A tui in pohutukawa flowers tattooed on the arm of Trevor Masters earned Tauranga tattoo artist a first place win at the NZ International Tattoo Expo held in Tauranga over the weekend.

The best small colour tattoo is a less than an A4 sized picture, and sits on Trevor's arm.

Tattoo artist Norton Hollows with client Trevor Masters and the award winning piece. Photos: Tracy Hardy.

'I tattooed him at the studio and we managed to just finish it up before the show,” says Norton Hollows, who works out of Bohemian Tattoo Arts on Grey Street.

'It's full on realism, it's Kiwiana. It's a tui in among the pohutukawa flowers. It's awesome I'm really stoked.

'I believe it was a digital illustration from a photo and I manipulated it on Photoshop boosted levels and contrasts and exaggerated saturation and things like that - and gently applied it to his skin over a number of hours.”

Norton's partner and fellow artist Emma Kerr won a first prize last year. Now there's competition in the family.

It's only about the second time Norton has entered a competition.

He thinks his model Trevor Master was more stoked about it.

'I'm pretty proud of it, it's quite cool, and chops to him (Trevor) for just sitting there and letting me hammer away at him for hours. He took it like a champ.”

Trevor says he's been getting comments that it is more like a painting than a tattoo.

'A lot of people think that it's more like a painting rather than like a tattoo because it's so realistic. The detail in it is just unbelievable.”

The first sitting was nine hours the second was six and the third two hours, says Trevor.