Monday, January 4, 2021

Stupid Mistakes Tattoo Artists Witnessed


Tattoos can be tricky business. One typo or slip of the hand can have someone wearing "I love moom" on their bicep for the rest of their life. Tattoo artists take multiple precautions to idiot-proof the process, but we still end up with tattoo choices that have people asking questions. Sometimes the customers themselves are uncontrollable, like in the case of this male Karen who didn't believe a tattoo shop owner.

1.

Text - ALasagnaForOne 35.8k points · 17 hours ago · edited 4 hours ago 2 & 6 More I had a client email me asking for a four-letter acronym. I don't do freehand script so I put the letters into a font generator and sent him back some options. He picked the one he liked best and we set an appointment date. On the day of his session, I showed him the acronym again and we chose a size. I placed the stencil and he approved it and I got started. Midway through the tattoo I asked him what the letters s

2.

Text - willieyobslayer 28.0k points · 16 hours ago · edited 6 hours ago 6 Once had a client call the shop who was crying 10 & 26 More hysterically because, according to her, I had done her tattoo backwards. It took a few minutes to get her to calm down to the point where we realized she was looking at it in the mirror. She apologized and hung up.

3.

Text - RideAndShoot 24.6k points · 14 hours ago 3 3 10 S 2 & 6 More I was getting tattooed by my artist one time. I had been tattooed by him exclusively for over 10 years at that point. There was a girl getting tattooed at the next station over with a talkative friend. The friend was talking about her shitty tattoo on the back of her neck. It was supposed to be a genie lamp, but looked more like a shitty teapot as she described it. She says something about her hometown, and my artist perks up, a

4.

Text - mt995 20.1k points · 18 hours ago I've never really made any big mistakes that garnered a reaction, but one of my clients has a tattoo from another artist in a local studio that says "Gradad" instead of Grandad. The studio fired the artist and wouldn't take any responsibility for what had happened

5.

Text - Totally_Not_Hitler_ 18.2k points · 19 hours ago 4 3 2 & 10 More Just posted this in the other thread but here it is again: I'll bite. I misspelled "forward". It was a line of script on the side of a foot, and a last minute addition to a couple other tattoos they were getting. I quickly knocked it together on photoshop and nothing looked out of place, the client approved, so I made the stencil. The real fuckup is that I didn't ask them to spellcheck... I ALWAYS ask them to spellcheck, exce

6.

Text - Fixing the O was easy and I was able to turn the E and W into a wide loopy W and add a bit of extra loops and flourish to other letters so that it looked totally fine in the end albeit a bit stylized. She was happy in the end and still comes to get work from me. Ten years of tattooing and that one still haunts me. There have been other mistakes but they're mostly the clients fault... things like dads getting their children's birthdays wrong (happens a lot actually. Dude, I don't know what

7.

Text - "What E?" I reply in dismay! "The E! Bently has an E!" So I show him what he had written down, and he groans, "oh man, I always fuck that up... my wife is going to kill me!" So I sit down with the original drawing and manage to turn part of the L and the Y into an E, add another couple lines to re-form the L and Y, and boom: Bentley. It worked out in the end and I felt like and absolute wizard, but fuck, DUDE, it's your kid's name and you didn't notice the spelling was wrong the 10 times

8.

Text - xfactotumx 17.4k points · 17 hours ago · edited 6 hours ago 3 2 S 2 Worked as a piercer in a shop a decade ago. A guy came in and wanted "Murphys law"...the artist freehanded a design on him, he green lit it after watching in the mirror and they did a beautiful piece with a banner saying "murpys law". Seemed fitting. The guy loved the fact that his one messed up tattoo was the murphys law one.

9.

Text - eccoothedolphin 38.0k points · 18 hours ago · 3 O 2 5 & 12 More edited 15 hours ago I was a receptionist at a tattoo shop. One of the artists misspelled “neighborhood" on this guys neck. He spelled it "neigborhood", leaving out the first "H". Neighborhood was the guys nickname. It was a pretty large, elaborate tattoo so there was no fixing it. I don't think I have ever cringed so hard in my life. The guy was surprisingly really cool about it. He did see the drawing and approved it before

10.

Text - srhfy 119 points · 14 hours ago · edited 14 hours ago Dang, I'm late to the party. This didn't happen to me, but to an artist that used to work in the booth next to me. Some lady comes in and wants a pocket watch with roses in her arm, so my coworker agrees to do it. The client specifically wanted the pocket watch to be stopped at "4:20" He draws it up for her right arm and she's soooo excited, but for some reason she decides to change it to the left arm last minute. No problem, he runs i

11.

Text - gnitelove 12.0k points · 19 hours ago My ex did a large scarification on the client's abdomen. The client had brought in a piece of paper with the stylized word " preserverence". I was invited in mid-way to see the progress and had to tap my ex on the shoulder for a spelling lesson.

12.

Text - Mars_The_68thMedic 8.8k points · 16 hours ago· edited 16 hours ago ( A few years ago I was tattooing a client who had apparently lost a bet, his buddies were allowed to tattoo something behind his shoulder as long as it wasn't racist or offensive. Turns out the guy drew up a design of “A Leprechaun throwing up on a book"... Sure, why not, everyone was sober and they were paying pounds upfront. Easy work- the drawing was really simple and the shading was easier than I thought it'd be. Turn

13.

Text - Comes in about ten days later, demanding a refund of money HE didn't pay or the studio, not me, cover it up. Nope, management said you signed for it in your right mind and than damaged it yourself, personally I was yelled at and told NEVER tattoo anyone like that, it only works in television series or film. Did I make a mistake? Yes and no. The lesson here is don't get involved in others drama when permanent body marking are involved.

14.

Text - Darkroomist 8.6k points · 18 hours ago I got a tatt from an apprentice once and the process was rough. I was his 4th customer and he had a mentor "guiding" him. By guiding I mean roasting everything he was doing. It was a fairly simple Sailor Jerry pinup maybe 3 colors. The guide made him use 6 colors. Like the skin color on it is skin colored ink. It took 5 hours. The whole time the guide is saying stuff like "why the fck did you pick that color next?" Or "No, no, no! Don't do that you'l

15.

Text - JoshSidekick 8.3k points · 16 hours ago I was working at a place when a guy came in for a full back piece of 3 different cars. It took like 4 visits to finish and each visit he'd look at it and say it looks awesome and then he would take off. On the last visit, they call me in to look at it to show me how awesome it turned out. Well, all the steering wheels were on the wrong side and the reason no one caught it was because the dude was looking in a mirror to check his progress so they loo

16.

Text - tinawww 7.2k points · 16 hours ago So I didn't mess up but I had a client scare me, I was tattooing his sister's name on him (she passed away). "Gabriela" with 1 (L) in it. Past the point of no return he asks me "there's 2 L's, right?" I think I had a heart attack, and he started laughing. He thought it was hilarious, I died a little and pretended to laugh

17.

Text - WhenInDoubtBolt 6.5k points · 18 hours ago Did my first one on an old schoolmate who was aware of my artistic abilities, despite having never applied ink before, and he offered me his back. I had 3 pros watching as I drew a geisha freehanded on his back while he was hunched over. When the design was laid out, he checked it in the mirror and was good with it so I began lining it. The thing is, the other artists said it looked great but unfortunately I was doing something else when he check

18.

Text - cantstopgetitgetit 5.9k points · 13 hours ago 2 I was getting a wrap-around ankle piece of a beach scene. The artist is one who had done most of my other tattoos. He was freehanding most of it. At one point, he hit a really sensitive spot and I involuntarily kicked. "Oops, well that's a rock now" is all he said and made it blend in seamlessly with the rest of the piece.

19.

Text - Graverobber13 5.6k points · 18 hours ago 4 I was doing a big ol' tattoo of Cringer (aka Battlecat) on a really cool client's leg. I got so into doing this big, awesome tiger head that I forgot that it WASN'T a goddamn tiger and colored the stripes black. I realized about a third of the way through filling them in and let the guy know. He was disappointed, but mostly okay with it; I felt like I was going to puke. I finished the thing feeling so fucking sick and then refused payment. Man, g

20.

Text - Zornamental 4.0k points · 14 hours ago My ONLY spelling mistake ever was in Italian. Girl wants a phrase in Italian. She writes it down no less than 5x on a paper. I tell her to make sure it is correct, I don't speak Italian. She insists it is correct. I draw up some nice script, tattoo it with no issues, bandage, pay and she leaves. She comes back in hysterical and tells me I spelled it wrong. I hadn't thrown out the paper. I spelled it exactly how she spelled it. I asked what she wanted

21.

Text - hazard0666 1.7k points · 15 hours ago I tattooed Philippines 4:13 instead of Philippians 4:13 on a girl one time. Fortunately I was able fix it though

22.

Text - sagestudio 1.2k points · 16 hours ago I watched my boss turn a stylized "Tierny" (mistress's name) into “Diane" (wife's name) once. I'd never believe it if I didn't see it with my eyes.

23.

Text - Right_Entertainer_91 260 points · 15 hours ago · edited 15 hours ago S Tattoo artist here. Best case I ever saw, a guy came into our shop asking about a cover up. The tattoo wasn't done at our place. He had what we call a "belly rocker". One of those lettering tattoos that arcs over the belly. Think Tommy Lee's "mayhem" tattoo. Usually gothic font, gangsta type piece. He had beautifully executed, bold, black, old English letters across his belly that were supposed to read, “scarred for li

24.

Text - LuckyDevil042071 129 points · 16 hours ago · edited 16 hours ago Misspelled the name Jamie, Jaime. I asked the client for the spelling and showed the client the laid out script before it was applied. So not my fault. The client was very disgusted with himself for not knowing how to spell the name of the woman he loved enough to show it on his skin for life. I felt sorry for the guy so I offered him a cover-up at an incredible discount as well as the name re-applied spelled correctly, Unfo

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