A TATTOO artist from Bolton has hit the needle on the head by scooping three awards at a prestigious convention.

Talented Paul Owen - who has run Naughty Needles in Halliwell Road for 10 years — beat more than 100 artists from across Europe including Italy, Spain, Bulgaria and France, to win the top three categories at the Leeuwarden Tattoo Convention in Holland.

His boxer tattoo won the Realistic category and his portrait of a woman won Best of Day for Sunday and Best of Show.

Mr Owen, aged 32, said: "I'm really pleased, it's always fantastic to win awards such as these.

"The portrait design was brought in by a customer and won two of the awards, but I think the boxer one is the better tattoo — that won the Realistic category. They both took about seven or eight hours each to complete."

It is not the first time Mr Owen has won a prominent tattoo award — in 2012 he received a trophy for his inking of Captain America at a convention in Las Vegas called The Biggest Tattoo Show on Earth, which attracted 40,000 spectators.

Mr Owen said: "I am tattooing all over Europe and the world now as well as in Bolton. I have two conventions coming up in the next few months — one in Belfast and one in Barcelona. It certainly beats sitting in a studio all the time."