A new exhibit in Brooklyn called "Tat it Up" lets the city's leading tattoo and grafitti artists display their talents in a whole new way. NY1's Roger Clark filed the following report.

Cris Element is well known in the tattoo world and beyond. He's appeared Spike TV's Ink Masters. But the canvas for his latest project doesn't move.

"It's a little bit harder on a person because you can't mess up," Element said.

Element is one of 14 tattoo, street and graffiti artists who painted miniature models of water towers and billboards. The results are on display in an exhibit called "Tat it Up" at the Grumpy Bert Gallery in Boerum Hill. It's a collaboartion between the gallery and Boundless Brooklyn, the company that makes the New York-centric model kits.

"I figured, 'Let's do seven tattoo artists, seven street artists, muralists, and see what they can come up with,'" said Mary Damian, co-curator with ZROPRO.

"This is a platform that artists can just paint on, draw on, just create their own little masterpiece," said Albert Chau, owner of Brumpy Bert Gallery.

The artists also used a more traditional canvas for the walls of the exhibit, a departure from creating on brick walls and skin.

"Do something that I think maybe a client would get on their body, but maybe put it on a different type of medium," said Inksworth, a tattoo artist.

"With a show that's all about tattoos, tattoos, it's a like a springboard. You can go anywhere from there," said Trudie Kaiser, a tattoo artist. "You can really paint whatever you want."

So that may include a cockroach riding a nuclear missile. Sure it could.

"I was thinking that the only things that would survive a nuclear attack are cockroaches, so I was like, 'It would be really funny to kind of twist that where a cockroach glued to a nuclear warhead was shot out of planet Earth as being the last survivor,'" said artist Joe "Crone" Scrivens.

Artist Adrian K used a design close to his heart - actually, on his arm.

"It's all about expression," Adrian K said. "So whether we are doing grafitti or doing a painting, we're all kind of doing the same game."

"Tat it Up" will be on display at Grumpy Bert Gallery through January 31. To find out more, head to grumpybert.com.