MOREDON-born Chantale Coady’s childhood dream was to be a tattoo artist and now she has been nominated for the Best UK Female Artist award.

Her peers in the UK Tattoo Industry Awards 2014 put her up for the ward, and now she is calling on people to vote for her.

The 35-year-old is well respected in the community, and has inked Indie group The Heavy’s Kelvin Swaby and is planning to work on band members from Ugly Kid Joe.

She said: “This is as big a deal for a tattoo artist as it is for a musician to get in to the top ten on Idol. Getting nominated by my peers is a massive achievement but winning all comes down to people voting for me.”

Chantale did her first tattoo on herself when she was only 14 and since then her body has become a canvas for numerous shapes, colours and styles.

She said: “I’ve wanted to do it for as long as I can remember really. I’ve always been interested in drawing and I went on to study fine arts.”

Now she has opened her own studio, Picture House Tattoo Studio in Chippenham, where she works with her own handpicked artists Claire Hamil, Sadee Johnston and Jody Dawber.

She said: “We’ve an all-girl studio going on and it’s great because I can choose who I want to work with now and all of them are so talented.”

The winners of the awards will be announced at the Liverpool Tattoo Convention in May.

To vote for Chantale, visit www.liverpooltattooconvention.com/uk-tattoo-industry-awards-2014.

To find out more about the Picture House Tattoo Studio visit www.picturehousetattoostudio.com.