Before Yomico Moreno became an established realism tattoo artist, he was a kid in Venezuela skipping school to watch painters work in the town square.
The painters worked with just five or six oil paints, mixing their limited colors to create remarkable works of art. Yomico watched, learned, and eventually brought those same lessons into tattooing.
"And when I got the chance to buy my first ink, I bought the same colors in tattoo ink. The same colors those artists used in their oil paintings, because they inspired me and taught me how to mix."
Decades later, that experience remains fundamental to his approach to color. It's also a fitting starting point for understanding his two signature World Famous Tattoo Ink collections: the Yomico Artistic Basic Set and Yomico Renaissance Ink Set.
Both collections draw on his experience with color theory and mixing, giving artists the tools to explore color with greater creative freedom.
Understanding Color Is the Foundation of Great Realism
For Yomico, one of the greatest challenges in realism isn't simply learning to reproduce an image. It's learning to understand what you're looking at.
"Every time I do a seminar, I see it in the artists. I'm not going to say it's a problem, but probably the most difficult skill to develop is understanding what you see. Especially in realism."
He emphasizes that colors rarely exist in isolation. Light, shadow, and surrounding hues influence how we perceive them, and artists need to account for those relationships when translating a reference into a tattoo.
"Nothing is pure red, nothing is pure black, nothing is pure white, nothing is pure yellow. Color reflects color."
Even with his early experience learning from oil painters, Yomico spent years developing his understanding of those relationships.
"For me, it took a lot of time to understand that, even though I come from oil painting. I know how to mix my colors, but when you do realistic style, one of the main difficult areas is to see."
That understanding informs his approach to color mixing and the palettes he uses today.
The Yomico Artistic Basic Set: Start with the Fundamentals
The Yomico Artistic Basic Ink SetOpens a new windowOpens a new window brings together eight essential World Famous colors, providing a versatile foundation for artists who want to experiment with color mixing and develop their own palettes.
The set includes Straight Red, Moroccan, Great Wall Yellow, Bali Pink, Light Green, Bangkok Blue, Galaxy Purple, and Legendary Outlining.
For Yomico, working from a limited selection of colors has been part of his artistic process since childhood. When he first began tattooing, he applied the same mixing principles he'd learned from the painters in Venezuela.
"At that moment, it was frustration, because I didn't have money to buy much ink. I just bought five inks and mixed my colors on my hand. And all that process helped me understand how to do everything I do today."
The Artistic Basic Set reflects the importance of understanding individual pigments and how they interact.
Artists can use the colors individually or mix them to develop additional tones for their work.
It's a versatile starting point for exploring color theory, whether you're refining your realism techniques or developing a style of your own.
The Yomico Renaissance Ink Set: Explore a Richer Palette
Inspired by the great masters of Renaissance painting, the Yomico Renaissance Ink SetOpens a new windowOpens a new window expands on those fundamentals with 12 colors developed for mixing, layering, and achieving nuanced tones in realism.
The collection includes Renaissance Light, Renaissance Medium, Renaissance Dark, Tierra, Oro, Arcilla, Yare, Avila, Indigo, Majesty, Malta, and Reveron.
Where the Artistic Basic Set provides bold foundational colors, the Renaissance Set introduces deeper, moodier hues for artists looking to explore more complex color relationships.
The two collections complement each other, offering a broader palette for developing realistic tones and fine-art-inspired tattoos.
Yomico's own experience underscores the importance of knowing how to manipulate color rather than relying on a single pigment to achieve every effect.
One common mistake he identifies is using black to darken other colors without considering how the resulting mixture will change.
"The biggest mistake is when they mix color with black. That's one of the mistakes I made too, to be honest, in my beginning."
Instead, Yomico encourages artists to study complementary colors and understand how different pigments interact to create muted or neutral tones.
That knowledge is especially valuable when working with the Renaissance Set's range of colors, where subtle variations can contribute to greater depth and realism.
Finding Your Own Artistic Language
Although Yomico is known for realism, he doesn't believe artists should limit themselves to reproducing references exactly as they find them.
He encourages experimentation, whether that means adjusting a reference, exploring different color relationships, or drawing inspiration from other artistic disciplines.
"Some artists are really good at copy and paste. But you want to create your art. To give your next step something different from the rest, you need to understand why you see it."
For Yomico, developing a recognizable style means learning to interpret what inspires you rather than simply imitating another artist's work.
"For me, one of the most difficult things for any artist is to find their identity, their own language, something no other artist can do."
His Artistic Basic and Renaissance Ink Sets give artists two complementary palettes to work from as they experiment with color and develop their individual approaches to tattooing.
Learn More from Yomico with an Exclusive Seminar
There's more to Yomico's approach than the colors themselves. Understanding how and why he mixes pigments is an important part of learning from his experience.
That's why purchasing either Yomico World Famous ink set also gives you exclusive access to a Yomico Moreno seminar, where you can explore his artistic approach in greater depth.
After 20 years of tattooing, Yomico continues to study, experiment, and learn from artists across generations. His signature ink sets reflect that lifelong curiosity and the color-mixing principles he first discovered as a child.
Explore the Yomico Artistic Basic and Renaissance Ink Sets from World Famous Tattoo Ink and discover new possibilities for your own work.
