Cherry Blossom: Tattoo Etiquette for Retouches? (Professional Tattooers)?
i got a tattoo of a lotus flower on my ankle about 2 weeks ago at a tattoo expo. the artist wasn’t professional, he kept getting calls & answering them during the tattoo (majority of the calls was his gf & they were fighting). he seemed very distracted while doing my tattoo but things appeared to look good, as far as i could tell. i have very sensitive skin, so my ankle was extremely swollen & red.
the next day, i saw that a petal wasn’t colored in & the design wasn’t fully finished. i emailed the tattooer & he said to come in whenever for the retouching.
my main question is for professional tattooers:
1. would you be totally offended if i asked you to redo the design to make it clear? people can’t even tell it’s a flower, i get asked all the time what it is. it’s embarrassing for me.
2. would you be totally offended if i came in with a stencil over the tattoo? (my grandpa is an artist & could fix it up for me)
3. would you normally charge people for this?
i’m sorry this was so long, i just wanted to explain things. let me know if you need any more details.
Answers and Views:
Answer by RG
Find a different shop to go to. Do not go back to an artist who would not put his phone away while working. The fact that he did not finish the tattoo is also a big no-no. Find a different shop and a better artist who will cover up or complete the tattoo.
You should probably contact your tattooist and ask him what his policy is. For us there would be no question about filling in the petal and finishing up any touches that were missed.
The rest sounds like reworking the design instead of retouching and in most cases we would charge for that. Either you got the design you asked for and decided later that you didn’t like it, or you didn’t get the design you asked for, in which case you should seek another artist.
Reworking a design isn’t always simple, and can sometimes take more work than the original design did. It’s often not as simple as working over the area with a new design.
We do want people to be happy with their finished tattoo, and if that can be accomplished by adding some definition, color or shading then we’d be more than happy to do that, but a complete redesign if you got what you asked for wouldn’t be free.
Answer by Yellowif it didnt come out the way u wanted usually the artist would fix it for free
personally, with that kind of professionalism, i wouldn’t go to him again
youll have to pay to fix it somewhere else, but not seeing this dude again would be worht it
I would call that shop, talk to his manager, and tell him about his employees work ethic. tattoos are not something that should be taken lightly. thats on your body for ever, and for someone to have such little respect for you to be on the phone the whole time fighting with his gf, which is unprofessional in ANY job, and to be so distracted that he didnt even finish the tattoo.. f*ck that shit.. i’d tell him that he lost a customer from that and that he’s lucky youre not asking for your money back.
then go to another shop.
i understand that people have personal lives, and shit happens, but when you’re doing something so perminant as tattooing you need to have respect and professionalism. i feel like there are SOME tattooists out there that dont take it as seriously as they should and that really pisses me off cuz it gives other serious artists a bad rap..
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