Las Vegas tattoo artist Vanessa “Leroy” Buck Smith creates more than delicate fine-line tattoos, she creates deeply personal keepsakes. Known professionally as Lil Bits by Leroy, her work blends technical precision with an artist’s eye for atmosphere, sentiment, and storytelling. Influenced by Renaissance masters and driven by a lifelong love of drawing, Leroy approaches each tattoo as an intimate collaboration, transforming memories, handwritten notes, beloved pets, and meaningful moments into timeless works of art.
In this conversation, she reflects on her unconventional journey into tattooing, the power of women uplifting women, and why the smallest tattoos often carry the greatest emotional weight.
Thank you for your interest in being featured! Please introduce yourself to our readers.
My name is Vanessa, though most people know me as Leroy. My full name is Leroy Buck Smith, named after my grandfathers. What began as an inside family joke eventually became the name that stayed with me. In tattooing, I go by Lil Bits by Leroy. That name is a bit of a double entendre, it speaks to the scale of the work I’m drawn to while also nodding to my small stature. Whenever someone asks me for a large piece, I jokingly remind them: it’s Lil Bits, not Big Bits.
I’m a native Las Vegas artist, and long before tattooing, I was simply someone who loved to draw and paint. I still think of myself as an artist first and a tattoo artist second. I’m heavily influenced by Renaissance art. I’m currently most at home with graphite on paper, though I tend to move through mediums in phases. One thing that never changes is the need to create dramatic, moody work. Sometimes quite large, sometimes only an inch tall, but always chasing atmosphere, contrast, and feeling. I’m drawn to anything that feels both delicate and dark.
Tattooing feels like an extension of that. I’m still drawn to delicacy, still drawn to detail, but just on skin instead of paper. I specialize in fine line work and love the discipline of subtlety and softness. Some of my favorite things to tattoo are micro realism animals and the handwriting of loved ones. I adore how even the smallest pieces can hold enormous meaning for someone.
Can you tell us a little about your journey into tattooing and how you discovered your love for fine line and single-needle work?
I got my first tattoo at 12 years old. A stick and poke by a family member. Ten years after that, I had a full sleeve. So, tattooing has always fascinated me for as long as I can remember. The idea of becoming a tattoo artist lived somewhere quietly in the back of my mind, but I was going to tattoo shops in the 1900’s, as the kids say. It was very different then. They were more intimidating and felt much like a boy’s club, and the apprenticeship culture at the time carried a certain harshness that made the path feel out of reach. That impression stayed with me for a long time.
For years, art remained central, and tattooing was an idea that felt out of reach. It wasn’t until the pandemic that life slowed down and opened up in an unfamiliar way. It gave me the space to focus and see what could happen if I took it seriously. On top of hours upon hours of drawing circles and pulling lines, I must have given my husband over 100 tattoos during the pandemic. His entire upper thighs look like a flash sheet and no matter how long I’ve tattooed, I will never be above doing a kitchen tat. Where it all began.
But the biggest turning point was when my dearest friend Carol asked me to do tiny tattoos out of her brow shop. I was petrified to go from hobby to professional. I had self doubt and negative self talk but Carol wasn’t hearing it. She believed in me before I fully believed in myself. Her encouragement changed everything and her gently pushing me created a different internal dialogue. What if I could do it? What if all the reasons I keep telling myself I can’t aren’t true. She is a pivotal person in my story, for many reasons, but also why I feel so deeply about women uplifting other women.
And once I began tattooing consistently, fineline felt natural from the beginning because I’ve always been drawn to delicacy and refinement in art. I love softness, restraint, and the kind of detail that asks you to look a little closer.
Get High on Hope by Leroy Buck Smith
Trex by Leroy Buck Smith
Medusa by Leroy Buck Smith
Medusa by Leroy Buck Smith
As an artist first, how do you approach translating someone’s story or vision into a tiny, delicate tattoo?
I get to hear some of the most beautiful stories, and also some incredibly heartbreaking ones. Stories of triumph, loss, love, endurance, and memory. One of the reasons I’m so drawn to tiny tattoos is because I think of them as little love letters to ourselves. A tiny mark can hold so much feeling. Something as simple as a smiley face your grandmother once drew can suddenly become a way of carrying her with you. Something small you glance at and immediately feel connected to. The same goes for pets, handwriting, little symbols tied to a person or a moment. I am a sucker for sentimentalism.
More than anything, I want a piece to evoke memory. I’m deeply drawn to nostalgia, so I’m often trying to create something that feels like a warm memory made visible. Something quiet, personal, and lasting. But I also love the freedom of tattooing something simply because it’s beautiful. Not everything needs to carry a heavy meaning. Sometimes decorating the body is reason enough.
Living and working in Las Vegas, how does the city inspire your art or influence your aesthetic?
Being born and raised in Las Vegas, the city is woven into everything I do. I’m a desert rat through and through. I’ve watched this city change so much over the years, but one shift that feels especially personal to me is the growth of the Arts District. When I was growing up, there wasn’t much of an art culture here, and now there’s an entire part of the city dedicated to creativity and community. That’s a beautiful thing to witness. It’s also incredibly inspiring to see so many amazing women leading, building, and absolutely killing it in that space. Being surrounded by that kind of energy makes you want to rise to the occasion, push yourself further, and give back what you can.
The tattoo world has historically been male-dominated—what has it been like carving out your space as a woman in the industry?
For me, carving out space has meant trusting an unconventional path and not feeling like I had to fit into a traditional version of what a tattoo artist should look like or how they should have come up. I’m largely self-taught, and because I was working alongside permanent makeup artists early on, I entered the industry through a different door than many artists who came up through traditional tattoo shops. Because of that, I didn’t personally experience some of the harsher environments many women before me had to endure, but I have had experiences as a client, and I’ve heard enough stories from other women to understand how deeply misogyny has been woven into parts of tattoo culture.
I’ve heard stories of women being made into spectacle while getting tattooed. One of my clients told me she was eighteen when they put her in the front window while she was getting a back tattoo, as if she were something to be displayed. I’ve also heard countless stories of women being dismissed for asking to move a stencil, or being made to feel difficult simply for wanting a voice in the process. That dynamic matters, because so many of us are conditioned to apologize, to not inconvenience anyone, and that should never carry into an experience where something permanent is being put on your body. If an artist makes you feel bad for speaking up, that’s a red flag.
That said, I do think there has been a real shift. As more women have entered tattooing, the culture has changed in meaningful ways. More spaces feel welcoming, more collaborative, and more respectful, and that benefits everyone, not just women.
At the same time, I think some of the resistance we still see around fine line work reflects that older mindset. It often gets dismissed in ways that feel tied not just to style preference, but to who is doing it and who it attracts. How many times have we heard ‘fine line doesn’t last’ from an older tattooer? When a style becomes associated with women, whether as artists or as clientele, it tends to be scrutinized differently. But fine line is highly technical work. It requires discipline, precision, restraint, and a very controlled hand. It’s difficult, and I think sometimes what gets written off too quickly is actually something people underestimate because it doesn’t fit older ideas of what tattooing is supposed to look like
Are there moments or experiences in your career that have deeply shaped your artistic voice or the work you create?
I don’t think there was one singular moment so much as a gradual shaping over time. The longer I create, the more I notice that the same things keep pulling me in and the older I get, the more deeply I feel things. Certain books, paintings, pieces of music, moments in life. Anything that carries feeling, tension, beauty, or yearning tends to stay with me. That has probably shaped my artistic voice more than anything. Even just the way time changes your perspective, it all deepens your eye.
How do you see the Las Vegas tattoo community evolving, and what role do you hope to play in it?
I think the Las Vegas tattoo community is becoming more expansive, more connected, and much more creatively diverse than it used to be, and that’s exciting to watch. There is so much talent here, especially among younger women artists. The level of work I see, and how hard they hustle, genuinely makes me proud.
At this stage in my career, I think a lot about how important it is to help open doors for other women, not just getting them in the room, but making sure they are seen once they’re there. I want to be the kind of person who passes opportunities along, because there is room for all of us. Every artist I’ve met has something distinct to offer, and that’s the beautiful thing about this work, no one can replicate what makes someone else unique.
I’ve never believed in gatekeeping. If I know someone is talented, I will recommend them, because building a stronger community means recognizing that everyone brings something valuable to it. And that isn’t limited to the industry, that’s life in general.
Beyond tattoos, what inspires you creatively, such as other art forms, life experiences, or personal philosophies?
I’m inspired by things that carry a certain ache to them. I am intrigued by duality and juxtaposition, tenderness and tension. I think there is a constant feeling of yearning and I tend to romanticize the ordinary. The way the sunlight hits my plants during dusk, a sentence in a book that ruins me, a song that makes a room feel different. Any that moves me.
I’m heavily drawn to classical art, especially Baroque and Renaissance work. It is so emotionally alive to me. There is so much feeling in it, shadow, softness, drama, restraint. Caravaggio is currently my favorite artist and I can easily spend entire days in an art museum. It is my favorite place to be.
Literature, poetry, fashion and jazz affect me the same way. They are all different ways of trying to understand something human, or preserve a feeling before it disappears. To feel connected while also being isolated. Any day spent drawing or reading while jazz plays in the background, is a good day.
They all seem to be forms of storytelling for me and having all those things in my life curates an atmosphere that in turn makes my life feel like art.
What do you hope people feel when they see your tattoos or leave your studio?
I hope they feel seen more than anything. I hope they feel safe, comfortable, and a little closer to whatever they were reaching for when they came in. Whether that’s feeling connected to someone they love, honoring a memory, or simply leaving feeling a little more beautiful in their own skin.
I care a lot about the experience surrounding the tattoo, not just the tattoo itself. Every aftercare kit I give out has one of those strawberry candies in it, the kind grandmas always seemed to have in their purse. When I tell people they get a candy for being well behaved, every single face lights up. It’s such a small thing, but I love that it instantly softens the moment and makes people smile.
I think, more than anything, I want people to leave feeling like they had a lovely experience. Something gentle, personal, and worth remembering and I want them to feel comfortable enough to reach out to me with any questions after. The connection doesn’t end when the appointment does. I’m here if you need me.
A question we ask all of our interviewees: What is your interpretation of a Raw Femme?
Tenderness without fragility. Being unapologetically yourself. Knowing who you are, trusting your instincts, and understanding that softness is not the absence of strength. Raw femme, to me, is where honesty, vulnerability, elegance, and resilience can all exist in the same space. It’s about how you move through the world, uplifting others, making space for them, and being the kind of person people know they can count on. Being generous and gracious but also not taking anybody’s shit.
Obsessed yet? Follow Leroy on Instagram and book your appointment for a little piece of forever. ✨