Dom Haughton: ‘One of the weirdos’

A satanic My Little Pony. A cow with two heads. A sexy plague doctor. A tarot card depicting an open set of skeletal jaws and a spider building a web on the inside. When it comes to creating macabre art, 24-year-old Dom Haughton, also known as Moonflaws Tattoos, is as passionate as they come, and she loves making it permanent on people’s bodies even more.

After just three years as a tattoo artist, Haughton has been selected as the best in the Lansing area in City Pulse’s Top of the Town People Contest, which she enthused is “a really cool feeling.” But what’s cooler to her is just having the job.

“This is the dream. I feel very lucky that I get to put art on people — my art — and they trust me enough to live with that forever,” she said. “You make people feel really good about themselves. Truly, there’s nothing I don’t like. It’s a really cool experience.”

Becoming a tattoo artist wasn’t a spur-of-the-moment decision for Haughton. She’s aspired to this career since she was 12 years old.

“My dad got me stuck on ‘Ink Master,’” she said. “And I was always a very artsy kid. I was the weird art kid in school. I didn’t do sports, I didn’t do anything like that. I was always drawing, coloring, painting. That’s always been my passion for as long as I can remember.”

“I also love really severe body modifications and the alternative world, so it just kind of made sense,” she added.

She began working at Ink and Needle in Frandor as a receptionist and stayed in that role for about a year and a half before starting an apprenticeship. She said she was able to learn the ins and outs of the industry before she ever picked up a tattoo gun.

“I meet so many people that I would never expect to meet in this industry, and I’ve made so many connections with people. It’s cool,” she said.

Though she said that she’s “still a little baby artist and still learning some things,” she’s developed a style of her own in the past three years. She prefers to do blackwork tattoos, “anything weird, spooky or dark.” She also does a lot of fine-line and stipple-shading work.

When asked what draws her to spooky designs, she said, “I’m definitely one of the weirdos, and I like meeting other weirdos about it.”

Raymond Holt for City Pulse

Raymond Holt

People Contest voters praised her style, leaving several comments. One voter proclaimed that she’s “the absolute best at black ink work!” while another noted, “I’ve gotten many pieces from her, and each one of my pieces is exceptional. She came up with a design for my feet tattoos that I never fail to receive compliments on!”

While she’s not one to brag, Haughton credited her People Contest win to her ability to connect with her clients.

“Speaking from my own experience as a client, I know how important it is to build a connection with your tattoo artist,” she said. “It’s important to make sure the client is comfortable and getting exactly what they want — they’re not scared to speak up if they want anything. At the end of the day, it’s on them forever, not me, so I want to make sure someone leaves here really happy.”

When not tattooing — or spending time with her husky — Haughton also models. The shoots are typically just as spooky as her tattoos.

“To me, that’s another art form that I do. It’s the same thing as tattooing,” she said. “I also do a lot of the weird, creepy horror stuff in my modeling. So, that’s just another way to express my art in a little bit of a different way.”

She’s also an avid live music fan, with a wide-ranging taste spanning from “really heavy metal” to EDM.

“I’ve even gone to a country festival,” she said. “I just love to experience it, and again, it’s about community.”