portrait — artist to supply
Resident A
Illustrative & colour
Names, specialties and books are placeholders — we never invent an artist. The studio drops in each real resident, their style and a link to their own availability.
A New West essay · ⚓ · No. 01
The room
above
Columbia St.
Up a stair off Columbia Street, an appointment-only studio has quietly drawn illustrative and dotwork pieces since 2014 — 4.9 stars, 169 reviews, and almost nothing online to show for it. This is an unsolicited draft from X9 Lab Media: a documentary site built to read like the studio's own. The portfolio frames are placeholders for the artists' real work.
Y
ou don't stumble into Royal Anchor. There are no walk-ins, no flash on the window, no name shouting down the block. You book — and then you climb the stair, and the noise of Columbia Street drops away behind you.
What happens in the room is slow on purpose. A consultation first, always: the idea, the placement, which artist's hand fits the style. Then a custom drawing, made before you ever sit. Then the work itself — clean line for the illustrative pieces, and for the dotwork, shade built one stipple at a time until tone appears out of nothing.
Tone with no lines. Just thousands of dots, and the patience to place them.
That patience is the whole pitch, and it's why the reviews read the way they do. One-sixty-nine of them, averaging four-point-nine — the kind of number a studio earns by sending people home with exactly the piece they described and nothing they didn't. The work is here. The website, until now, was a plain template that never showed it.
PLATE I — V
The work, plate by plate.
Five plates, one per style the room works in. Each is a labelled placeholder — the studio's own healed photographs go here, never stock, never another artist's flash.
Every plate is a placeholder. On the live site this becomes the studio's gallery — filterable by artist and by style. No real tattoo photographs are shown here.
THE BENCH
Who's in the room.
portrait — artist to supply
Resident B
Dotwork & blackwork
A short, accurate bio and a route to that artist's books. No filler, no stock headshots.
portrait — artist to supply
Guest spot
Rotating · fine-line
A residency slot for visiting and apprentice artists, announced with dates and the styles they're booking that week.
APPOINTMENT-ONLY
How to get
How to get
in the room.
There's one way in, and it starts with a conversation. Tell the studio the idea; it pairs you with the right artist; a deposit holds the chair while your custom piece is drawn. Then you climb the stair.
- 01
Tell us the idea
Style, placement, size, any reference — a short form, not phone-tag.
- 02
Consultation
Sit with the artist whose hand fits the style. Direction and an honest quote.
- 03
Deposit & date
A deposit holds the chair; the custom piece is drawn before you arrive.
- 04
The session
Stencil, line, shade — at the room's pace. Aftercare on the way out.
Live form would route to the studio · deposit & pricing confirmed at consult ($ ?)
FIND THE STAIR
Studio207–332 Columbia St
New Westminster, BC
New Westminster, BC
BookingAppointment-only · request a consult
HoursBy appointment · owner to confirm
Rating★ 4.9 on 169 reviews
COLUMBIA ST · NEW WEST