Blood Diamond Ink, a rare gem hidden among the office buildings and apartments of Pullman, is students’ favorite tattoo shop.

The parlor, in its fifth year of business, resides in one of the oldest Pullman maintenance buildings. Originally an empty warehouse, it was converted by owner Chris Peltier and friends into what is considered the best place to get a tattoo in Pullman.

The team there has a diverse style of tattooing, ranging from traditional and neo-traditional all the way to fine-line tattooing and dotwork.

It’s hard for them to determine their favorite piece they’ve done, because of how eclectic their work is.

“Oh man, that changes weekly,” Peltier said. “That’s really hard to narrow down. Every single one of our artists here has a different style they prefer, and that gives a nice dynamic between the four of us. If someone walks in and they’re looking for a specific piece or a specific artist, we have a style for everybody.”

Chris’s preference consists of large, difficult tasks that challenge him as an artist saying.

“I love doing more faces, portraits,” he said. “I’m starting to love color, [but] black and gray used to be my go-to.”

The other artists also enjoy a good challenge, they say. It’s what makes being an artist fun.

Blood Diamond Ink employees Amanda Boik and Dan Garceau graduated from their apprenticeships in January and have been full-time artists ever since.

“I like to do lettering and I think I’m going to go towards animals and maybe portraits eventually,” Garceau said. “I like to do everything and I like to do things that I haven’t done before.”

Boik said she likes more feminine and floral designs, and delicate line work. Peltier said the fourth artist, Jeff Drumm, is one of the most diverse because he attempts any tattoo unless he knows it’s above his paygrade.

Customer service and communication are major focuses for Blood Diamond, Peltier said.

“We really try to school the younger generations who don’t know how to communicate besides through text,” he said. “We’ve lost a lot of communication face-to-face and that can be our biggest challenge sometimes. Knocking down barriers to know what people really want so we don’t do the wrong thing.”