Mister Cartoon

Mark Machado, better known as Mr. Cartoon or more commonly just Cartoon or Toon, is an American tattoo artist and graffiti artist based in Los Angeles, California.

Growing up in the Harbor area of Los Angeles County, young Cartoon began doing illustrations and graffiti then going on to airbrushing clothing and lowrider custom cars.

Machado then moved on to working in the music industry doing album covers, tour merchandise, and later tattooing recording artists and other celebrities.

Machado's style of art is part of the Chicano art movement and cholo culture, which he became part of in the late 1980s, using various mediums.

His other work includes hand painted signs, screen printing, wall murals, clothing, and toy sculptures of cartoon cats.

He adopted the "Fine Line" prison tattooing art style, alongside Old English lettering, which historically was developed in the California prison system.

Mister Cartoon has been described by the New York Times as an "instrumental figure in the Los Angeles hip-hop scene" and by the BBC as "one of the greatest living tattoo artists in the US", he has tattooed the bodies of Kobe Bryant, Dr. Dre, 50 Cent, Eminem, Christina Aguilera, Travis Barker, Pink, Justin Timberlake, Beyoncé Knowles, Danny Trejo, Melanie Griffith, Shaquille O'Neal, Lewis Hamilton, and Snoop Dogg.

Machado designed logo's for musicians and record labels including Cypress Hill, Eazy-E's Ruthless Records and Eminem's Shady Records.

Machado's work has been used in the realms of fashion, hospitality, technology, and sports, by Nike, Toyota, T-Mobile, the Los Angeles Kings, the Los Angeles Clippers, Modelo, and in Grand Theft Auto.

Machado grew up in the harbour area of the San Pedro neighborhood of Los Angeles.

His parents were of Mexican heritage, his father grew up in South Tucson, Arizona.

Machado grew up alongside one sister in a Catholic household.

The parents owned a print shop together.

Machado's parents encouraged the arts, taking him to art house films and introducing disco and psychedelic rock music at home.

At age 10 while learning to draw Machado got in trouble at Catholic school for drawing Jesus naked on the cross.

As a kid Machado would go into the streets with friends and write on the side of school walls and handball courts emulating the quality of art he saw at his parent's shop.

His nickname 'Cartoon' came from drawing all the time, the 'Mister' was added later in late 1980s to give the appearance of being older than people would expect.

His first paying job was at age 12 doing illustrations for a client of the print shop his parents owned, which lead to his father regularly giving having him work on logos and menu designs for local restaurants.

During his youth at elementary school Machado was once featured in the Daily Breeze local newspaper for his illustrative talents.

Machado attended San Pedro High School, by the time he was in high school he would steal paint from an elderly man's house and his father's garage doing illustrations for the banners and newspaper of the school.

An early inspiration were the graffiti artists LEE and Fab Five Freddy from New York City, after first seeing their work in the music video for Rapture by Blondie.

As a way to practice his craft he would offer to create murals on large walls that had lots of graffiti to residents in poor neighborhoods, the murals would have imagery like Egyptian hieroglyphs or people sporting a handlebar moustache.

Due to local gang activity Machado was losing friends at an early age to death or jail and was pushed to get into custom cars as a hobby, his father was also a big fan of cars which helped develop the interest as they would go on road trips and to car shows together spotting different details and designs in cars.

Growing up in the 1980s and 1990s Machado saw the worlds of hip hop, tattoo culture, and street art in Los Angeles all fuse together.

Machado initially started as a graffiti artist under the name FLAME or FLAME ONE in the WCA crew in 1987.

In 1988 his sister gave him work making graffiti for movie sets and his mother would type up the invoices on a typewriter to help him get paid.

At age 20 in 1989 Cartoon got a job as an illustrator for Hustler Magazine, while doing cartoon drawings for Southland hip hop artists album covers on the side.

Machado first big break into the music industry came after approaching Eazy-E at a car wash.

Eazy-E then requested Machado to do some work for artists on his label Ruthless Records which included tour merchandise and three album covers; Paid the Cost, Kizz My Black Azz, and Black Mafia Life.

The two would go on to travel together for work.

In 1992 as Machado got further into the world of hip hop, at an album release party for Eazy-E's group Penthouse Players Clique at the Hollywood Athletic Club, through a friend Donnie Charles he met Estevan Oriol who was managing the rap group Cypress Hill.

After attending car shows with his father and seeing older men do airbrushing, for his 16th birthday Machado was gifted an airbrush which he would take to the Gardena swap meets.

His initial business was sign painting and airbrushing logos or murals on clothing and cars for auto shops, car shows, and swap meets.

Machado would design for boxing gyms or car audio shops and barter his services or use the money earned from airbrushing to trade for car parts so he could build his own lowriders.

While hanging out at the auto body shops Machado learned about pinstriping and how to paint custom cars.

One of his first breakthroughs came as a fluke when a photojournalist from Car and Driver came to his high school asking if anyone could do a graffiti set for the backdrop of their magazine cover to which he took the offer.

At the age of 17 Machado was charged with an act of vandalism for $30,000 but was prosecuted as a minor and not sent to juvenile hall as he pleaded guilty, instead going on probation for $3,000.

In one of his earliest commissions, to cover the expense, he did a mural for a boxing gym.

Machado attended LA Trade Tech becoming one of the first in his family to attend post secondary education, it was during this period at trade school he learned to use a lettering quill alongside gold leaf and enamel sign graphics.

He lasted only one year at the school and was removed due to not following the school's rules or the academic deadlines given.