and I would just touch them up or brighten them up and stuff like that oh I thought that was your shirt that's no it's a full black you know full blacked out sleeve you didn't like the tattoos and you know I love the tattoos so like these this is a sleeve and I had another sleeve over here it's all like traditional um but I got it done in like 98 so like and in the at the time they were like top of the line best tattoos around but like as you can see you know tattooing tattooing is so ridiculous now that, like, it's on a whole nother level, so detailed, these, yeah, and you know, I've had these for

I want to say like 25 years or something like that, you know, or whatever it is.

I don't know.

I'm 43, so um, but I've had them for so long, I just kind of got bored with them.

And I see a lot of people, a lot of my friends in the industry, they'd black out their aunts, like, man, that looks so good because it's just like, it just looks smooth and clean.

Black goes with everything.

So, yeah, I just kind of went for it.

And it hurt like hell.

They get like a big, giant 50 mag, so a mag is like the width.

I'd be crying.

Oh, dude, I was I was crying.

I had to get laser on some dark spots on my face and that shit.

Lasering is another one that just hurt.

It hurt, dude.

I had my chest lasered before I got it tattooed, and I'll never do it again.

Dude, it's that's like everybody's like, oh, why don't you just get your arm lasered and then you can do something new over it?

I'm like, that'd be great if lasering didn't hurt as much.

I had to like hold onto a towel.

Yeah, dude, it's ridiculous.

It's on a whole nother level.

You'd be sweating bullets.

Which part of the body hurts the most to get a tattoo?

I'm a big believer, and I think a lot of us tattooers are, that the ribs

is still like one of the hardest spots.

It's the only spot on the human body that when you're getting tattooed, your body will actually go into,

like, you almost get symptoms of the flu.

So you're like chills, like a quick fever, you know, that wet, pale sweat, you know what I mean?

Your body like is trying to fend off the ink that's going in it and you're getting those symptoms.

And like anywhere else in your body, it doesn't do that.

But on your ribs, it's something about that area that your body just goes, I don't want anything to do with this.

And I'm going to

straight bones.

Oh, yeah.

It hurts.

What's the weirdest location you've given a tattoo at?

Tattoo holes.

Inside.

Really?

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

You got to be careful down there.

I've tattooed a guy's nut sack.

It said dragon balls on it.

That must have hurt.

Yeah, that was the funniest one because we literally had an armrest and I had him put his balls on there and he spread them out.

And so because he had to to hold it, and I was tattooing it, and he was like a military guy, so he brought like 15 of his friends in there.

And they're literally, it was like a circle jerk.

Oh, he must have lost the bet.

They're literally, yeah, he must have lost the bet, but they're literally standing around me.

They're going, Oh my God, and they're just laughing off.

And this guy just has his balls, and he's screaming bloody.

Oh, it was.

I have somewhere online, there's a video.

You must have felt bad just even doing that.

Like, no,

when they come in, I'm like, hey, you know what you're in for.

You know what I mean?

There's some weird spots.

I've seen eyeballs, I've seen tongues.

Yeah, it's just like, I, you know, I had the inside of my lip done it's sense faded it's just a novelty thing and i try to tell people that the tongue i mean why why

i've seen people get this tattooed up here on the top of their gum yeah top of their gums

oh yeah it's not not for me how many tattoos did you have to remove um for me it was just it was just lightening up this so we could put something over the top of it and then i've had one spot on my han solo tattoo that's on my leg just to i didn't really like the how the face came out so we lightened it and then we redid it so yeah that must be a bad feeling getting a tattoo done because it's hard to like edit that, right?

Yeah, I mean, if it's a black and gray tattoo, it's going to fade super easy.

Like, those are actually the easiest things to get tattooed off.

Like, if it's a you know, red, green, or yellow, they're a little bit harder and it takes a little bit more time.

So, yeah, damn, let's let's wrap up with Ink Master.

What was it like going on there?

What did you learn through that?

I love it, I loved it.

So, I grew up watching, you know, real world and road rules, you know, all that like that.

So, like, I've always been a you know, uh, reality TV whore, as it were.

yeah um but i loved going on there it was the most intense thing i've ever done a lot of people don't realize you know i was there for 10 episodes there's 15 total i was there for almost three months wow yeah so you're like you're there and on top of that like there's no windows in the place damn there's no clocks there's no tv

they take they take away your cell phones like three months yeah dude yeah so like in the morning you'd be able to go downstairs and you go into a room and they have a guy that's standing outside the door and you can call FaceTime your wife or girlfriend or whatever.

And then they take it away and you're basically under, like we compared it to jail.

So like it's very traumatic because when you come out of it, you feel like you were in jail.

And the first couple of weeks after you come out and you're tattooing, you're also like always like looking at the clock, like, how many hours do I got left?

Because you're just so traumatized from the clock always.

Five minutes.

Five minutes.

You know what I mean?

So, yeah.

So you're under like a certain time period of fixation.

Yeah.

So like they'll give you like, oh, you have six hours to do a tattoo.

You quickly learn after you don't finish the tattoo in time and you almost get sent home, which happened to us, is you don't need to design a tattoo for six hours, design it for three hours because just like you're under the lights, there's no music playing, so everything, it goes by a lot faster, but like

just don't don't over don't overestimate what you want it.

Oh, I can totally get a six-hour tattoo.

No, you're not.

You're going to do a three-hour tattoo and crush it.

You know what I mean?

How far did you make it?

Made it

10 episodes.

So I think it was like like fifth place or something.

Nice.

How many

people?

There was 23

in my season.

Yeah, solid.

My season was the only one, too, where we were able to go on it with our tattoo, our actual shop.

So there was two of us, me and this guy named Derek, who's awesome.

Nice.

So we came on there and we were able to do like tandem tattooing.

So I'd be tattooing one side of a girl's body and he'd be tattooing the other, which I've never done in my life.

And then just the overall, like the funness of doing like stuff that we've never done before.

Like we had an ice sculpting challenge.

I've never sculpted ice.

So

apparently I must have done well.

So yeah, we have stuff like that.

There's, it was just an overall amazing experience.

And I'm very fortunate.

And it's still cool that like I go to a lot of tattoo conventions and people are like, oh, I loved your season.

You were cool.

That's cool.

Yeah.

So going from tattoos to sneakers, what sparked that change?

Was it money?

Was it you got bored of the industry?

What happened?

Yeah, I mean, it's never money with me.

It's really

hit at the right time.

So at that point, I was 15 years, 15 or 16 years into tattooing, but I had really bad back problems and a little bit of carpal tunnel, like most of the vet tattooers.

And I just basically said, I need to do something.

Well, I can't tattoo right now.

And it was like the first time ever that I've been on, you know, I've taken a week vacation here and there, but this is the first time for like three months we weren't able to tattoo in New York.

And then a friend of mine, Dom, he goes by the shoe surgeon.

You know, I had been talking to him for a couple of years because he'd always wanted to get tattooed by me.

And he's like, you should take my course.

And I'm like, I don't know.

You know, I've painted vans and things like that.

He goes, I think you do really well.

You're creative.

Obviously, you're an artist.

So I took his course that he offered and made a pair of Wolverine shoes, posted them.

And everybody was like, f ⁇ out.

I was like, wow, okay, this is really cool.

And then everybody I was talking to, they were just like, I think you should do more of this because I think there's a, like a

like a market that's, that's not, you know, that hasn't been fulfilled yet.

Yeah.

It's like this nerd culture, you know, you know, sneaker, you know, niche market.

And I was like, okay, cool.

So then I, you know, made a couple more shoes.

And every time I'd make a, like, every time I make up another shoe, I'd post it.

And people are like, oh, I, I want to, I want to order a pair of those.

So then I would do like five pairs.

Yeah.

And then the big one was I did the ninja turtle one, the first ones, and I got like, um, I just put up a pre-order and I was like, ah, we'll see if we get 10 orders.

Yeah.

I got 50 in the first, in the first 300 each, right?

Yeah.

Oh, no, that time they were 600.

Oh, wow.

Because they were still being made by me at that time.

So I was like, oh, shit, this is, this is pretty crazy.

So I had to get it.

30k in a day.

Yeah.

So I had to like shut it down, like I closed pre-orders because I couldn't take anymore out.

And then I was just like, how am I going to get 50 pairs done in three months?

So I reached out to, there's a company in Philadelphia that makes a lot of cool shoes.

Have you ever heard of Mosh?

No.

Mosh is another customizer from New York area, and he gets his shoes made at the Garrison factory.

So it's an actual American-made factory that's down in Philadelphia.

And I reached out to some of those, and they actually came through and helped me create the shoes and make them.

And then after that,

I basically was just like, Man, you know, maybe I should stop tattooing and just kind of do this.

And originally, in the beginning, when tattooing came back, I was tattooing like you know, one or two days a week.

And then, after I kept getting more and more orders, I was like, I'm done, I'm onto this now.

So, kind of just made the transition.

And I'm all when I, when I'm, when I'm into something, I'm all into something.

I feel that.

Yeah.

So, I was like, balls to the wall, let's do this.

And, you know, where else in life can you be more successful than you already were, you know, at 40?

That age was 41, 40.

You know, at 41 or 40, where can you switch careers and be more successful than you already were in an already successful career?

So I'm super blessed.

Absolutely.

And now you have time and location freedom because with tattoos, you were tied to a physical career.

Exactly.

Now there is no ceiling.

We just had an acquisition with another.

another firm basically and we still keep all our names and like that nothing really changes but now we have a whole marketing team behind us you know we have the funds We have a lot of capital to go to more trade shows and things like that.

And really just sky's the limit with that stuff.

That's awesome.

You know, it's, it's, it's, it's awesome.

Like, it's just, I'm, I, I hear stories from people all the time, like sending me messages going, I found your page.

I wish I had found it like two years ago because everything you post is like my childhood.

And I'm like, fing.

I'm like, if I can make you think of Saturday morning cartoons, I'm doing my job right now.

Yeah, that's so cool.

And there's a passionate audience for some of the licenses and brands.

Oh, my God.

Yeah.

You know, that was our goal was, you know, we're kind of like a dealer, right?

We get you in with the Nikes and

that kind of, you know, stellar brand, the established brand of Nike.

But then we've transitioned to like our own shoes, which are the short horns, which are the low top, and the long horns, which are high tops.

But working with the licensing and stuff that we're doing now, you know, you can't put a Ninja Turtle, you know, license on a Nike shoe unless you get permission from Nike, and that's not happening anytime soon.

Yeah, they would never do that.

They don't need it.

So, you know, working with all these licensing, we had to develop our own shoe.

So it took about six months to kind of work out some prototypes, go back and forth.

But we really came out with a shoe that I call it like the perfect convention shoe.

You know, like a lot of our customers are Comic-Con.

Yes.

And they want to, they wear the shoes.

You know, most of the time, they just have it on the shelf with their holy grails and their collectibles.

Oh, here's the Ninja Turtle shelf.

Bam, there's the shoes right there.

It's the coolest thing.

I love seeing stuff like that.

And then when the Comic-Con, you know, comes to their area, they put the shoes on with their cool, clothes or whatever.

They go walk around, show them off.

Everyone goes, oh, those are cool shoes.

And then they come back, put it back on the shelf, clean them off, put them back on the shelf.

That's like the biggest compliment.

So when they send me pictures of their collection, my shoes are right next to their sideshow collectible statues.

I'm like, yeah.

Yeah, that's the best.

What goes down at Comic-Con?

I've never been to one of those.

Dude, you got to go.

Dude, it's just nerd heaven, man.

Like everything from, you know, I'm a huge toy collector.

Like, as I've been here in Las Vegas, like probably most people are like going to the bars or casino.

I'm like trying to find every cool little hole-in-the-wall toy store.

I'm at Brad's Toys like once a month.

Oh, nice.

I'm a Funko Pop collector.

Oh, nice.

Yeah, yeah.

So

Comic-Con is just like cosplay galore.

Everybody comes out dressed in their favorite costumes.

Nobody's judging.

It's just really a good geek culture where everybody can come and you can be yourself and nobody's judging you.

Yeah.

You know,

yeah, it's just a huge fandom.

I love it.

It's just, it's, it's changed a lot over the years, but in a good way, you know?

I love the new narrative on nerds because growing up, I got bullied for it, but now nerds are cool, dude.

I used to so growing up, I was a huge Star Wars collector.

I still am, but I would have, you know, all these Star Wars, you know, in-universe books that I'd read.

I'd bring them to school, and

somebody would punch me and be like, you read this

nerd.

You know what I mean?

I was like the only kid that read sci-fi and had like a mohawk because I was the only punk kid in my school.

Oh, shout out to Mohawks.

Yeah, yeah.

So like I'd be getting bullied left and right.

You're a nerd.

And now it's like nerds rule the world.

Yeah.

You know what I mean?

Elon Musk, Zuckerberg.

Exactly.

It's like it's our time to shine.

Yeah, it's our time.

We don't have to hide anymore.

No, I love it.

It's not a dirty word anymore.

It's great.

I used to get bullied because I was a PC gamer.

That was considered.

Oh, dude.

Yeah.

That was great.

I used to play Doom.

Remember Doom?

Yeah.

And Wolf is a little bit too young for it, but my dad played that.

You probably played World of Warcraft.

World of Warcraft.

RuneScape.

Yeah.

People story.

Quake.

I've heard of that.

Yeah, Quake was a great one, too.

Yeah.

But yeah, everyone in my school and town played Xbox or PlayStation.

they're like you're a nerd dude you play pc yeah i remember you're probably a little too young for this but when the nintendo 64 came out we would have like um goldeneye do you remember goldeneye it's no i never played 64 it's a first-person shooter but you're james bond okay but like the it was it's hands down the best first-person shooter game ever made wow and we would all like have competitions we all my nerd friends would come together and we'd you know sit there for two days straight playing like literally like have like a bracket that's it's like an nba playoffs but but it's with you know, a game.

So, you got that game over Halo.

Oh, yeah.

I mean, it's before Halo for sure, you know what I mean?

So, I have played Halo a little bit.

Now, I don't play as much as I would because I'm like the old guy.

Like, there's too many buttons.

I like my Nintendo and Sega Genesis and things like that.

I like the GameCube.

That's hands down one of my favorites.

The controller was just so comfortable.

So easy.

Super smash on the GameCube.

That was my jam.

Great game.

I know you've made shoes for a lot of celebrities and known people.

Have there been any that really surprised you that reached out?

One of my favorites is Pee Wee Herman.

You know, we made a pair for him, which was super.

I mean, I grew up watching him, like, who, like everybody.

And then he just passed, so God rest his soul.

You know, I grew up watching Power Ranger, so I made a pair for David, Blue Power Ranger, which was really fun.

Now we're working with one of our licensing partners is David Arquette, you know, who's from Scream.

I love Scream.

Yeah, dude, he's amazing.

So he owns the right to Bozo the Clown.

Wow.

And we have the license with him.

So we, last weekend, we were in Nashville and we met up with Dave and took some photos and stuff like that.

He's amazing.

We're working with Billy Zane, who's, I mean, the dude is like an artist, an artist, artist.

Like, I don't know if you've ever seen any of his paintings because he's a painter, too.

It's ridiculous.

Yeah.

Yeah.

He's on a whole nother level.

He will talk your ears off forever in a great way because he just thinks.

He just thinks outside the box.

That's what I love about artists is we think outside the box.

So when we meet someone else that's like us, it's just ear candy.

Yeah.

You know, dude, I get so happy when I see people that find their passion and they're able to make a living off it.

Yeah.

Because that's like true happiness.

Oh, yeah.

I, I feel so, I mean, I was literally just talking about this with somebody.

Was I just feel so like sad for the people that, you know, go to a nine-to-five job and they're in a cubicle and they just feel like they're in a prison cell and like they just hate their job.

You know, they'll go home, have a drink, and be like, ah, I got to start again tomorrow.

And it's just like, I would never want to do that.

It's not the way to live.

Exactly.

I'd rather make less on my own than work a cubicle.

Exactly.

Exactly.

Happiness isn't about the money.

It's about, you know,

what is that?

Old saying, like, if you love your job, you know, if you love what you do, it's never going to be.

You know what I'm talking about?

Yeah.

If you love your work, it never feels like work or something.

Yeah, something like that.

And that's how I feel.

Like, every day I go in and I'm either designing a shoe on my Procreate or I'm painting a shoe.

Or I always like to spice it up and kind of change the schedule and stuff like that.

But I feel like I'm just creating art and that that's the fun part you know awesome that's what I love about what I do too is I'm bringing more art back to the shoe community you know what I mean because there's so many

there's so many Nike's like the biggest you know violator of this where I think that they just play it safe a lot yeah and they'll just kind of oh here's this lazy colorway and they'll call it the Bart Simpson the Bart Simpson or the Homer Simpson and I'm like that's so lazy you know if I had that license well also they don't have the license because they don't they don't they're Nike they don't have to get the license but if i had it i would i you know you've saw the el bardos i probably made yeah and you know i had so much fun doing those crush it yeah it's just like i i feel that when you're creating something for an ip or a brand or you know what i mean like a you know he-man or any of that stuff like that it's your duty to give the collectors what they want yeah and put those details in you know that's a lot of what people say is like i love your shoes because you don't miss the details even if it's like you flip over the tongue and there's like something back there that only one person might know, they f ⁇ ed up.

That's awesome.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I think from Nike's point of view, just it would, their scalability can't, can't match the quality at that point, you know?

Yeah.

I mean, how many times do you see someone post like, oh, I got this from the factory and look how shit it is.

You know what I mean?

Their margins must be insane.

Oh, insane.

They're making the shoes for 10 bucks, probably.

Oh, probably cheaper than that.

Cheaper than 10.

Yeah.

I mean, it depends on what size of the run is.

Right.

But it's probably cheaper than that.

Wow.

And they sell them for $150, $200.

Yeah.

I mean,

that's also, that's why I started doing, making my own shoes too, is I got fed up.

I've been on the sneakers app for four years.

I've never once won a drop, ever, ever.

How do those work?

So like you go on, like they'll say, oh, you know, these shoes are coming out tomorrow at 9 a.m.

Eastern standard or whatever.

I would go on there and, you know, click, you know, goes at nine o'clock, click, sold out.

Oh, it's a raffle?

Yeah, or it's a raffle.

You know what I mean?

But I've never went.

It's always the bots winning or something that has a code or whatever.

I remember those Yeezy bots back in the day oh my god

yeah they would buy like 20 pairs and sell them all yeah so i that's also like like i said that's why i started doing my own shoes is i was just frustrated because i couldn't get the shoes i wanted yeah so i'll just make my own i love that that's how entrepreneurship is started what's a dream brand or ip that you want to work with um

i mean we've worked with so many right now um we had a just like a provisional or like a promotional license with um paramount working with ninja Turtles, but I'd love to like solidify that where it's actually like a full-time license.

But the hard part with that is we lost that license because Adidas came in and they had global licensing rights.

And I get it.

They're a multi-billion dollar brand and we're a little old us, but like give us some, give us a little piece so we can have our didas took TMNT from you?

Yeah, so they have it to, I think.

2025, I think they have it.

And then you can apply for it.

Yeah, then we can apply for it.

But we're working with some other people.

So like working with the licensing, we're learning a lot of the ins and outs.

And then there's a company that they do like pop culture coffee.

Yeah.

And they actually have a promotional license or actually a full license with Paramount.

And we're going to be doing a co-brand with them.

So we're actually going to be able to make Nintendo.

Sorry, we're actually going to be able to make

Ninja Turtle shoes

with a co-brand with them.

So it's kind of like a loophole.

A loophole, right?

Learning about the loopholes is great.

Yeah, I go to licensing expo here in Vegas every year.

That's where we were down there in January.

It's super fun.

Yeah, we were down there in June.

It was super fun.

That's where we got, that was the first time there.

We came down with my partner and we just went balls to the wall and we got a shit out of a license.

Dude, yeah, it's great networking.

I don't even sell anything, but I go there and just get podcast guests.

It's a really fun time.

It's so much fun and everybody that's everybody was there.

The only one we couldn't score a meeting with was Nintendo.

They're just like,

they weren't even taking anybody at the door.

They're like, yes,

I didn't even know the first year I went, you had to book the meetings in advance.

Yeah, so that was the other thing is like for for years, I didn't know that you could, anybody could go to the licensing expo.

I thought it was an invite only.

And then somebody, his name's Jazz, he works for Geek Fuel.

He basically said, no, no, no, you just go on, you sign up, it's free.

And then he told me that you just, you book all your appointments, like you contact them.

That part I didn't know.

So I was walking up the tables like, want to meet.

Yeah, so we're booked.

Like Nintendo was one that we couldn't book ahead of time.

And there was a couple of other ones where you'd walk up and be like, hey, can I book an appointment?

They're like, sorry, we're booked out.

Dude, if you ever get a Kirby one or like Sonic, that would be sick so we we did talk to uh sonic the hedgehog so like um because they have they're outside of sega it's a different license and we're working with them we got capcom nice uh we got a bunch of bunch of stuff yeah i feel like the marvel ones would crush it too yeah marvel's hard because that's disney disney wasn't even there at that one so but i've also heard they're kind of to work for too like they're very hard to work like get approvals and stuff like that so they probably try to gatekeep yeah yeah very much so but i mean so far like the capcom one is going to be great great once we finalize that so we can make Street Fighter and you know all that stuff.

Yeah, well, dude, you brought a pair here.

I'd love to see it.

So I, when we were, you know, we scheduled this, I said, I need to make you a pair of shoes.

Yeah.

So we made you

digital social hour Sean shoes.

And what are these?

What are these balls here?

So these balls are, we have our own little proprietary thing called sneaker heads

and that's what these are so if you remember like back in the day mad balls Balls, these are our kind of version of Mad Balls, but these actually have essential oils in them.

So, you stick them in your shoes or buy your shoes and they get rid of the scent.

Oh, and your sneakers.

I need that because I got smelly feet.

So, we got the little blue guy that's based after Mind Prep Monster-ish, and then our classic Chicago Bowls little guy here.

So, and that's our little bowl logo.

And you got jerseys, too.

Yeah, we got jerseys for you.

Wow, can't go wrong with that 23.

It's the best number all time.

There we go.

Dude, I got jerseys, man.

So, that jersey is actually based after after there was a Ninja Turtle figure that came out,

I think it was before the 90s, and it was Donatello, and he had that jersey, and that's an exact replication of it.

Dude, that's sick.

Oh, there's my guards.

Okay.

So that's signed by Steve Levine.

Steve Levine, if you remember the Ninja Turtle cartoon, he was basically the guy that created the look of what those are.

Because before that, it was Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird who created the Mirage Turtles.

And then they kind of made the transition into the cartoon world.

And Steve was one of the ones that are integral to that.

Love that, dude.

It's legendary.

Yo.

These are sick.

Oh, my gosh.

I'm going to wear these.

And then I didn't realize how big your damn feet are.

Like, I wear a size nine.

I'm like sample size.

Yo, that is dope.

That's the best angle here.

Yeah, these are sick, man.

Thanks so much.

Yeah, and it's got like your little, your head caricature that kind of, there's Velcro on them, so they pop off.

Yeah, you got the signature here.

You got the signature.

Bro, thanks so much.

It's honestly one of the best gifts I've ever ever gotten.

Yeah, you have a talent.

I can't wait to see where you take this.

Yeah, and I know you have curly hair.

So I made it.

I remember I showed you ahead of time, and you're like, oh, the hair's a little long.

So I gave it a little haircut.

I literally got clippers out and gave it a haircut.

Oh, thanks so much, dude.

Anything you want to promote or close off with?

Yeah.

So in about two weeks, the middle of November, we have our next shoe coming out.

I'm actually wearing them right now.

So we have the license for the Toxic Crusaders.

Ooh.

And

it's a cool cartoon.

If you remember the Ninja Turtle cartoon, when that cartoon was just about to end, the same company started, picked up another IP from a, funny enough, like a horror movie from the 70s that was totally rated R.

And they decided to make it into the replacement for the Ninja Turtles.

And that's what this is right here.

This is a shorthorn.

So this is our version of a low top.

It's kind of a mix between an SB Dunk and an Adidas Forum with the little bells and whistles.

It's got a little toxic back here.

But these are going to be going for sale, I'd say, around the 15th is when they're dropping.

We got got a really cool campaign going for it.

Um, so if you're into the Toxic Crusaders and all that stuff like that, these are dropping uh November 15th, I believe.

Dude, I'm not even into that show, but those are dope.

Thank you very much.

Just wear those.

Thanks so much for coming on, man.

Dude, thank you guys so much.

And if you get a chance, check out uh at full airs or at bull underscore airs.

Check us out where you got all your nerd needs.

It's nostalgia in every step.

Nerds are cool now, guys.

Let's go.

Let's get it.

Thanks for watching.

See you next time.