“I was always drawing as a young kid,  just scribbling and scribbling and destroying a bunch of pages,” says Will Ralston. “I can remember from the age of five, I was trying to draw better than the older kids. I used to get in trouble in elementary school for drawing too much.” Ralston’s career as a working artist began early. In middle school, he started a small business drawing art on commission for his classmates. “Dragon Ball Z was a really big thing,” he remembers. “So I was like, ‘Yeah, give me ten bucks and I’ll draw you a character.’” Ralston took art classes throughout high school and went on to attend the Ringling College of Art and Design, graduating in 2008 with a BFA in illustration.

While other graduates of the illustration program were setting up portfolios and sending them to publishers, Ralston spent a few years creating custom designs as an automotive airbrush artist. His airbrush skills led to jobs creating large-scale murals in various venues, including a tattoo shop in Oldsmar owned by a friend. Ralston had grown up watching old-time monster movies with his dad, and his interest in that spooky aesthetic was reawakened by some creepy flash art he saw in the shop. He began incorporating more classic horror and fantasy themes into his airbrush work, and his friend urged him to consider tattooing as another artistic outlet. It was a great suggestion—Ralston began his tattoo apprenticeship fifteen years ago and never looked back. Since 2012, he has been part of the family at Oddity Tattoo Studio & Gallery which has four locations in the Sarasota area (Ralston can be found at the UTC location) where he is a partner. When he’s not tattooing, Ralston still takes on other projects from time to time. He painted a large-scale wall mural at Calusa Brewing, and has also designed some labels for some of their beers in the past. Ralston also paints on canvas—his work is often on display at Oddity, and the studio holds an annual art show where the tattoo artists can showcase their other artwork. Ralston also has prints available for sale on his website. Whether he’s painting canvases, airbrushing walls or inking skin, Ralston is undeniably making his mark on the Sarasota arts scene in his own unique way.