"It blew up more than I thought," he says. "It was hard for me to get a booth at [tattoo] conventions back then. All of a sudden, I was on the circuit. They were calling me to offer me space."
His flair for portraiture has become so renowned that some people are eager make themselves into walking O'Neill galleries.
"One kid I did a leg sleeve for that had Steve Irwin [the Crocodile Hunter], Bob Roth [TV painting teacher], Abe Lincoln, Julius Caesar, and Hugh Hefner. It seemed so random, but these are people he really respects for various reasons.