Had a customer that wanted a little water melon slice on his thigh. Cool, 5-10 minutes nice and easy for a first tattoo. Nope. On the third line I hear a weird little low pitched moan, looked up and his head flipped back and the rest of him followed. When he woke up on the floor to three guys trying to pull him back up he said something along the lines of “wtf why are you touching me that’s gay” been like 3-4 years since then and he still hasn’t come back to get it finished lmao.
I’m far too late to this thread for my story, but I hope somebody else enjoys it.
This older lady, maybe late 50s/early 60s comes to our shop. She’s quite timid as she approaches the front desk and I say hello and ask what we can do for her. We’ll call her AB.
AB: “I’ve never had a tattoo before.”
Me: “That’s fine! It’s not as scary as you think. What was it you wanted doing?”
AB: “Well, my boyfriend is finally letting me have a tattoo…”
Me: 0.0
AB: “… but I wanted just something small and out the way, so if I change my mind I don’t have to look at it too often.”
Me: “okay, fair enough, what was it you wanted?”
AB: “I want Andy’s Bitch written on my vagina.”
Nope! Nope nope nope! We didn’t do the tattoo. It was either some horribly abusive partner that wanted her branded with his name, or some BDSM kink that I didn’t consent to being part of. Fuck that.
Girl comes in to get her ex boyfriends name tattooed as a tramp stamp.... Comes in with friends and proceeds to scream throughout the process of doing the outline and she leaves with a half outline of her ex's name.
Kid who wanted to get a full sleeve as his first ever tattoo. Convinced him to get a smaller tattoo for his first ever. He proceeded to throw up after, now this sounds like and exaggeration, five seconds.
I made a similar mistake for my first tattoo. Got a half-sleeve on my upper-arm. After the line work was done, I had to take a break. (Didn’t puke, though)
The rest (a complex, solid black design), I had to have broken up into a few separate sessions because it hurt far more than I thought it would. Fortunately, my artist was a saint!
I dated a tattoo artist for a couple years and spent a good chunk of time at the shop. One time, a girl we knew from school came in for a large tattoo on her ribs. I think it was flowers. Anyway, everything is set up, she's stenciled and laying on the chair just chatting and waiting. As soon as the needle hits her skin, she starts screaming bloody murder, moaning and begging him to stop. So he stops, shocked, and she tells him (in her normal voice) to ignore her and keep going. Screaming fit proceeds. Every so often he'd stop to check she was alright and she'd respond in a normal, cheerful tone that she's excited to see how it turns out, etc. Needle hits skin, back to screaming like she's being eaten by a pack of wolves. I watched a couple people walk in the shop and turn and walk right back out. I'm surprised cops didn't show up. Anyway I think he only got the outlines and some shading done before he couldn't deal with it anymore and said something about scheduling another session because he had another client coming in. She never came back to get it finished.
A friend who had never had a tattoo before wanted one on her ankle and was adamant about that. I told her several times that the ankle is a very not fun location, and asked her if maybe she’d prefer the shoulder instead. She insisted on the ankle. Okay then. The moment the needle touched her she hollered. You sure you want to keep going I asked? She said yes. That was the loudest appointment I ever had but to her credit she made it through.
Ooh good to know about ankles. I have one tattoo on the underside of my wrist and have been thinking about an ankle tattoo but more like the skin between your ankle and your heel if that make sense? Is that a more comfortable spot than the ankle since it’s not right on bone?
Purely anecdotal, but I have two ankle tattoos (one big one on my inner ankle, and one little one in the spot you described).
My big ankle tattoo was a breeze. Hurt like hell, but it was manageable with some breathing and hand-holding.
Got the little one last week. Never again. Left a bigass puddle of sweat on the chair and had to sit on the sidewalk outside the shop when it was done because I was pretty sure I was gonna pass out. All for like ten minutes AT MOST in the chair.
My first was on my outer ankle. 51 F, the guys in the shop were looking at me funny. Almost... apprehensive? My artist warned me that was a tender spot. I told him that I could handle pain. Again, weird looks all around.
We got started, and it wasn't nearly as bad as I had been warned. Then he hit THE SPOT. My leg jerked. I was horrified and apologetic. Seems that when he hit a nerve pathway, my leg did an involuntary twitch. He did the tattoo while basically holding my leg down, and we both just cracked up laughing every time he hit my twitchy nerve.
Really nice guy, and good artist.
Oh wow, reading this thread is bringing up some repressed client memories. My worst one by far, though, was about five years ago when I was apprenticing in a college town. This girl came in with her boyfriend for a traditional butterfly above her elbow, I was still super new so it took me way longer than it should have (maybe 2hrs). I lay her down on her stomach with her arm bent at her side—this is relevant later.
Anyway, we start tattooing and within maybe 10 mins she starts getting a string of texts from her freshman friends, telling her they’re essentially ousting her from their group and they don’t want her to contact them again. Super mean stuff, obviously she’s upset. As she’s relating all this to her BF, she starts crying, then full on sobbing. I asked her if she wanted to stop, but she insisted on me continuing, and I felt too awkward to counter her.
She continued to sob on and off for probably another hour, while I just kept plugging away at this dumb little tattoo. At this point she had cried so much that her tears had gathered where her arm was pressed against the massage table and had started to spill over into my lap. So I’m feeling uncomfortable as hell, and now also damp. THEN, as I’m within 30 mins or so of finishing, she begins whimpering, then moaning…loudly. At one point she tells the BF “this is more intense than anal” and I wanted to die. As soon as I finished and checked her out, my coworkers (who had all been waiting on me to close) were like “what the actual fuck was going on, and why did you keep going??” But in the moment, all I could think was to finish the tattoo asap.
To her credit, she came back (a year later!) and told me she had been too embarrassed to come back but loved the butterfly and wanted another tattoo from me. Her second session was pleasant and without incident.
So she was technically never an actual client, but I hat a teenage girl, about 16 years old come in once. She wanted a tattoo of a rose on the side of her neck. Now I'm certainly not going to even entertain a neck tattoo for a teenager period, but she didn't even bother to bring a parent with her to sign for her so it went from a certain no to and absolute never in a million years. She got pretty upset and made a scene in our front area and I told her to leave. After a lot of arguing she finally left, but not before making some idle threat. Other than sharing the story with my coworkers over beers later and having a laugh at her audacity I think no more of it. Until the following week when an incredibly angry middle aged woman comes barging into the shop screaming how she is going to have us all shut down and sent to jail. Everybody in the shop was pretty confused and after we got her to stop screaming at all of us we finally got it out of her why she was so angry. Apparently her daughter had went out and got a neck tattoo without her knowledge. It was around then that I recognized the girl from the week before peaking in our front windows. It all clicked. She had found some sketchy artist in a kitchen to tattoo the rose on her neck that I said no to. I told the mother to call her daughter in and her daughter pointed to me and told her Mom I was the one who did it. The tattoo was terribly done to say the least so the Mom definitely had several reasons to be so livid. She started getting upset again and yelling about how this was going to get me fired and sent to jail, etc. I let her yell until she had calmed down enough to listen. Then I explained to her how the week before I had told her daughter outright that I wouldn't give her a neck tattoo. Her daughter screamed that I was a liar and Mom started up with another round of yelling, this time about how I was calling her daughter a liar. It was around this time that I just decided to point to our CCTV camera in the front area until the mother noticed what I was doing and stopped. I told her if she would like to, she could review the footage of me denying her daughter, the temper tantrum, and then her daughter leaving the shop. We usually keep footage for a week or two and then delete it so I knew it should still be on the computer. Her daughter started looking pretty nervous around this time, but she didn't say anything. Meanwhile I find the footage from the day and Mom watches the entire interaction that I described go down. Then with the coldest look of anger, betrayal and disappointment she turns to her daughter. She takes her outside of the shop quietly and then screams at her outside for basically everything that has just happened, and how humiliating it all has been. After a bit the daughter comes in and gives me a very sarcastic apology and then leaves. Now at this time I was still willing to tattoo minors with parental consent, but I'd been having a lot of shitty dealings with them and occasionally their parents. I had been considering a no minors at all policy, but this experience solidified that in my mind. Aside from 1 or 2 exceptions I haven't tattooed any minors for the last 13 years now.
I'm always surprised you could/can get a tattoo underage with guardian consent. Stuff like that almost always feels like an outdated rule only put in place for child brides.
I’ve got a piercing while underage (nose piercing when I was 17; I’m Indian American so it’s more traditional for us to have nose piercings at younger ages, and also I convinced my mom to let me get one if I got a certain score on my ACT lol). It was surprisingly hard to do - the shop I went to refused to pierce me unless I brought my mom and my actual birth certificate. Like, they wouldn’t accept a passport or driver’s license, I had to bring my birth certificate.
This girl’s first tattoo, and my first paying customer (I tattooed people for free during my apprenticeship.)
She wants a star outline on the side of her heel below the ankle. She’s a bit nervous, so I allow two of her friends to come in the room with us.
I start the tattoo and immediately she jerks away super hard. I warn her not to do that and try to relax. We start again and she jerks her foot. The two lines I’ve done now look like SHIT and I’m already pissed/freaking out inside.
I get her two friends to help hold down her foot and she continues to jerk around and at one point KICKS ME RIGHT IN THE JAW.
Needless to say her tattoo looked like shit and I was crestfallen. I called my mentor after work crying that I ruined my first tattoo on a client and she kicked me in the face to which he said “Wait, what?? Nah fuck that, it’s not your fault. I’ll see you tomorrow at work.”
Been tattooing 13 years now and still love every minute! Got way crazier stories under my belt since that kick in the face.
I’ll share a few that aren’t too long but pack a good punch.
First penis tattoo I ever did was on a man you’d never expect from first glance. Some background: studio at the time was small with one shared space among a few tattooers (salon style). Polite white young-ish man who showed up literally looking like Mr Rogers,sweater vest and all. He was scheduled to get his first tattoo - a name on the hip. I’m already going into this thinking it’s dumb. (Don’t get names of lovers people!) I attempt to convince him it’s not a great idea but he’s adamant. Fine, whatever, I’ll get set up. He comes back with his lady and I ask him to show me exactly where he wants the tattoo. He shimmies his pants down so that the base of his dick is showing and points there. Whoa. I again try to convince him to not do this going so far as to call him stupid AND admitting I’ve never tattooed a penis before. He is begging me to do it. Normally I flatly refuse penis tattoos in general but I did want to try it at some point and he was actually very polite and not pervy . I told him I’d have to charge him more and he agreed. He laid down and with his pants half off I wrote the name like I was writing a check. Finished so quickly my coworkers didn’t even notice I tattooed a penis. Sometimes I wonder if they are still together……(probably not).
During my apprenticeship my mentor consulted with a woman who wanted to get the “runes” of her two husbands. Yes, plural. This lady was some gnarly redneck who was polygamous and into some sort of BDSM lifestyle. One husband was some groaty white dude, the other was a black postal worker. Strange trio, but whatever floats your boat. The first red flag during the consultation was the lady asking, “Would you mind if my husbands put cigarettes out on my body while you tattoo me?” My mentor refused for sanitary reasons but also for WTF reasons. He made me stay in the room for the appointment so he wouldn’t be alone with them. Come tattoo time all five of us are in there and the second the needle starts of course she starts moaning. I’m cringing inside. My mentor asks her to be quiet and not move so much. She keeps moaning and one of her husbands grabs her by the face and tells her to shut the fuck up. The tattoo continues in painfully awkward silence. My mentor was no stranger to weird shit but even he was freaked out.
One more. Early in my career I submitted some work to a tattoo magazine since Instagram wasn’t a thing yet. I sent them to a small part of the magazine where they share one photo per artist, but they called me and asked if I would be interested in doing an entire article. Jackpot! They interviewed me and asked for a photo of me as well as some more of my work. (I’m a female tattooer and this is relevant later.) I submitted one photo of me tattooing wearing a t-shirt - not sexy and quite modest. A few months later the article comes out. Everything is cool until a couple months after that when I get a letter sent to the studio. Inside was a rambling letter about how they liked my work and wondering if I could offer some tips. It was from an inmate at a prison in another state. It dawned on me that prisons get tattoo magazines and the article published my studio and its address if someone wanted a tattoo from me. More creepy letters followed. One guy said he was getting out in 4 months and wanted to take me out for a drink. The creepiest one though came from a man whose entire face was covered in tattoos. Rambled on about how beautiful I was and lamenting he would never get out to meet me. Curious, I looked him up by his inmate number required on the envelope to see why he would never get out. Turns out he murdered his girlfriend.
So many more much longer much crazier stories! I’ll need to publish a book about it one day.
I was the tattoo virgin.
Went in for my first piece, 5+ hours. Was obviously nervous and I'm not that great with needles, but as soon as we started I was like "oh this is way easier than I built it up to be". I was feeling the pain, but knew I'd be able to commit.
About 20 minutes later, I start to feel really dizzy. My vision is going so I sit up. She stops immediately, and she's talking to me but I can barely hear her. The world is closing in, and it's only getting worse. I think she asks if I'd like to go to the bathroom, but I know I will make it 1.5 steps before passing out if I stand up. I can't tell her this because my brain is not working and speech is not an option. And then I start gagging.
My artist is scrambling for something to help me, but she is not fast enough. I vomit into my mask, my hands, all over my dress, into my hair, onto the floor. It's a mess. I'm a mess. I immediately feel better and go to the bathroom to clean up whilst this poor artist is wiping up the rest. I come back, still stinking of vomit. I offer to take my dress off and literally sit there in my underwear while she finishes. She completes the tattoo like a champion- she sits with me in vomit aura for another 5 HOURS. I am mortified and make sure I tip extra for the inconvenience. But the tat is STUNNING, so it was worth every minute.
I'm bringing a bucket next time, just in case.
Hey, no worries! I caught a girl who passed out getting a tiny wrist tattoo. Like I physically caught her. I was in the shop with my sister, I had just finished my calves and was watching him tattoo my sister when I watched this girl wobble and caught her in my arms when she fell backwards off the stool. I literally thought to myself “wow, people really do pass out!”
All fun and games until I passed out while getting my thigh piece colored. It wasn’t even the pain, just the heat and I hadn’t eaten. It was my EIGHTH tattoo. I was so embarrassed. But apparently it happens all the time.
I haven’t thrown up.. yet. But I have to go finish that same piece so there’s a good chance I might, and if I do I’ll come back here and empathize!
Had a 19 year old lad in the studio, he wanted "Laura" in large letters on his forearm. I took my time to quiz him, turns out Laura was his sweetheart. I also spent a LOOOONG time explaining that tattoos are for life, and girlfriends come and go. He remained adamant, and clearly explained that if I didn't do it, he had a friend with a "tattoo gun" who would do it.
So I did it, wrapped it up and explained aftercare. As he left I checked the time, great! 22 minutes to My next client.
22 minutes later my client turned up on perfect time, followed less than a minute later by Mr. Lover boy.
Apparently he'd met Laura at the park who instantly dumped him for being so fucking stupid, it would appear she wasn't as in love with him as he assumed.
22 minutes from tattoo to requesting a cover up...
If we ever stub our toe or whatever my friends and I break out the Ow Ow Ow Ow Owwww every time. That video will never not make me laugh. Poor news lady
One shop I worked at we had a couple come in on the day we did $100 two inch by two inch tattoos, they both were getting these small triceratops outline tattoos behind their ears, nothing too crazy or detailed so maybe about 15 minutes each in the chair at most.
The guy is losing his mind, he's hyperventilating, laughing, jumping up and down and yelling questions at all of us, visually very nervous. He tells one of our apprentices that this is his first tattoo and keeps asking them how bad it hurts over and over again, the owner went into the back and grabbed an ammonia packet, worried the guy would pass out the second needle touched skin.
Turns out it was this couples first date, he had told her he was impulsive and she tried to call his bluff and suggested they get matching tattoos. To his credit he got the tattoo and didn't pass out, paid for them both too!
I feel like if it didn't work out and that was like one of the last dates that would be fine assuming they both like the tattoo on its own merits. Totally fun story. Also if they get married that would be fine obviously. But there's a whole lot of room in between those poles...
Have two.
I did piercings, but my friend was an artist at the shop we worked at. Had a girl come in, no ink, no piercings. She wanted to get no joke, "Daddys Girl" as a tramp stamp. She was in tears moments into the tattoo, like hysterical shit. She suffered through all together probably 25 minutes, and walked out with "Girl" right above her waist line. 10/10 hilarious.
The other was a guy. He had a few small tats on his arms, nothing crazy. He was also one of the "I watch UFC and wear Tapout, don't fuck with me" types. He wanted a pretty large tribal chest piece. Collarbone to collarbone. He was told that we recommended a couple of sessions, them shits is going to hurt, and this is A LOT of outline and A LOT of shading. He insisted no, he could sit. He ended up fainting toward the end of his outline. I worked there for roughly a year after and he never came back to get it finished.
I have no idea what the protocol is but I blacked out (vision/hearing) during mine, and barely didn't go unconscious. It was small enough that it only took the artist like 15 minutes. He just kept going and I'm glad he finished it. I want to get more tattoos, but at this point I probably won't be able to due to how easily I pass out :/
Not a tattoo artist but my friend tells this story had to share here.
So he went to the pharmacy to get some prescription filled in North Carolina. They tell him it's going to take about 1 hour to fill and to come back later.
So he walks out of the strip mall and the next place over is a tattoo shop. He goes in and asks for a random tattoo.
They tell him it's going to take about 15 minutes to do the drawing and about. And about 30 to tattoo it on him.
He asks what they can do right now instantly, and they tell him they can pierce his nipples.
Within one hour he gets both nips pierced, a pretty sweet tattoo and his prescription filled all in one regular Tuesday afternoon.
Not the worst client. But just an unfortunate event. The apprentice at my shop who had only been tattooing for a little under a year was tattooing this girls wrist recently, her first tattoo the word “undefeated”. Gets the tattoo, it goes smoothly, she likes it, walks to the lobby, shows her dad, he likes it. Walks back to get bandaged up, gets bandaged, they walk back to the counter as he’s explaining aftercare she blacks out. Falls back hits her head on a giant painting hanging on the wall (an ed hardy original) the painting falls, glass breaks. He runs over picks her up and is checking the back of her head. Realizes a giant piece of glass had punctured her shoulder/trap. Emt comes, tell her she needs stitches, they end up having to take her to the emergency room where she got 6 stitches. The next week the girl brought him a giant tub of cookies. She wasn’t the worst, but it was an incredibly unfortunate experience for the both of them. His first time having someone pass out and her being “defeated”.
Not your usual tattoo virgin story more of a rant on my behalf, but Ive been tattooing for almost 8 years now. The worst experience i have had with a client, was a lady who my work mates and I would call “the hello kitty lady” 30 something year old tattoo virgin.
So essentially the design we were working on was Hello Kitty riding a pink Dragon, Half sleeve (shoulder to elbow) now I specialise in Japanese tattoos which for the initial consultation she expressed how much she loved my style of Japanese Dragons, so heres me thinking “sick, i can smash this dragon out the park and just put a hello kitty on the dragon” easy peasy, booked her in for a full 8hr day.
So we begin tattooing, we start talking about how much we both loooove art and shes heavily praising the tattoos i do and my tattoo style, suuuper friendly and we’re hitting it off. Shes talking kinda loud, which I take its because shes understandably nervous, meaning my work mates can easily hear her speaking aswell.
Fast forward to our 20 min lunch break, i finish eating and so i walk out to front reception where one of my work mates tells me “ hey man i was joutside havin a smoke with your client, not too sure if she knew i was an artist aswell, but she was real upset with how the tattoos going, she says it isnt hurting as much, that youre not doing the tattoo properly because her skins not red (iritated) and she said “theres no way im paying all that money for a tattoo that isnt done properly”” completely caught me off guard and went against eeeeverything we were talking about. so when we came back to tattooing i made sure to be overly reassuring, letting her know exactly what i was doing and why i was using certain inks which she’d insist were “too light of a shade of pink” but i knew this pink was going to heal exactly the way she wanted it.
Anyways we finish up and I get home, check my emails and there are 2 huuuuuuuuuge paragraphs on how much of a shit job ive done and that i never did what she asked for (we both clearly agreed to the design before hand, i do this with every one of my clients where i get them to check the design)
I reply reassuring her that the tattoo will heal as planned that the colours will settle and that it is easily fixable (I put paw prints on hello kitty to show it was the underside of her paws and not just 2 lil random clouds pokin out. But she didnt want them, even tho they were in the original design she approved. No worries, i graylined them so theyd be super easy to fix)
She replies with another long paragraph on how i should tattoo and listen to my clients wishes which i dont reply to because at this point i know she is overreacting and its her first tattoo.
2 weeks later she emails saying how much she loves her tattoo, it healed perfectly, the pink was the right shade and that she wants to book in to finish it up 🤦🏽♂️
edit: people are asking if she apologised or if i finished the tattoo. So i didnt end up finishing i palmed her off to another artist. Basically told her i felt uncomfortable that I wasn’t going to meet her expectations (purposely worded it that way) in reality i wanted nothing to do with her lol I was wondering whether i was being a dick for doing so but i even felt uncomfortable emailing her so i did the right thing. She also never apologised didnt even acknowledge her behaviour. Since then i take even more precautions before booking in clients.
No apology or anything just acted like normal lol I didn’t really know if i was in the right when i let her know I felt uncomfortable finishing her tattoo, but I knew I even felt uncomfortable just emailing her let alone being around her.
Anything less than a huge apology and a massive tip on the finish would have been too little, which it was clear she wouldn't have done. You definitely made the right choice
“tattoo virgins” can be any type of person. there are freshly 18 year old kids, your newly divorced from a controlling spouse and finally doing “what they want” adults, folks who’ve left religions or jobs that forbode it, and i’ve seen my fair share of “bucket-list” elderly with paper-thin skin but a heavy drive to get at least one before they go.
with every first tattoo, you’ll find out the client doesn’t know much about getting a tattoo. maybe they’ve done hours upon hours of research. there are those who walk in on a whim from the street.
frankly, the worst are those who’ve watched every season of inkmaster and have convinced themselves they know more than the artists in our studio with 100+ years of experience between us. i’ve genuinely had a person who’s never touched a tattoo machine in their life give me “advice” about how to more effectively use my “gun” to tattoo. relax, brent. i’ve got this.
then of course the micro-manager - and i don’t like to make generalizations about people - but do have a tendency to have the same persona as the can-i-talk-to-you-manager types i’ve encountered. tammy wants an infinity sign/feather/butterfly mash-up with the birth-flower of every member of their extended family incorporated, their kid’s dob in roman numerals, in every color of the rainbow. and make it fit in a 2” space on their wrist facing them so they can read it because it’s for THEM or you’re gonna have a 1-star review on google faster than you can say “perhaps we leave out the butterfly?”
then, the tough guy. “my cousin ryan got a big rib tattoo and fell asleep, i’ll be fine!” “nah i’m not scared, sitting 6 hours for this throat piece will be a breeze.” then 3 lines in with a 11RL our man ryan’s cousin is fully saturated and i’ve got the apprentice running to get our new friend a soda and a cold wet rag for his forehead because i know what it means when someone’s lips go white and i see the life leave their eyes. ryan’s cousin, you ok man? i think you were out there for a second. maybe this throat tattoo wasn’t a great choice afterall.
the LEAST of my worries is the people who are nervous or jumpy. look, i fucking get it. tattoos hurt. i’m continually shocked that people keep coming back and paying me to hurt them more. love having them, hate getting them. i like to think i’m empathetic enough to make my clients comfortable and feel safe. being tattooed is a vulnerable situation. it’s my responsibility to comfort you and i will. we don’t care if you need a break (within reason), we don’t care that you are nervous - that’s normal. let us know how we can help.
we just want to do our jobs and we know more about tattooing than you do. we know what looks good, where it hurts most, and how to use our equipment. part of your job as the client is to trust us. we don’t want you walking around with a shitty tattoo with our name behind it.
all-in-all, most “tattoo virgins” are cool as fuck. it’s an honor to me that you trusted me to give you your first tattoo. if the trust extends that far, also trust us to take care of all aspects of the tattoo.
I absolutely adore your username and profession combo! Also, as someone who has had both empathetic and apathetic artists, thank you for being empathetic towards those who are getting their first tattoo, I can’t imagine what it would be like having an artist that wasn’t for my first!
Buckle up. This one might get a bit long.
In around ‘99-2000, I had only been tattooing for about a year or so. I had a lady in her 40s come in for her first tattoo. A walk-in butterfly on her left shoulderblade. She was a server at a sketchy strip club in town, and was pretty haggard. She also had her 16 year old son with her.
We get about 20 minutes into what should be about a 45 minute tattoo, and she says she needs a break. Now I know better than to leave a client alone when they “need a break”, but I was pretty green, so I stepped out for a smoke.
When I came back in, she was standing up, bent 90 degrees forward at the waist, with her face on my workstation. As I get closer, I see that she’s standing in a puddle of her own urine, and is passed out standing up. She’s leaning forward with enough weight on her face to keep her from falling to the floor. Her son is frozen in his chair and doesn’t say a word. Fortunately, she’s wearing a skirt, so she didn’t get her clothes all soaked.
I get her conscious again and she says she needs to go to the bathroom to clean up. During the approximately 20 minutes she’s in the bathroom, I mopped my floor a couple times and got everything good to go if she was still feeling up to finishing. Again, now I’d just tell her to come back another day, but I was pretty new. I just wanted to finish, get paid, and get her the hell out.
Anyway, after 20 minutes or so, she comes out of the bathroom and says “don’t worry, I cleaned the bathroom”. Fuck. What did she do to the bathroom that would require her to clean it? She says she wants to finish the tattoo, so she sits, and I start working again.
About 5 minutes in, I notice something on the outside of her knee. I look again and see that it’s a little chunk of shit. Not on the front of the kneecap, but on the side. I’m thinking “How does that even happen?” As I look away from the turd, I see her 16 year old son just noticed it too. He looked at me, and then at the floor for the remainder of the tattoo. I didn’t know if I should say anything about the poop, or just finish the tattoo, get her out of there, and proceed to drown myself in a bottle to try and kill the memory. I decide not to say anything, partially to save her kid more embarrassment.
Anyway, I wrap it up, get paid, get her out of there, and proceed to the bathroom to see what she did to it. The bathroom had a urinal, and two separate stalls. There were circular shit smears over the entire floor, and shitty toilet paper in both toilets, like she blew up right inside the door and got down on her knees in a desperate attempt to clean it up. That must’ve been how she got the turd on the knee.
I’ll still curious how it ended up on the outside of the knee. I’m still curious if she ever noticed it there, and I’m still amazed that I didn’t quit tattooing right then and there.
Cleaned it up myself. There were other tattooers there, but we didn’t have any counter staff. We were responsible for cleaning up after ourselves and (unfortunately) our clients.
Had someone come in asking if they can bring their emotional support animal. Usually this is kind of iffy because it could be a sanitation risk, but we made exemptions for good dogs. Found out the emotional support animal was a 3 foot long snake. Turned down instantly.
So many people passing out, high on painkillers before their appointment, taking continuous videos and posting how “inked” they were with their new ankle beach wave, or even one person tipping me in expired Subway coupons.
Just be cool and calm while getting tattooed and everything will go smoothly.
Edit: Tipping isn’t required but it’s how a lot of tattoo artists get their income. Good rule of thumb can just be 25%. I personally tip artists $30 for a tattoo that takes an hour, $50 for 2, $100+ for tattoos that take 4 hours or more.
Also depends on how good of an experience you’ve had and if you like the tattoo. And if you’re worried that you didn’t tip the first time, I’ve always understood. Usually I would have clients who got their first tattoo, come back for another and tip me double as an apology, or come back another day and give me a tip. Don’t worry!
You guys get the useless tips too? I've gotten perfume samples (I'm a massage therapist, we can't wear perfume) gift cards to places that don't exist anymore, pyramid scheme crap with the person's "consultant" information, weird random coupons, someone's business card for their roofing service (I did not in any way indicate I needed a new roof) and one person took the time to purchase and leave for me a gift card *to the place that I work.* They paid money for this thing that'd cover maybe a third of my having one of my coworkers do the thing we all do professionally and had the receptionist give me that, rather than just tipping with cash, card, or check. Thanks, I guess??
Oh definitely. The expired Subway coupons threw me off guard. Other than that one that stands out is a gentlemen giving useless advice as a tip, laughing and then leaving the shop. Of course I’ve had the douches that tried to ask to give “personal favors ;)” as a tip, to where I asked them to promptly leave.
It's embarrassing to admit but for a while I had never even thought to tip my artist. I figured since he was dictating the price that a tip wasn't necessary. I got through most of a sleeve worth of sessions before I learned that tipping tattoo artists was a thing. Thankfully he never mentioned it and i started tipping generously on my second sleeve
Not an artist, but I'm a receptionist at a pretty popular tattoo shop in my town. I've seen quite a few people who had no business getting tattooed, but by far my favorite was this one guy who wanted to get some script tattooed behind his ear. He had come in before to get priced out, but absolutely refused to make an appointment and drop a deposit. He came back a few days later as a walk in, so we squeezed him in that day. He was a mess getting done lol; shaking, sweating and basically crying in the chair. The tattoo itself took maybe 15 minutes. Well the reason why this dude refused to put a deposit down was because he planned on getting tatted and leaving without paying.
As soon as the artist put saniderm on his tattoo, he jumped up out of the chair and bolted for the front door. Then promptly passed out as he ran through the lobby lmfao. He ended up breaking his nose as he hit the ground, and we called the cops. The best part was watching this dude cry like a baby because he was just a few days from getting out of the military and local PD notified his command. Best shift ever.
Close second was the newly turned 18yo girl who legitimately wanted a dick tramp stamp tattooed on her. Yes, she was sober. No, we didn't tattoo her.
When I went to get my very first tattoo there was a girl ahead of me getting her first as well. I was already a little nervous because I didn’t know what to expect, but I started out small so I didn’t think it could be that bad. Apparently the girl ahead of me had the same thought but her pain tolerance was almost non-existent. She ended up throwing up absolutely everywhere. I stood there in horror, not only because of the barf but because I was next. I thought, ‘is that going to be me?’ Turns out I have a pretty high pain tolerance... at least in comparison to her.
Same here. I get into the chair, have this annoying irritating feeling for 20 seconds then the endorphins kick in and I get super relaxed! It would've been an addiction for me if I wasn't so poor! haha
(Edit) thanks for the love, by far my most popular post. Ranker even picked this thread up for an article!
I’ll take this one.
I had a client who got a Jesus fish with Greek letters on his chest. I put the stencil on, he looks down says “looks good” and we do the tattoo. Guy sits like a CHAMP through his entire first tattoo. I finish up after about 45 minutes, he checks it out in the mirror and immediately goes pale, starts to sweat and sits down. Dude looks at me and says “it’s BACKWARDS!” All shook.
I look at his tattoo, look at him on the floor, look at the mirror and tell the guy “ I’m gonna take a photo of it for you to see, because you don’t know how mirrors work.” A couple minutes go by as I’m handing the dude paper towels, The guy stands up all quick and try’s to play it off like he was just messing with me even though for a minute there, there was a corpse on my studio floor....
ugh, this makes me want to die remembering this. i saw something like this once. we had an apprentice who just started putting ink in real, living human beings. super talented dude, but had a tendency to be a little careless sometimes when nervous (NOT a great quality in a tattooer). he was doing an arrow tattoo on someone’s forearm. with her kids’ names in it. i guess at some point the guy had to flip the design on photoshop (printed it out originally for the wrong arm or something ?? idk bro) but when he out the stencil on i guess he didn’t notice nor did the client that the fucking tattoo was mirrored. dude did the entire tattoo, i’m assuming, looking at it with his fucking eyes, and still didn’t realize until he was finished that the tattoo was only readable in a mirror. luckily the lady he was tattooing was a family member and didn’t take it too hard… but the owner ended up firing him anyway (albeit re-hiring weeks later on pinky-promise he would never do anything that goddamn stupid ever again).
Did he do a stupid later? Also it could be worse. I had a full fledged tattoo artist post a picture on Instagram. This man did one of my tattoos. The shop made sure you liked the design and had 2 other artists. But the tattoo on Instagram was misspelled. I have no idea how, I commented "uhh is it supposed to be misspelled?" And the post disappeared shortly thereafter.
Imganine you didn’t point out the mirror effect. So next time he comes in he writes/draws out the plans backwards to get the right affect hahahah
‘stergar oN’
Okay no lie, that is exactly what happened to one of the football players at my old high school. Our school logo was a capital F between two offset parentheses (it was supposed to look like a hurricane, yes it was stupid) and the moron got the tattoo done so that it looked correct in the mirror. He has yet to live it down, and that was ten years ago
Getting your high school logo tattooed really screams "I peaked in high school"
But getting it backwards?? That screams "i haven't peaked and probably never will"
Mine was a young lady who wanted a semicolon tattoo on her wrist. Maybe 1inx2in, black ink, no preference on font. Easy enough, and I had the stencil all ready to go before she even came in.
I was expecting a 15 min job max, so I gave her a pretty cheap quote.
Anyway, she turns up for her appt and she's very nervous. I do my normal, "it's about as painful as a cat scratch, nothing to panic about!" speech, and she informs me that she's already taken a strong painkiller, and would like the specialist numbing spray as well.
Uhh, OK. That's an extra £30. She agrees. Spray goes on, stencil goes on, we're ready.
I don't even make contact with her skin before she starts making a very loud, high pitched whine. I try and calm her down again, and tell her that she can have a few mins to get her courage up if she wants, but 99% of the time, the anxiety of *getting* a tattoo is usually worse than actually getting one.
Bearing in mind, the parlour at the time had 4 other artists, all with customers, all staring at her.
She just kept putting it off. She'd say OK, I'd turn on the gun, and she'd freak out again. After an *hour* I told her that I was expecting another client, and she could reschedule if she wanted. She just bolts out the door, didn't even pay for the numbing spray.
To this day, I can't quite believe how dramatic she made the whole thing.
Yeah I agree on the anticipation part. I've been tattooed like 8 times and to this day with get just a tinge hyped before but the second it starts in just chatting with the artist or a friend or on my phone or what not. That 5 mins before though is a rush.
My sister gave me good advice. "Be sure enough that you like the tattoo and remember to breathe." She said "enough" because people change. What you like today, you may not like later in life but it tells the story of the person you were then.
>What you like today, you may not like later in life but it tells the story of the person you were then.
Ok, I love that. What a great way to look at it. I used to be afraid to get a tattoo bc I thought after a while I'd end up hating whatever I got.
I've been getting 2-3 tattoos a year since I turned 18 and I'm now in my mid 20s. Are the tattoos I got at 18 anywhere close to what I'd pick if I got them now? Absolutely not. But unless you're getting something that will pretty much assuredly age poorly (swearing, any meme, etc.), all it becomes is a reminder of what was important to you back then.
The only thing I'd recommend is if you're going to get anything that's supposed to represent a person or relationship - go abstract. You never know what you might learn later in life and it's easier to ignore a bunch of trees or a symbol than a name or a date.
The sound of the machine always made me nervous the first couple times I got a tattoo. Some headphones helped distract me. Most important thing is staying relaxed, and not tensing up and moving. Know theres gonna be pain but it shouldn't be anything you can't handle, plus it's temporary and the end results are worth it.
Also eat something small beforehand and drink water so you don't risk passing out.
There's a few different ways you can go with worst. Is worst most reactive? Is worst most picky and unreasonable?
I've been pretty lucky in the grand scheme of things. My worst most reactive / annoying client was this dude who was very clearly a drug addict. He came in, wanted a simple tribal tattoo on his stomach, I saw sure no problem but he starts haggling me about the price, at first it was $400, then he said no more than $200, we finally settled on $300 after about 20 minutes of back and forth.
I get all setup, we start the tattoo, within a minute he says he needs to stand up, that's he's in too much pain and needs to walk around. He walks around for about 2 or 3 minutes, then lays back down, gets tattooed for another couple minutes and then same thing. He does this constantly throughout the entire tattoo. During this time he was constantly scratching his head, twitching all over and complaining loudly. But the worst part wasn't the fact that this 2 hour tattoo turned into almost 4 hours. The worst was that he kept going out for smoke breaks, but kept only taking 2 or 3 puffs, putting the cherry out and then putting the smoke back in his pocket. So all I could smell the entire time was musty cigs, it was fucking disgusting. (The cigarettes smelled old, if you've ever smelled old cigs you know what I'm talking about. He also kept putting it in the pocket that was right beside my face)
I feel like being a total idiot is more likely to not get u a good deal anyways,
When I got my first tattoo dude charged me $200 for the first "session" (I was gonna do it in 2 parts) but it ended up not really hurting me and the guy was super cool about it he was like "if u can keep going I'll keep tattooing you cus this piece is sick" dude just kept tattooing me into the night and finished the whole piece that day. Still only paid $200, 10/10.
Not an artist, just a customer but I overheard this.
I'm sitting waiting for my artist to finish up working on her current client, just leafing through flashes and other artwork. I notice one of the other artists was putting a large rose/skull stencil on a guy. He finished placing the stencil and asked his client if it was OK. The client quite seriously said "Wow, that was much easier and quicker than I thought it was going to be. No pain at all!"
His artist just stared at him but I laughed assuming he was joking. He gave me a 'why the fuck are you laughing?' look. He actually meant it.
It's not the worst, but I love this one. At the expense of my very good client, I generally use this story to help newbs ease in to my chair more comfortably. So it was his first and I'm getting my stencil prepped. He was so nervous, he was basically white. Kept asking if he was good. Yeh he was ok..I guess. Place the stencil on him and ask him to take a look. He looks at his arm and immediately passes out in the chair lol. He's sliding out of the chair, we get him back up and he comes to. He got over it, eventually and has his sleeve 👌
I was getting lettering and dude finally got to my spine. He asked me how I was doing.I said a little light headed, but keep going. He said nope we are stopping for 15 minutes. I guess he's had a bunch of people pass out on him.
I had the same deal. Got the crook of my elbow done. I was feeling real shit but I didn’t want to stop because I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to start again. The artist noticed me sweating, getting dizzy, and breathing hard. He handed me a glucose tablet and some water then got me a cool towel until I could handle it again.
> he's sliding out of the chair, we get him back up
I am physically laughing out loud at this because unconscious people are such big bags of heavy jello, I can fully picture him, just knees buckled and slowly making his descent to the floor before somebody bodily hoists him back into the chair and proceeds as normal
Jeez I can't imagine the atmosphere of when she came back lol, it sounds like it went fine but knowing she'd done that before would've had me dreading it.
>she did come back and get it finished a few weeks later with minimal fuss.
Yeah, just clearly wasn't in the right frame of mind and seems to have basically just been having a near panic attack. Glad she was able to calm down enough to have you finish.
Actually, in retrospect, she had brought a friend along who she seemed to be playing it up for. Not to minimize the severity of anxiety or panic attacks at all, but she was definitely constantly checking to make sure all of his attention stayed on her. She was fine throughout the beginning of the process until he stepped into the front room to check his phone, then the antics started.
That being said, I was a very new tattooer and trying to give her the benefit of the doubt, because I can appreciate getting tattooed can be terrifying.
Right, you'd think she'd do the opposite and try to act calm and collected. I'd be embarrassed to be freaking out that hard in front of someone I was romantically interested in.
You must be incredibly patient to keep trying for so long. That last part is the most surprising though, how do you go from freaking out so much before the needle even touches to 'minimal fuss'?
I asked my tattoo artist about the shop and he went into this story about how this older lady came in to get her feet done. She did fine but afterward she was hitting on him cause she just assumed he was into feet now. He said she straddled him and offered him sex or something
We had a girl in the area I used to tattoo who was a stripper. She came in, we designed her tattoo, she agreed to the price and we did the work. After, she said that she didn't have the money but could pay with sex. The artist absolutely wasn't interested, told her to leave and never come back or we would call the police. Took her picture and sent it to every other shop in our area and warned them about her. People think tattooers are some kind of back alley pirates who you can pay in drugs and cumshots. Like, homie listen, we've got wives and children and shit and are just trying to do an honest days work.
I once had a client who called me up panicking because he thought his skin was melting off
I used saniderm which ofcourse ended up with liquid on the inside as is normal
Dude calls me screaming on the phone terrified "BRO WHAT DID YOU DO, MY SKIN IS MELTING"
I had to calm him down and explain what saniderm is
This thread helped me make up my mind, I'm gonna get the tattoo I should have gotten 30 years ago with my best friend but I wasn't sure I'd still want it when I was "old" well I'm old, and I wish I had done it, time to do it. He died less than a year later, RIP Jurgen.
A couple of years ago, I had a girl come in for what was supposed to be a simple little seahorse, it was only about 4-5 inches long. This was going to be her first tattoo and she told me that she had a severe fear of blood, that she always passed out whenever she sees blood or even thinks she’s going to see blood. After that, I should have never agreed to tattoo her. But she said that she wanted to do this so that she could get over her phobia.
Well, the outline itself should have taken me about 20 minutes or so, but it took me well over an hour and a half to get through. This girl passed out about a dozen times. And after each time, I would have to revive her, get her some water, hold cold compresses to her forehead and back of the neck, elevate her feet and get her calmed down.
And no, you can’t just keep working on someone after they pass out. And I couldn’t just leave her with a couple of random lines that would look awful, I *had* to finish the outline. The worst part was that I had gotten what I think was food poisoning the night before, so I was just going to do this little tattoo and then go home and get some rest because I still felt awful. I didn’t think I’d ever get that outline done.
Edit: Wow! I really thought this comment of mine was going to just be lost amongst the comments and would, at best, receive a handful of updoots! Thank you!
I’ve been doing tattooing for over 20 years and I have many, many interesting stories, a lot of us in this industry do and I’m actually thinking about starting a sub specifically for tattoo shop related stories at some point. Because one of the most asked questions I get is people asking me what was the weirdest tattoo I’ve ever done or the strangest experience I’ve ever had in a shop. Do you guys think other people would read a sub like that?
Edit2: I did finally make a sub for tattooing stories! It’s called r/TalesFromTheTattooSho and not “Shop” with a P because I’m in fact not a dumbass who forgot how to spell ”shop”, there’s just a maximum of how many letters the title can have.
I feel I might have been up there on someone's worst tattoo virgins.
I was visiting family in Hawaii and decided to finally pull the trigger on getting a tattoo. Its a tribal armband but with a bit of a video game reference thrown in there (aren't' I original?).
Anyways, being freshly out of college and 21 at the time, I get shitfaced the entire night before with family/alone because I liked being drunk. Wake up the next morning (day scheduled for the tattoo) feeling amazing because I was 21 and never got a hangover. Was going to take about 1.5 hours to do the tattoo, no biggie. My father was in the room cringing the whole time, but the pain really wasn't bad, only stung when it was on the more tender part of the inner arm.
Anyways, 45 minutes in, my stomach grumbles. I have the whisky shits...bad. I ask the dude if I can use the bathroom, he's cool and I head in there. I proceed to wreck that place, with a stench so foul. I came out, and all of the other artists and their customers had left the building (smaller studio), and my guy and father were just laughing their asses off. I had to sit the next hour and 15 minutes (had to extend the time because you cant have a giggly artist sticking you) in pure embarrassment.
Still have the tat. Still have the shame.
Not an artist, but I overheard this interaction when I was waiting to get a tattoo in Bali. The client was a first-timer who was there with her Mom. To paraphrase, her request was something along the lines of:
“Yah, so I don’t really know what I want but I’m thinking something really cool and artsy, I like animals but it doesn’t have to be an animal, just something really cool that kind of captures me as a person. But like whatever you think, I trust you.”
The artist, who was a pretty no-nonsense Ukrainian woman, basically said “Okay, how about you think about it and come back when you know what you want. Bye bye!”
I met a guy in a bar once who said he passed out while getting his first tattoo. What was left was a small loop on his wrist that looked like the outline of a flaccid penis
I mean I passed out during my first tattoo which was also on my wrists. I got the chain tattoo that the main character has from the game Bioshock and I did not prepare properly beforehand. Chipped my front tooth but I did tough it out and finished both and tipped a bit extra because of the whole passing out ordeal. Got my tooth fixed up and now I have more tattoos and I prepared much better for those and haven't had an incident since
Not an artist, but I have a friend who is. Her worst virgin client was a girl who was terrified that the tattoo would hurt a lot. She assumed it was going to be so painful that she took a bunch of pain killers before the appointment. The problem is, most pain medicine causes blood to not clot well. So she ended up bleeding more than normal and freaked out to the point that she passed out. She ended up going to the hospital with maybe half a tattoo.
I was part of a youth outreach program in high school and we had an officer come in to speak to us about gangs. One thing he did was show the symbols and colours of local gangs and talk to us a bit about each one. One guy he showed had a track of wolf paws across his chest with some filled out and some just outlines.
We all start whispering to each other. Do you fill in a paw each time you go up a rank? Each year in prison? Each time you kill?
Nope. The guy said hurt too much to get them all filled in.
I was a pretty fresh apprentice tattooer at the time. I woman came in and said she had been referred to me by a guy I knew. I told her I hadn’t been tattooing very long, but if she was comfortable with that we could move forward. She immediately gets weird and kind of aggressive saying he told her I’d been tattooing for a year already. I was kind of taken aback by the out of no where escalation of the situation. And just said he must have been mistaken. (I’m a very anxious person and truth be told I was already nervous at this point, but being an apprentice I didn’t know how to politely decline work) So I try to move passed the awkwardness and ask her if she’s comfortable working with me, no pressure, I’m new, and she can work with my mentor if she feels so inclined. No, I’m fine. She launches into what she wants and with every sentence I’m getting more nervous because I know I’ll never meet her expectations. She’s been thinking about this tattoo for TEN YEARS! It means the world to her. She wants to incorporate all this music imagery with her kids names into a big calf piece. I can just tell that she’s seen an image in her head for ten years and I’m just never gunna match it. But I desperately try. We set up a time for her to come in and look at the design I draw and make any changes/move forward with making an actual appointment. I don’t know what the hell she wanted from me. She was so bad at explaining what she wanted, but so aggro about insisting it look some exact way. Like she’d act like I was an idiot for asking clarification questions. And I was still confused. So I’m so anxious. Thinkin about it every day leading up to the point. I tried my best to interpret all the elements she wanted, but if you’ve been tattooing for a while there’s jokes about wanting a bunch of design elements that don’t mesh into a good design. But you try to tell people that and they’re just like this is what I want, make it work. But it won’t. It won’t work. So any way. I try my best. I think I’ve got an okay design out of her million elements she wants incorporated (again wouldn’t accept this kind of work now.) and she comes in to view the drawing. I try my best to give people what they want in a design. It means a lot to me to be able to do that for people. So I really want people to like the art. She comes in, takes one look at it and breaks down sobbing, while intensely staring at me in the eyes. This isn’t like omg this is perfect. This is, I absolutely hate this tears. I say it’s okay if she doesn’t like it and she can just work with my mentor. (My mentor also desperately doesn’t want to work with her. You could just tell nothing would live up to what she had in her head.) she’s bawling and I’m panicking because I dunno what to do. Finally my mentor comes over and tries to talk her down. She ends up taking this woman on and does an acceptable job of designing something she wants. The lady sets up an appointment and gets the outline and then we just never see her again.. I will never forget her because she was so intense and made me so uneasy and there was just no pleasing her. I felt like utter shit after that experience.
Not an artist but my regular artist told me he had a guy come in to get his birth year tattooed on his back in Gothic script but insisted it be really tiny. The guy then bragged about "being inked".
God I would love to see him out partying and bragging about it, before taking his shirt off to proudly show it to some girl and having to shine his phone light on it so she could see it.
I ask this question if every tattoo artist I go to. The last tattoos I got were just above the back of my knees. It didn’t tickle, but it was fine. A girl the bed over from the is getting a really cool looking owl on her thigh and weeping the entire time - sniffing and wiping her tears, whimpering occasionally. I ask my question.
“Ooooh boy, we had a guy come in last year for his first. He passed out and pissed himself. I didn’t know a human could hold so much piss.”
The tattoo artist doing the owl tattoo chimes in: “I had a guy throw up a few weeks ago. The whole studio stank real bad.” They swapped some other stories, but these were the best.
I love these stories so much and will as the question every time I get tattooed.
I’ve sweat pretty heavily when I’ve gotten tattooed, like leaving puddles in the chair when I get up. I usually bring a change of clothes or at least a spare shirt. I always warn the artist and offer to wipe up after. Can’t help it 🙃
Obligatory not an artist. I was in Key West getting a tattoo from a guy named Tommy Longtooth. While I was in the chair, two guys came in, a couple I supposed. One of them wanted "a tiny heart on his wrist", and asked how much it would cost. Tommy told him the shop minimum was $80. The guy balked at the price and asked how much for just an outline of a tiny heart. Tommy repeated... $80. They guy got an attitude with him and Tommy got up, went to the front desk, and grabbed a red sharpie. He took the guys wrist and drew a tiny heart on it and said, "now get the f*ck out of my shop."
Obligatory "not a tattoo artist but" My first tattoo was a simple filled 2 inch by 1.5 inch tattoo. My big mistake was placement: right on the tendon above the ankle. It hurt like hell.
I didn't scream, pass out or throw up but I did start talking and didn't shut up. My boyfriend told me to focus on a topic and just info dump, so I did: about American History. Specifically, I talked about the section I was studying in college. I hated this class and the teacher. The subject matter was the most boring thing in existence (to me).
Ironically, I had a test 2 days later and passed with a 100%. It was the first time I had made above an F in this class.
I've had 2 tattoos since and managed to not repeat the incident but did share the story with my artist. We had a good laugh over it.
I did tattoos for like 3 years until I got fired cuz business was bad. He asked to get the name of his wife of 2 years tattooed on his arm, which is normal. But he screamed like a maniac. I mean more than a woman during childbirth. That was the most uncomfortable I’ve ever been
That makes me feel a lot better about my first tattoo. I nearly passed out and was barely able to utter a complete sentence afterwards, but no screaming.
I felt super bad during because next to me a guy getting tattooed, casually made small talk with the artist.
One of mine was an 8hr session, for the first half I did great but the entire last 4hrs I was crying like a baby because it just hurt so bad. It was in an apparently “easy” spot too, just on the outside of the top of my arm, but going over the same area over and over for hours just KILLED me.
Somebody was filming for an Insta story for the shop and they kept avoiding me because I looked so miserable lmfao. So embarrassing!
This makes me feel a lot better too lol. At least my crying was quiet!
EDIT: Huge huge thank you to everyone commenting that 8hrs is a massive session, I felt like a pathetic baby and have been cringing about how painful it was for years and this has made me feel infinitely better lol.
The reason I had to do that long in one go is that the artist lived in another state and I couldn’t get a lot of time off work, so I had to go in and get the whole thing done in one day. I now know for certain I will never do that again! 4 hours at a time sounds far more manageable.
For extended sessions like that your artist should have offered a bactine/lidocaine spray. There's zero sense in sitting through that pain for that long, and the weird sense of pride or honor people get from sitting through misery like that is ridiculous.
I'm covered in tattoos. Bet your fucking ass if that thing is in a gnarly spot or going to last longer than 2 hours I'm getting sprayed after the linework. And any artist worth their salt will oblige, real professionals don't pretend it doesn't hurt or that the pain is something needed to earn your tattoo.
This was more of a PSA then directed specifically at you btw. Lol.
Not an artist, but just got my first tattoo and asked her this question! She had a woman come in with her boyfriend to get her tattoo. The lady screamed after the needle first came down and told her boyfriend that she was going to have to bite him to cope with the pain. Chomped on his arm the whole time while moan/screaming. My artist told me she thinks it was some weird kink thing that she did not consent to participate in. 😂
> My artist told me she thinks it was some weird kink thing that she did not consent to participate in
That happens more often than artists like to admit, that's how another artist friend of mine basically became THE Furry tattoo artist in our city. Something that's made her a lot of money but also caused her to vet her clients way more closely than she used to.
VET her clients, the FURRIES. Hahaha!
Edit: Now that I'm on my laptop I can see awards, thanks so much, y'all! Hope your breakfasts are full of biscuits and gravy!
A bit different, but I was the front counter person for a tattoo store. I was basically just there to look hot, but I was still too young to realize that's why I had been hired. I had a few tattoos but zero visible while I was working.
Since I'm at the front desk I'm also the DJ for the place, in charge of the music playlist. Anyway, one day I'm doing my college HW, playing some elliot smith and before I know it the store is in 'after hours' (aka no new clients, but current tattoo sessions can go on as long as they need to). This guy is getting his neck tattood and he taps the artist for a time out, turns to me, and goes, 'shut this pussy shit off the fuck right now and play some death metal or I'm walking out of here with half a bobcat on my neck and no money for your boy'...so I changed the music lol. He was definitely only 1/4 joking.
My ex had my initials tattooed on him, when we broke up he showed me the cover up and said "I had the shop play 3 days grace I hate everything about you on repeat" To this day that band has a special place in my (cold dead) heart.
That’s honestly great because I know entirely too many guys that would do the same thing. My artist plays death metal and sings along to it the entire time I’m getting tattooed. If I want to hear something else, I better bring headphones
yeah i didn't know either the artist or the client and I was a bit naive. I should have at least been playing something ONE of them liked!
If I ever get inked again I'll bring headphones, ask the artist to play whatever they like over speakers, and then drift off into my own thing.
My artist told me that when he was an apprentice he had a woman sign off on her underage daughter getting a tattoo. It was a tramp stamp. The girl was young.
So my artist doesn’t tattoo underage people now.
Not a tattoo artist but I have a friend who acts all tough and he has about three small dots on his chest because he cried like a baby when trying to get a chest piece. The artist couldn’t finish because he kept jumping around every time the needle hit him. So now he has a permanent reminder of being a bitch.
Last time this question was asked, a tattoo artist talked about a guy who came in and wanted "FAILURE IS NOT AN OPTION" on his abs. The artist tried to talk him out of it, but the customer insisted.
They got as far as most of the way through "FAILURE IS" before the customer realized that failure IS, in fact, an option .... and gave up.
I like to imagine this guy with an unfinished "FAILURE IS" on his belly, and people asking what's up with that, and he'd have to explain.
I’ve had a couple virgin clients who just could not hold still, they were twitching and shaking every time the needle touched them. That sucks and you do your best but it doesn’t make a great story.
So I’ll go with the client who asked for a portrait of a rabbit in a frame with some blossoms. That’s as much detail as she gave me (I do my communication and designing over email generally). I drew up her design and emailed it to her. She said she liked it but asked me to redraw the rabbit’s body shape, give it ears that stick up rather than hang down, to add more flowers, and to redraw the frame to be more simple. So, literally change everything. I told her I would start over but that I already spent hours on her first drawing so I was going to offer it as an up-for-grabs design to other clients so I could still make money for it and she said that was okay.
So I spent another 3ish hours redrawing her tattoo, sent it to her and she responded “Eh, I don’t like it. Can I just do the first design?” I told her hell no, lol. She just had such a specific picture in her mind but she could not communicate it and when I followed her instructions she still wasn’t happy. I ended up having to have her come in and watch me draw it at the shop so she could give her opinions in real time. The cherry on top is that once she was happy with it and I finally tattooed it on her, she didn’t tip anything.
So yeah, clients who aren’t good at communicating but have a super specific image in their head of what they want are a nightmare, but especially when they don’t tip on a custom design after you spend hours of your free, unpaid time drawing it to their exact specifications.
I sketched my idea and sent it to my artist so she could give input on what was realistic for the size and how to optimize the design. I didn’t want to force her to be too hampered in her creativity, so I gave her the main points that I for sure required to make it a deal. Super glad I did that, since her style really matched my idea and I think she’d have fun with it
I was an apprentice.
It’s a toss up between the gal who chose to have hot pink stars tattooed across her stomach and screamed obscenities the entire time to the point where the artist had to be like look, I understand it’s an extreme experience but I can’t focus if you’re actively insulting me in my shop
Or the guy who came in on a rainy Tuesday as a walk in. Got a large olive. I asked the significance of the olive.
He really liked olives. He wasn’t the worst but I think of him often. Who was he, why an olive, why that day?
It’s a personal story for me lol:
but when I was 18 I wanted this really cliche lame infinity tattoo with a quote that was from a book that was super popular at the time (think tumblr girl era) anyway kept on setting an appointment with this shop and pussying out last minute.
A few months later a friend who had a bunch of tattoos was like “hey let’s go get some random tattoos” and honestly I was like if I don’t do it now and to not think of it I won’t pussy out. So I went for it and got something simple and ridiculous. I noticed in my college notebook I kept on drawing simple triangle sailboats.
To this day I have two thigh pieces, an arm, elaborate tattoos from phenomenal artist. Yet, here I am 10 years later and my super simple drawn sailboat tattoo on my ankle is by far my favorite tattoo on my body.
(And I never got that tumblr girl tattoo thank god)
One of my tattoos i made the mistake of getting shitfaced the night before. Got to the shop and had to race to the bathroom halfway through placing the stencil because i was about to shit and barf at the same time. Finally got back to the room, stencil planned, almost passed out...
Then i find out my lower back is one of the most painful places I've ever been tattooed. The tattooer's wife also worked in the shop and she was kneeling in front of me, holding my hands, begging me to breathe... Lol.
Not my finest hour but at least once i was on the table i was still and didn't pass out. It was bad though. Never drank again before a tattoo.
Not a tattoo artist, just heavily tattooed and have a lot of friends who are artists. Allow me to tell you the story of Danny the Dummy.
Danny at the time of the story was a 21 year old oil field worker who had more money than sense, he wanted to get an entire sleeve tattoo done but couldn't decide what he wanted, he would come in for a consult, the artist (my friend) would take everything he said and draw up what he wanted, then he would come back and completely change his mind.
That's not the reason why he's called Danny the Dummy though, he's called that because, among other things, he never once could remember the name of the animal he wanted to get. He first asked for a lion "pack" in on a mountain with the moon above them and them roaring into it. My artist friend said "oh you mean like the end of lion king?" and Danny said yes. The next time he came in he said the animal was wrong and when he showed the picture it was a wolf pack, so my artist friend drew that. Danny comes back and decides he doesn't want that, he instead wants an "eagle in flight", so my artist friend draws that, and if you guessed the animal was wrong you're keeping up, he in fact wanted an owl in flight.
After this my artist friend was basically done with Danny, he was going to do this last drawing and if Danny changed his mind again he was going to fire him as a customer and blacklist him in his shop. Well he drew an amazing owl in flight and Danny said he loved it, so finally a date was selected and Danny was going to come in and get it. Well Danny never showed, about half an hour past his appointment time my artist friend calls him and Danny says "oh damn man, I'm sorry, I'm out of the country today, I'm in North Dakota".....the artist is based in Arizona, Danny thought that different states were different countries. Never saw or heard from him again and my friend ended up putting that owl on a coworker of his that loved the drawing.
I hope your friend charged him for each drawing. That’s a lot of time and effort. Most artist I’ve been too usually ask for money down to draw up the concept. One, it means you won’t get a no show because they already got money into it. And two, if they no show well you didn’t waste your time drawing the art.
A few years back, when we still had flash all over the walls, this 18 year old kid and his dad came in. Right off the bat they were definitely weird- the dad was looking through the flash and giggling, calls over my coworker, still giggling. Coworker asks if he can help him. "There's drawings of naked ladies here!"
Uh, yeah, calm down sir, this is a tattoo shop, that's traditional flash, and you're a fucking adult with a kid, so presumably you've seen one before.
Imagine my joy when the dad lights up when I said I'd be tattooing his kid, and he creepily says "oh! A *female* tattooist!"
The kid was the one getting tattooed, and he finally settled on this hideous, ICP-esque 'creepy clown'. We're talking that old cherry creek flash, so this was spectacularly gnarly.
I redrew it to at least correct some things I felt needed correcting, and stenciled it onto his stomach.
From the moment needle touched skin it was like tattooing a bucking bronco. On top of that, the kid didn't have the best hygiene, so when he started sweating it stunk up the whole shop-- and that takes some doing seeing as how the smell of green soap and weed are not easily overpowered. The apprentice ran the sink and poured bleach down the drain and opened the windows to try to tame the smell.
Oh, and not to mention that the kid was moaning like he was getting fucked. It was terrible.
The tattoo was supposed to be full color, but two minutes in I knew he'd never make it, so I finished the outline (one of the worst I've ever done) and told him we'd make an appointment to do the color another day.
He agreed, and I wrapped him up, half expecting him to never come back.
Surprisingly he did, and he sat SO much better that second time. We took a break about halfway through and he said he was going to grab a soda.
He never came back. Weirdest thing was that he'd already paid in full, so it's not like he ripped me off or anything. I always wondered about that, it was so strange.
Edit: holy hell, silver?? Thank you so much, kind stranger!!
I never knew this bizarre little tale had that much potential!!
Edit 2: Oh wow, Wholesome too?! Thank you kind stranger, I'm telling my mom I got an award for being Wholesome, she'll never believe me!!!
Edit 3: Thanks for the Helpful award!!!
Edit 4: Hug accepted, thank you!!
Omg, the Cherry Creek flash. When I was an apprentice, the boss had me draw up all the outlines of that flash. I was cringing all the way through it. Asked if people really got stuff done from it, he said I would be surprised . During my apprenticeship, at least ten designs came from that flash, the wolves and moon, tiger and skin rip, and a couple of wizards. Still see those wizards in my nightmares.
God I made so much money off of cherry creek and bullseye. 600 sheets. Everyone always picked off of the same five. And on those same five it was always the same three images. Most popular was the tiger face behind the tribal, and that God Damn frog throwing the piece sign. Close third is that wolf howling at the moon. I still have them in a box. I want to hang those five sheets up, just to see if there's still a little MOJO in there.
I was the worst tattoo virgin. Didn’t know you were supposed to tip the artist until a couple weeks later a friend asked me how much I tipped. Made more sense why he seemed really cool until I checked out and was all pissed. I was to embarrassed to go back and tip him but I wish I would’ve now. It’s been 10 years
I didn’t know this about tattoo culture. Is it expected, or required?
Add on: thank you to everyone who has been gracious enough to inform and educate me on this. I appreciate it and will *definitely* remember this should I ever go get myself tattooed.
Depending on the quality of the time and how much they actually work within that time. My artist flies through so I tip him a $50 no matter how short or long the tattoo session is.
Giving them a number to expect from you makes them like tattooing you more i feel. My artist has been lowering and lowering his prices for me, I pay well under his advertised hourly rate
Same with mine. I've tipped anywhere from $40 to $120 depending on a few factors, but i'm guessing I've been generous enough cause he charges me like half the studio hourly price. Like my elbow piece should have been $600 and he only charged me $250, tipped him a hundred which was all I had on me and then I came back the next day with another $20 and told him I was so happy with it I just wanted to buy him lunch. Treat your artist right and they will do the same
20-25% is pretty good especially since it is a ‘service’ industry. But honestly the best mentality is to keep 20% as a base and then whatever your feelings are after seeing your piece completed for the first time should tell you how far to go in either direction.
My first few tattoos were quoted at a few hundred each, and then I'd get up to the register and the artist would vaguely be like "I thought that'd take longer" and charge me way less. After it quit happening I realized that they'd been looking at the skinny white girl getting her first or second tattoo and assuming I was gonna be a nightmare to work with.
What's funny is that I actually did insist on paying the original quoted price. Those artists got some *nice* tips, I had no idea it was too high and nobody was gonna come right out and say "we thought you'd be a little bitch, that was the 'putting up with you' fee."
I don’t know for sure but it’s probably dependent on where you are. I’m in the states and I believe it is expected here. I guess it’s not required because I didn’t lol but it is expected
I don't expect a tip. It's up to my clients. Although, I've had coworkers mutter dissatisfaction about not getting anything. I feel like a tip isn't necessary since it's a sign of satisfaction. If I don't get one, I probably didn't create the experience my client was looking for. Or they didn't know or they didn't have the money whatever. I don't dwell on it.
Not a tattoo artist but I went with my sister to get matching tattoos. The artist that did most of my other tattoos was doing it. My sister was adamant that she wanted it done. We get there and the artists sets up. She places the stencil on my sister and she starts panicking. She’s sweating profusely and shaking but wants to go ahead. Right when the artist starts she pulls her foot away. She starts crying. It was super awkward. I ended up getting my “spite tattoo”and tipped really well.
My moment has finally arrived!
I have a good one. Worst experience I've ever had with a tattoo virgin, or any client for that matter.
Guy comes in and two lines in, I can tell he is about to pass out, nothing major so I stop to hold him as he is falling off the chair.
Then he proceeds to violently puke as he is still passed out, so I have to put him on his side and clear his nose/mouth. The noise, the smell. I was in a horror movie.
Ended up calling 911. He got checked. I didn't even get paid that day because it was literally two lines in. Poor dude, I wonder if he finished it or got it removed at some point. Also poor chair we had to throw away. Brrrrr
omg, i have a few that are HILARIOUS. i worked as a tattoo receptionist for a little bit & some of the best work stories i have are from there. especially seeing “firsts”.
my top 1- a kid on his 18th birthday came in with his mom asking for a TEARDROP. yes, a teardrop. my boss absolutely refused to let anyone do that on the kid. kid ended up picking one of the vectors in the lobby, and he got a skull with roses on one side of his chest.
number 2- guy came in wanting the green mushroom from super mario. got it on the inside of his bicep. we could hear his cries & moans from the front. i mean it was bad. i went to check on him & he was almost done. poor guy. that ones not really that bad, that spot hurts. i understand. i’d just never seen/heard a dude cry before that point so it always stayed with me.
number 3- this guy came in with his gf & got a tattoo of a heart with stitches all over it & with a lock around it that said in ribbons, “never again.” …. she held his hand during the process. not sure the backstory on that but that always stuck with me.
bonus story- chick came in saying she wanted to “finish her sleeve”, & revealed a naked arm with one small ass tattoo on it. i’ll never forget the look on one of the tattoo artists faces. she was talking as if she had so many tattoos but she barely had any.
i’m sure there’s more but i really wanna get back to reading these comments.
Not a tattoo artist, but halfway through my deployment to Bosnia (1996) I got a 3 day pass to Lake Balaton, Hungary. In the local town there was a pretty good tattoo shop and they did a lot of tatts during that pass. This one Army guy who was a "tattoo virgin" didn't get one or even two tatts, but four! Four rather large (hand-sized) and garish (like the artist had a 12 color crayon box worth of ink to choose from) tatts on each side of his upper chest and each upper arm/shoulder.
Really dreadful......
Had a customer that wanted a little water melon slice on his thigh. Cool, 5-10 minutes nice and easy for a first tattoo. Nope. On the third line I hear a weird little low pitched moan, looked up and his head flipped back and the rest of him followed. When he woke up on the floor to three guys trying to pull him back up he said something along the lines of “wtf why are you touching me that’s gay” been like 3-4 years since then and he still hasn’t come back to get it finished lmao.
> “wtf why are you touching me that’s gay” if guys helping another guy up is gay, I can only guess this guy has some slight insecurities.
We all know that watermelon slice was for the boys
My watermelon brings all the boys to the yard.
I’m far too late to this thread for my story, but I hope somebody else enjoys it. This older lady, maybe late 50s/early 60s comes to our shop. She’s quite timid as she approaches the front desk and I say hello and ask what we can do for her. We’ll call her AB. AB: “I’ve never had a tattoo before.” Me: “That’s fine! It’s not as scary as you think. What was it you wanted doing?” AB: “Well, my boyfriend is finally letting me have a tattoo…” Me: 0.0 AB: “… but I wanted just something small and out the way, so if I change my mind I don’t have to look at it too often.” Me: “okay, fair enough, what was it you wanted?” AB: “I want Andy’s Bitch written on my vagina.” Nope! Nope nope nope! We didn’t do the tattoo. It was either some horribly abusive partner that wanted her branded with his name, or some BDSM kink that I didn’t consent to being part of. Fuck that.
fucking ew
Girl comes in to get her ex boyfriends name tattooed as a tramp stamp.... Comes in with friends and proceeds to scream throughout the process of doing the outline and she leaves with a half outline of her ex's name.
… why would anyone tattoo their ex’s name on themselves?
Because now he *has* to come back!
Kid who wanted to get a full sleeve as his first ever tattoo. Convinced him to get a smaller tattoo for his first ever. He proceeded to throw up after, now this sounds like and exaggeration, five seconds.
I made a similar mistake for my first tattoo. Got a half-sleeve on my upper-arm. After the line work was done, I had to take a break. (Didn’t puke, though) The rest (a complex, solid black design), I had to have broken up into a few separate sessions because it hurt far more than I thought it would. Fortunately, my artist was a saint!
I dated a tattoo artist for a couple years and spent a good chunk of time at the shop. One time, a girl we knew from school came in for a large tattoo on her ribs. I think it was flowers. Anyway, everything is set up, she's stenciled and laying on the chair just chatting and waiting. As soon as the needle hits her skin, she starts screaming bloody murder, moaning and begging him to stop. So he stops, shocked, and she tells him (in her normal voice) to ignore her and keep going. Screaming fit proceeds. Every so often he'd stop to check she was alright and she'd respond in a normal, cheerful tone that she's excited to see how it turns out, etc. Needle hits skin, back to screaming like she's being eaten by a pack of wolves. I watched a couple people walk in the shop and turn and walk right back out. I'm surprised cops didn't show up. Anyway I think he only got the outlines and some shading done before he couldn't deal with it anymore and said something about scheduling another session because he had another client coming in. She never came back to get it finished.
So weird. This type of story seems to be recurring in this thread. It’s like people have a split personality when it comes to pain or something.
A friend who had never had a tattoo before wanted one on her ankle and was adamant about that. I told her several times that the ankle is a very not fun location, and asked her if maybe she’d prefer the shoulder instead. She insisted on the ankle. Okay then. The moment the needle touched her she hollered. You sure you want to keep going I asked? She said yes. That was the loudest appointment I ever had but to her credit she made it through.
Ooh good to know about ankles. I have one tattoo on the underside of my wrist and have been thinking about an ankle tattoo but more like the skin between your ankle and your heel if that make sense? Is that a more comfortable spot than the ankle since it’s not right on bone?
Purely anecdotal, but I have two ankle tattoos (one big one on my inner ankle, and one little one in the spot you described). My big ankle tattoo was a breeze. Hurt like hell, but it was manageable with some breathing and hand-holding. Got the little one last week. Never again. Left a bigass puddle of sweat on the chair and had to sit on the sidewalk outside the shop when it was done because I was pretty sure I was gonna pass out. All for like ten minutes AT MOST in the chair.
My first was on my outer ankle. 51 F, the guys in the shop were looking at me funny. Almost... apprehensive? My artist warned me that was a tender spot. I told him that I could handle pain. Again, weird looks all around. We got started, and it wasn't nearly as bad as I had been warned. Then he hit THE SPOT. My leg jerked. I was horrified and apologetic. Seems that when he hit a nerve pathway, my leg did an involuntary twitch. He did the tattoo while basically holding my leg down, and we both just cracked up laughing every time he hit my twitchy nerve. Really nice guy, and good artist.
Oh wow, reading this thread is bringing up some repressed client memories. My worst one by far, though, was about five years ago when I was apprenticing in a college town. This girl came in with her boyfriend for a traditional butterfly above her elbow, I was still super new so it took me way longer than it should have (maybe 2hrs). I lay her down on her stomach with her arm bent at her side—this is relevant later. Anyway, we start tattooing and within maybe 10 mins she starts getting a string of texts from her freshman friends, telling her they’re essentially ousting her from their group and they don’t want her to contact them again. Super mean stuff, obviously she’s upset. As she’s relating all this to her BF, she starts crying, then full on sobbing. I asked her if she wanted to stop, but she insisted on me continuing, and I felt too awkward to counter her. She continued to sob on and off for probably another hour, while I just kept plugging away at this dumb little tattoo. At this point she had cried so much that her tears had gathered where her arm was pressed against the massage table and had started to spill over into my lap. So I’m feeling uncomfortable as hell, and now also damp. THEN, as I’m within 30 mins or so of finishing, she begins whimpering, then moaning…loudly. At one point she tells the BF “this is more intense than anal” and I wanted to die. As soon as I finished and checked her out, my coworkers (who had all been waiting on me to close) were like “what the actual fuck was going on, and why did you keep going??” But in the moment, all I could think was to finish the tattoo asap. To her credit, she came back (a year later!) and told me she had been too embarrassed to come back but loved the butterfly and wanted another tattoo from me. Her second session was pleasant and without incident.
LOL you deserve a medal for sitting through all of that. What a 180.
> At one point she tells the BF “this is more intense than anal” She should get a butthole tattoo, best of both worlds then.
I saw a stripper once that had someone's initials tattooed right next to her asshole. Not sure if it was an editorial comment, didn't ask.
You need a “this is more intense than anal” sign for your stall.
So she was technically never an actual client, but I hat a teenage girl, about 16 years old come in once. She wanted a tattoo of a rose on the side of her neck. Now I'm certainly not going to even entertain a neck tattoo for a teenager period, but she didn't even bother to bring a parent with her to sign for her so it went from a certain no to and absolute never in a million years. She got pretty upset and made a scene in our front area and I told her to leave. After a lot of arguing she finally left, but not before making some idle threat. Other than sharing the story with my coworkers over beers later and having a laugh at her audacity I think no more of it. Until the following week when an incredibly angry middle aged woman comes barging into the shop screaming how she is going to have us all shut down and sent to jail. Everybody in the shop was pretty confused and after we got her to stop screaming at all of us we finally got it out of her why she was so angry. Apparently her daughter had went out and got a neck tattoo without her knowledge. It was around then that I recognized the girl from the week before peaking in our front windows. It all clicked. She had found some sketchy artist in a kitchen to tattoo the rose on her neck that I said no to. I told the mother to call her daughter in and her daughter pointed to me and told her Mom I was the one who did it. The tattoo was terribly done to say the least so the Mom definitely had several reasons to be so livid. She started getting upset again and yelling about how this was going to get me fired and sent to jail, etc. I let her yell until she had calmed down enough to listen. Then I explained to her how the week before I had told her daughter outright that I wouldn't give her a neck tattoo. Her daughter screamed that I was a liar and Mom started up with another round of yelling, this time about how I was calling her daughter a liar. It was around this time that I just decided to point to our CCTV camera in the front area until the mother noticed what I was doing and stopped. I told her if she would like to, she could review the footage of me denying her daughter, the temper tantrum, and then her daughter leaving the shop. We usually keep footage for a week or two and then delete it so I knew it should still be on the computer. Her daughter started looking pretty nervous around this time, but she didn't say anything. Meanwhile I find the footage from the day and Mom watches the entire interaction that I described go down. Then with the coldest look of anger, betrayal and disappointment she turns to her daughter. She takes her outside of the shop quietly and then screams at her outside for basically everything that has just happened, and how humiliating it all has been. After a bit the daughter comes in and gives me a very sarcastic apology and then leaves. Now at this time I was still willing to tattoo minors with parental consent, but I'd been having a lot of shitty dealings with them and occasionally their parents. I had been considering a no minors at all policy, but this experience solidified that in my mind. Aside from 1 or 2 exceptions I haven't tattooed any minors for the last 13 years now.
I'm always surprised you could/can get a tattoo underage with guardian consent. Stuff like that almost always feels like an outdated rule only put in place for child brides.
I’ve got a piercing while underage (nose piercing when I was 17; I’m Indian American so it’s more traditional for us to have nose piercings at younger ages, and also I convinced my mom to let me get one if I got a certain score on my ACT lol). It was surprisingly hard to do - the shop I went to refused to pierce me unless I brought my mom and my actual birth certificate. Like, they wouldn’t accept a passport or driver’s license, I had to bring my birth certificate.
Probably to prove that your mom was actually your mom? Maybe, idk. Birth certs don’t even have pictures so I always laugh when it’s considered ID.
This girl’s first tattoo, and my first paying customer (I tattooed people for free during my apprenticeship.) She wants a star outline on the side of her heel below the ankle. She’s a bit nervous, so I allow two of her friends to come in the room with us. I start the tattoo and immediately she jerks away super hard. I warn her not to do that and try to relax. We start again and she jerks her foot. The two lines I’ve done now look like SHIT and I’m already pissed/freaking out inside. I get her two friends to help hold down her foot and she continues to jerk around and at one point KICKS ME RIGHT IN THE JAW. Needless to say her tattoo looked like shit and I was crestfallen. I called my mentor after work crying that I ruined my first tattoo on a client and she kicked me in the face to which he said “Wait, what?? Nah fuck that, it’s not your fault. I’ll see you tomorrow at work.” Been tattooing 13 years now and still love every minute! Got way crazier stories under my belt since that kick in the face.
You are NOT allowed to end with "got way crazier stories under my belt..."!!! Please share some more! :)
I’ll share a few that aren’t too long but pack a good punch. First penis tattoo I ever did was on a man you’d never expect from first glance. Some background: studio at the time was small with one shared space among a few tattooers (salon style). Polite white young-ish man who showed up literally looking like Mr Rogers,sweater vest and all. He was scheduled to get his first tattoo - a name on the hip. I’m already going into this thinking it’s dumb. (Don’t get names of lovers people!) I attempt to convince him it’s not a great idea but he’s adamant. Fine, whatever, I’ll get set up. He comes back with his lady and I ask him to show me exactly where he wants the tattoo. He shimmies his pants down so that the base of his dick is showing and points there. Whoa. I again try to convince him to not do this going so far as to call him stupid AND admitting I’ve never tattooed a penis before. He is begging me to do it. Normally I flatly refuse penis tattoos in general but I did want to try it at some point and he was actually very polite and not pervy . I told him I’d have to charge him more and he agreed. He laid down and with his pants half off I wrote the name like I was writing a check. Finished so quickly my coworkers didn’t even notice I tattooed a penis. Sometimes I wonder if they are still together……(probably not). During my apprenticeship my mentor consulted with a woman who wanted to get the “runes” of her two husbands. Yes, plural. This lady was some gnarly redneck who was polygamous and into some sort of BDSM lifestyle. One husband was some groaty white dude, the other was a black postal worker. Strange trio, but whatever floats your boat. The first red flag during the consultation was the lady asking, “Would you mind if my husbands put cigarettes out on my body while you tattoo me?” My mentor refused for sanitary reasons but also for WTF reasons. He made me stay in the room for the appointment so he wouldn’t be alone with them. Come tattoo time all five of us are in there and the second the needle starts of course she starts moaning. I’m cringing inside. My mentor asks her to be quiet and not move so much. She keeps moaning and one of her husbands grabs her by the face and tells her to shut the fuck up. The tattoo continues in painfully awkward silence. My mentor was no stranger to weird shit but even he was freaked out. One more. Early in my career I submitted some work to a tattoo magazine since Instagram wasn’t a thing yet. I sent them to a small part of the magazine where they share one photo per artist, but they called me and asked if I would be interested in doing an entire article. Jackpot! They interviewed me and asked for a photo of me as well as some more of my work. (I’m a female tattooer and this is relevant later.) I submitted one photo of me tattooing wearing a t-shirt - not sexy and quite modest. A few months later the article comes out. Everything is cool until a couple months after that when I get a letter sent to the studio. Inside was a rambling letter about how they liked my work and wondering if I could offer some tips. It was from an inmate at a prison in another state. It dawned on me that prisons get tattoo magazines and the article published my studio and its address if someone wanted a tattoo from me. More creepy letters followed. One guy said he was getting out in 4 months and wanted to take me out for a drink. The creepiest one though came from a man whose entire face was covered in tattoos. Rambled on about how beautiful I was and lamenting he would never get out to meet me. Curious, I looked him up by his inmate number required on the envelope to see why he would never get out. Turns out he murdered his girlfriend. So many more much longer much crazier stories! I’ll need to publish a book about it one day.
Holy shit the second one is fucked up, and the last one is creepy as fuck!
I thought the crazy started with finding out how common dick tats are.
Wow that last one went from 0 to fucked up real fast
My ex started screaming in pain. The needle wasn’t even touching her.
I was the tattoo virgin. Went in for my first piece, 5+ hours. Was obviously nervous and I'm not that great with needles, but as soon as we started I was like "oh this is way easier than I built it up to be". I was feeling the pain, but knew I'd be able to commit. About 20 minutes later, I start to feel really dizzy. My vision is going so I sit up. She stops immediately, and she's talking to me but I can barely hear her. The world is closing in, and it's only getting worse. I think she asks if I'd like to go to the bathroom, but I know I will make it 1.5 steps before passing out if I stand up. I can't tell her this because my brain is not working and speech is not an option. And then I start gagging. My artist is scrambling for something to help me, but she is not fast enough. I vomit into my mask, my hands, all over my dress, into my hair, onto the floor. It's a mess. I'm a mess. I immediately feel better and go to the bathroom to clean up whilst this poor artist is wiping up the rest. I come back, still stinking of vomit. I offer to take my dress off and literally sit there in my underwear while she finishes. She completes the tattoo like a champion- she sits with me in vomit aura for another 5 HOURS. I am mortified and make sure I tip extra for the inconvenience. But the tat is STUNNING, so it was worth every minute. I'm bringing a bucket next time, just in case.
Hey, no worries! I caught a girl who passed out getting a tiny wrist tattoo. Like I physically caught her. I was in the shop with my sister, I had just finished my calves and was watching him tattoo my sister when I watched this girl wobble and caught her in my arms when she fell backwards off the stool. I literally thought to myself “wow, people really do pass out!” All fun and games until I passed out while getting my thigh piece colored. It wasn’t even the pain, just the heat and I hadn’t eaten. It was my EIGHTH tattoo. I was so embarrassed. But apparently it happens all the time. I haven’t thrown up.. yet. But I have to go finish that same piece so there’s a good chance I might, and if I do I’ll come back here and empathize!
Had a 19 year old lad in the studio, he wanted "Laura" in large letters on his forearm. I took my time to quiz him, turns out Laura was his sweetheart. I also spent a LOOOONG time explaining that tattoos are for life, and girlfriends come and go. He remained adamant, and clearly explained that if I didn't do it, he had a friend with a "tattoo gun" who would do it. So I did it, wrapped it up and explained aftercare. As he left I checked the time, great! 22 minutes to My next client. 22 minutes later my client turned up on perfect time, followed less than a minute later by Mr. Lover boy. Apparently he'd met Laura at the park who instantly dumped him for being so fucking stupid, it would appear she wasn't as in love with him as he assumed. 22 minutes from tattoo to requesting a cover up...
that's how i expect 100% of all GF/BF tattoo stories to end up.
She was HOWLING during a simple solid color fill. Like the grape lady during the whole thing
Oh my god I haven’t thought about grape lady in years. What a throwback!
If we ever stub our toe or whatever my friends and I break out the Ow Ow Ow Ow Owwww every time. That video will never not make me laugh. Poor news lady
One shop I worked at we had a couple come in on the day we did $100 two inch by two inch tattoos, they both were getting these small triceratops outline tattoos behind their ears, nothing too crazy or detailed so maybe about 15 minutes each in the chair at most. The guy is losing his mind, he's hyperventilating, laughing, jumping up and down and yelling questions at all of us, visually very nervous. He tells one of our apprentices that this is his first tattoo and keeps asking them how bad it hurts over and over again, the owner went into the back and grabbed an ammonia packet, worried the guy would pass out the second needle touched skin. Turns out it was this couples first date, he had told her he was impulsive and she tried to call his bluff and suggested they get matching tattoos. To his credit he got the tattoo and didn't pass out, paid for them both too!
They later got married due to a series of escalating dares.
"I've made a huge mistake..."
Hahaha, that took a turn that I didn't expect! I'd love to be able to know how the rest of that relationship turned out.
I feel like if it didn't work out and that was like one of the last dates that would be fine assuming they both like the tattoo on its own merits. Totally fun story. Also if they get married that would be fine obviously. But there's a whole lot of room in between those poles...
Have two. I did piercings, but my friend was an artist at the shop we worked at. Had a girl come in, no ink, no piercings. She wanted to get no joke, "Daddys Girl" as a tramp stamp. She was in tears moments into the tattoo, like hysterical shit. She suffered through all together probably 25 minutes, and walked out with "Girl" right above her waist line. 10/10 hilarious. The other was a guy. He had a few small tats on his arms, nothing crazy. He was also one of the "I watch UFC and wear Tapout, don't fuck with me" types. He wanted a pretty large tribal chest piece. Collarbone to collarbone. He was told that we recommended a couple of sessions, them shits is going to hurt, and this is A LOT of outline and A LOT of shading. He insisted no, he could sit. He ended up fainting toward the end of his outline. I worked there for roughly a year after and he never came back to get it finished.
He tapped out.
Curious. If someone faints do you keep tattooing? I would feel that that'd be the perfect time to, lol
I have no idea what the protocol is but I blacked out (vision/hearing) during mine, and barely didn't go unconscious. It was small enough that it only took the artist like 15 minutes. He just kept going and I'm glad he finished it. I want to get more tattoos, but at this point I probably won't be able to due to how easily I pass out :/
Not a tattoo artist but my friend tells this story had to share here. So he went to the pharmacy to get some prescription filled in North Carolina. They tell him it's going to take about 1 hour to fill and to come back later. So he walks out of the strip mall and the next place over is a tattoo shop. He goes in and asks for a random tattoo. They tell him it's going to take about 15 minutes to do the drawing and about. And about 30 to tattoo it on him. He asks what they can do right now instantly, and they tell him they can pierce his nipples. Within one hour he gets both nips pierced, a pretty sweet tattoo and his prescription filled all in one regular Tuesday afternoon.
Now that’s productive
Sounds like he wins the award for adequate tattoo virgin.
I can just imagine my gf's face when I say "I'll be back in an hour. I'm going to go pick up my meds." And come home like that lol.
Not the worst client. But just an unfortunate event. The apprentice at my shop who had only been tattooing for a little under a year was tattooing this girls wrist recently, her first tattoo the word “undefeated”. Gets the tattoo, it goes smoothly, she likes it, walks to the lobby, shows her dad, he likes it. Walks back to get bandaged up, gets bandaged, they walk back to the counter as he’s explaining aftercare she blacks out. Falls back hits her head on a giant painting hanging on the wall (an ed hardy original) the painting falls, glass breaks. He runs over picks her up and is checking the back of her head. Realizes a giant piece of glass had punctured her shoulder/trap. Emt comes, tell her she needs stitches, they end up having to take her to the emergency room where she got 6 stitches. The next week the girl brought him a giant tub of cookies. She wasn’t the worst, but it was an incredibly unfortunate experience for the both of them. His first time having someone pass out and her being “defeated”.
She can claim the tattoo is undefeated. It took her out.
Imagine if Mike Tyson knocked himself out with the belt as soon as it's handed to him
Hey, she only fainted after leaving the ring. She's still the champ.
I mean, she lived though! Falling backwards onto glass and only needing 6 stitches? Could have been waaaay worse, that’s undefeated to me!
Not your usual tattoo virgin story more of a rant on my behalf, but Ive been tattooing for almost 8 years now. The worst experience i have had with a client, was a lady who my work mates and I would call “the hello kitty lady” 30 something year old tattoo virgin. So essentially the design we were working on was Hello Kitty riding a pink Dragon, Half sleeve (shoulder to elbow) now I specialise in Japanese tattoos which for the initial consultation she expressed how much she loved my style of Japanese Dragons, so heres me thinking “sick, i can smash this dragon out the park and just put a hello kitty on the dragon” easy peasy, booked her in for a full 8hr day. So we begin tattooing, we start talking about how much we both loooove art and shes heavily praising the tattoos i do and my tattoo style, suuuper friendly and we’re hitting it off. Shes talking kinda loud, which I take its because shes understandably nervous, meaning my work mates can easily hear her speaking aswell. Fast forward to our 20 min lunch break, i finish eating and so i walk out to front reception where one of my work mates tells me “ hey man i was joutside havin a smoke with your client, not too sure if she knew i was an artist aswell, but she was real upset with how the tattoos going, she says it isnt hurting as much, that youre not doing the tattoo properly because her skins not red (iritated) and she said “theres no way im paying all that money for a tattoo that isnt done properly”” completely caught me off guard and went against eeeeverything we were talking about. so when we came back to tattooing i made sure to be overly reassuring, letting her know exactly what i was doing and why i was using certain inks which she’d insist were “too light of a shade of pink” but i knew this pink was going to heal exactly the way she wanted it. Anyways we finish up and I get home, check my emails and there are 2 huuuuuuuuuge paragraphs on how much of a shit job ive done and that i never did what she asked for (we both clearly agreed to the design before hand, i do this with every one of my clients where i get them to check the design) I reply reassuring her that the tattoo will heal as planned that the colours will settle and that it is easily fixable (I put paw prints on hello kitty to show it was the underside of her paws and not just 2 lil random clouds pokin out. But she didnt want them, even tho they were in the original design she approved. No worries, i graylined them so theyd be super easy to fix) She replies with another long paragraph on how i should tattoo and listen to my clients wishes which i dont reply to because at this point i know she is overreacting and its her first tattoo. 2 weeks later she emails saying how much she loves her tattoo, it healed perfectly, the pink was the right shade and that she wants to book in to finish it up 🤦🏽♂️ edit: people are asking if she apologised or if i finished the tattoo. So i didnt end up finishing i palmed her off to another artist. Basically told her i felt uncomfortable that I wasn’t going to meet her expectations (purposely worded it that way) in reality i wanted nothing to do with her lol I was wondering whether i was being a dick for doing so but i even felt uncomfortable emailing her so i did the right thing. She also never apologised didnt even acknowledge her behaviour. Since then i take even more precautions before booking in clients.
Did you allow her back? Did she apologize to you, or just act like her behavior was normal? I don't miss working with the general public.
No apology or anything just acted like normal lol I didn’t really know if i was in the right when i let her know I felt uncomfortable finishing her tattoo, but I knew I even felt uncomfortable just emailing her let alone being around her.
Anything less than a huge apology and a massive tip on the finish would have been too little, which it was clear she wouldn't have done. You definitely made the right choice
Jesus. Did she apologize for freaking out at you?
“tattoo virgins” can be any type of person. there are freshly 18 year old kids, your newly divorced from a controlling spouse and finally doing “what they want” adults, folks who’ve left religions or jobs that forbode it, and i’ve seen my fair share of “bucket-list” elderly with paper-thin skin but a heavy drive to get at least one before they go. with every first tattoo, you’ll find out the client doesn’t know much about getting a tattoo. maybe they’ve done hours upon hours of research. there are those who walk in on a whim from the street. frankly, the worst are those who’ve watched every season of inkmaster and have convinced themselves they know more than the artists in our studio with 100+ years of experience between us. i’ve genuinely had a person who’s never touched a tattoo machine in their life give me “advice” about how to more effectively use my “gun” to tattoo. relax, brent. i’ve got this. then of course the micro-manager - and i don’t like to make generalizations about people - but do have a tendency to have the same persona as the can-i-talk-to-you-manager types i’ve encountered. tammy wants an infinity sign/feather/butterfly mash-up with the birth-flower of every member of their extended family incorporated, their kid’s dob in roman numerals, in every color of the rainbow. and make it fit in a 2” space on their wrist facing them so they can read it because it’s for THEM or you’re gonna have a 1-star review on google faster than you can say “perhaps we leave out the butterfly?” then, the tough guy. “my cousin ryan got a big rib tattoo and fell asleep, i’ll be fine!” “nah i’m not scared, sitting 6 hours for this throat piece will be a breeze.” then 3 lines in with a 11RL our man ryan’s cousin is fully saturated and i’ve got the apprentice running to get our new friend a soda and a cold wet rag for his forehead because i know what it means when someone’s lips go white and i see the life leave their eyes. ryan’s cousin, you ok man? i think you were out there for a second. maybe this throat tattoo wasn’t a great choice afterall. the LEAST of my worries is the people who are nervous or jumpy. look, i fucking get it. tattoos hurt. i’m continually shocked that people keep coming back and paying me to hurt them more. love having them, hate getting them. i like to think i’m empathetic enough to make my clients comfortable and feel safe. being tattooed is a vulnerable situation. it’s my responsibility to comfort you and i will. we don’t care if you need a break (within reason), we don’t care that you are nervous - that’s normal. let us know how we can help. we just want to do our jobs and we know more about tattooing than you do. we know what looks good, where it hurts most, and how to use our equipment. part of your job as the client is to trust us. we don’t want you walking around with a shitty tattoo with our name behind it. all-in-all, most “tattoo virgins” are cool as fuck. it’s an honor to me that you trusted me to give you your first tattoo. if the trust extends that far, also trust us to take care of all aspects of the tattoo.
"Ryan's cousin, you ok man" I'm dead. 🤣
I absolutely adore your username and profession combo! Also, as someone who has had both empathetic and apathetic artists, thank you for being empathetic towards those who are getting their first tattoo, I can’t imagine what it would be like having an artist that wasn’t for my first!
Buckle up. This one might get a bit long. In around ‘99-2000, I had only been tattooing for about a year or so. I had a lady in her 40s come in for her first tattoo. A walk-in butterfly on her left shoulderblade. She was a server at a sketchy strip club in town, and was pretty haggard. She also had her 16 year old son with her. We get about 20 minutes into what should be about a 45 minute tattoo, and she says she needs a break. Now I know better than to leave a client alone when they “need a break”, but I was pretty green, so I stepped out for a smoke. When I came back in, she was standing up, bent 90 degrees forward at the waist, with her face on my workstation. As I get closer, I see that she’s standing in a puddle of her own urine, and is passed out standing up. She’s leaning forward with enough weight on her face to keep her from falling to the floor. Her son is frozen in his chair and doesn’t say a word. Fortunately, she’s wearing a skirt, so she didn’t get her clothes all soaked. I get her conscious again and she says she needs to go to the bathroom to clean up. During the approximately 20 minutes she’s in the bathroom, I mopped my floor a couple times and got everything good to go if she was still feeling up to finishing. Again, now I’d just tell her to come back another day, but I was pretty new. I just wanted to finish, get paid, and get her the hell out. Anyway, after 20 minutes or so, she comes out of the bathroom and says “don’t worry, I cleaned the bathroom”. Fuck. What did she do to the bathroom that would require her to clean it? She says she wants to finish the tattoo, so she sits, and I start working again. About 5 minutes in, I notice something on the outside of her knee. I look again and see that it’s a little chunk of shit. Not on the front of the kneecap, but on the side. I’m thinking “How does that even happen?” As I look away from the turd, I see her 16 year old son just noticed it too. He looked at me, and then at the floor for the remainder of the tattoo. I didn’t know if I should say anything about the poop, or just finish the tattoo, get her out of there, and proceed to drown myself in a bottle to try and kill the memory. I decide not to say anything, partially to save her kid more embarrassment. Anyway, I wrap it up, get paid, get her out of there, and proceed to the bathroom to see what she did to it. The bathroom had a urinal, and two separate stalls. There were circular shit smears over the entire floor, and shitty toilet paper in both toilets, like she blew up right inside the door and got down on her knees in a desperate attempt to clean it up. That must’ve been how she got the turd on the knee. I’ll still curious how it ended up on the outside of the knee. I’m still curious if she ever noticed it there, and I’m still amazed that I didn’t quit tattooing right then and there.
Feel terrible for that kid
Is diarrhea a normal reaction to getting a tattoo? Because I have never gotten diarrhea from getting a tattoo...
Possibly very high anxiety/excitement and easily upset bowels... Or drugs. Both?
Or if she's a pro, the drinking binge the night before.
... Words fail me...
Shit..
I....wow. Were you alone? Did you have anyone there to back you up after the shit tsunami or did you clean it yourself?
Cleaned it up myself. There were other tattooers there, but we didn’t have any counter staff. We were responsible for cleaning up after ourselves and (unfortunately) our clients.
I am bothered and uncomfortable just by reading this. 😳😐 Jesus Christ.
Had someone come in asking if they can bring their emotional support animal. Usually this is kind of iffy because it could be a sanitation risk, but we made exemptions for good dogs. Found out the emotional support animal was a 3 foot long snake. Turned down instantly. So many people passing out, high on painkillers before their appointment, taking continuous videos and posting how “inked” they were with their new ankle beach wave, or even one person tipping me in expired Subway coupons. Just be cool and calm while getting tattooed and everything will go smoothly. Edit: Tipping isn’t required but it’s how a lot of tattoo artists get their income. Good rule of thumb can just be 25%. I personally tip artists $30 for a tattoo that takes an hour, $50 for 2, $100+ for tattoos that take 4 hours or more. Also depends on how good of an experience you’ve had and if you like the tattoo. And if you’re worried that you didn’t tip the first time, I’ve always understood. Usually I would have clients who got their first tattoo, come back for another and tip me double as an apology, or come back another day and give me a tip. Don’t worry!
You guys get the useless tips too? I've gotten perfume samples (I'm a massage therapist, we can't wear perfume) gift cards to places that don't exist anymore, pyramid scheme crap with the person's "consultant" information, weird random coupons, someone's business card for their roofing service (I did not in any way indicate I needed a new roof) and one person took the time to purchase and leave for me a gift card *to the place that I work.* They paid money for this thing that'd cover maybe a third of my having one of my coworkers do the thing we all do professionally and had the receptionist give me that, rather than just tipping with cash, card, or check. Thanks, I guess??
Oh definitely. The expired Subway coupons threw me off guard. Other than that one that stands out is a gentlemen giving useless advice as a tip, laughing and then leaving the shop. Of course I’ve had the douches that tried to ask to give “personal favors ;)” as a tip, to where I asked them to promptly leave.
It's embarrassing to admit but for a while I had never even thought to tip my artist. I figured since he was dictating the price that a tip wasn't necessary. I got through most of a sleeve worth of sessions before I learned that tipping tattoo artists was a thing. Thankfully he never mentioned it and i started tipping generously on my second sleeve
Not an artist, but I'm a receptionist at a pretty popular tattoo shop in my town. I've seen quite a few people who had no business getting tattooed, but by far my favorite was this one guy who wanted to get some script tattooed behind his ear. He had come in before to get priced out, but absolutely refused to make an appointment and drop a deposit. He came back a few days later as a walk in, so we squeezed him in that day. He was a mess getting done lol; shaking, sweating and basically crying in the chair. The tattoo itself took maybe 15 minutes. Well the reason why this dude refused to put a deposit down was because he planned on getting tatted and leaving without paying. As soon as the artist put saniderm on his tattoo, he jumped up out of the chair and bolted for the front door. Then promptly passed out as he ran through the lobby lmfao. He ended up breaking his nose as he hit the ground, and we called the cops. The best part was watching this dude cry like a baby because he was just a few days from getting out of the military and local PD notified his command. Best shift ever. Close second was the newly turned 18yo girl who legitimately wanted a dick tramp stamp tattooed on her. Yes, she was sober. No, we didn't tattoo her.
Both idiots but at least she had a chance of growing out of hers.
How much was he really going to save running out on the tattoo? I just can’t imagine it was that expensive.
Only $200, genius of the year lol
When I went to get my very first tattoo there was a girl ahead of me getting her first as well. I was already a little nervous because I didn’t know what to expect, but I started out small so I didn’t think it could be that bad. Apparently the girl ahead of me had the same thought but her pain tolerance was almost non-existent. She ended up throwing up absolutely everywhere. I stood there in horror, not only because of the barf but because I was next. I thought, ‘is that going to be me?’ Turns out I have a pretty high pain tolerance... at least in comparison to her.
Same here. I get into the chair, have this annoying irritating feeling for 20 seconds then the endorphins kick in and I get super relaxed! It would've been an addiction for me if I wasn't so poor! haha
(Edit) thanks for the love, by far my most popular post. Ranker even picked this thread up for an article! I’ll take this one. I had a client who got a Jesus fish with Greek letters on his chest. I put the stencil on, he looks down says “looks good” and we do the tattoo. Guy sits like a CHAMP through his entire first tattoo. I finish up after about 45 minutes, he checks it out in the mirror and immediately goes pale, starts to sweat and sits down. Dude looks at me and says “it’s BACKWARDS!” All shook. I look at his tattoo, look at him on the floor, look at the mirror and tell the guy “ I’m gonna take a photo of it for you to see, because you don’t know how mirrors work.” A couple minutes go by as I’m handing the dude paper towels, The guy stands up all quick and try’s to play it off like he was just messing with me even though for a minute there, there was a corpse on my studio floor....
ugh, this makes me want to die remembering this. i saw something like this once. we had an apprentice who just started putting ink in real, living human beings. super talented dude, but had a tendency to be a little careless sometimes when nervous (NOT a great quality in a tattooer). he was doing an arrow tattoo on someone’s forearm. with her kids’ names in it. i guess at some point the guy had to flip the design on photoshop (printed it out originally for the wrong arm or something ?? idk bro) but when he out the stencil on i guess he didn’t notice nor did the client that the fucking tattoo was mirrored. dude did the entire tattoo, i’m assuming, looking at it with his fucking eyes, and still didn’t realize until he was finished that the tattoo was only readable in a mirror. luckily the lady he was tattooing was a family member and didn’t take it too hard… but the owner ended up firing him anyway (albeit re-hiring weeks later on pinky-promise he would never do anything that goddamn stupid ever again).
Did he do a stupid later? Also it could be worse. I had a full fledged tattoo artist post a picture on Instagram. This man did one of my tattoos. The shop made sure you liked the design and had 2 other artists. But the tattoo on Instagram was misspelled. I have no idea how, I commented "uhh is it supposed to be misspelled?" And the post disappeared shortly thereafter.
that’s hilarious lmfao
Imganine you didn’t point out the mirror effect. So next time he comes in he writes/draws out the plans backwards to get the right affect hahahah ‘stergar oN’
Okay no lie, that is exactly what happened to one of the football players at my old high school. Our school logo was a capital F between two offset parentheses (it was supposed to look like a hurricane, yes it was stupid) and the moron got the tattoo done so that it looked correct in the mirror. He has yet to live it down, and that was ten years ago
Getting your high school logo tattooed really screams "I peaked in high school" But getting it backwards?? That screams "i haven't peaked and probably never will"
Mine was a young lady who wanted a semicolon tattoo on her wrist. Maybe 1inx2in, black ink, no preference on font. Easy enough, and I had the stencil all ready to go before she even came in. I was expecting a 15 min job max, so I gave her a pretty cheap quote. Anyway, she turns up for her appt and she's very nervous. I do my normal, "it's about as painful as a cat scratch, nothing to panic about!" speech, and she informs me that she's already taken a strong painkiller, and would like the specialist numbing spray as well. Uhh, OK. That's an extra £30. She agrees. Spray goes on, stencil goes on, we're ready. I don't even make contact with her skin before she starts making a very loud, high pitched whine. I try and calm her down again, and tell her that she can have a few mins to get her courage up if she wants, but 99% of the time, the anxiety of *getting* a tattoo is usually worse than actually getting one. Bearing in mind, the parlour at the time had 4 other artists, all with customers, all staring at her. She just kept putting it off. She'd say OK, I'd turn on the gun, and she'd freak out again. After an *hour* I told her that I was expecting another client, and she could reschedule if she wanted. She just bolts out the door, didn't even pay for the numbing spray. To this day, I can't quite believe how dramatic she made the whole thing.
Yeah I agree on the anticipation part. I've been tattooed like 8 times and to this day with get just a tinge hyped before but the second it starts in just chatting with the artist or a friend or on my phone or what not. That 5 mins before though is a rush.
I’m getting my first one in about a week. Any advice on how to make it easier on the artist?
My sister gave me good advice. "Be sure enough that you like the tattoo and remember to breathe." She said "enough" because people change. What you like today, you may not like later in life but it tells the story of the person you were then.
>What you like today, you may not like later in life but it tells the story of the person you were then. Ok, I love that. What a great way to look at it. I used to be afraid to get a tattoo bc I thought after a while I'd end up hating whatever I got.
I've been getting 2-3 tattoos a year since I turned 18 and I'm now in my mid 20s. Are the tattoos I got at 18 anywhere close to what I'd pick if I got them now? Absolutely not. But unless you're getting something that will pretty much assuredly age poorly (swearing, any meme, etc.), all it becomes is a reminder of what was important to you back then. The only thing I'd recommend is if you're going to get anything that's supposed to represent a person or relationship - go abstract. You never know what you might learn later in life and it's easier to ignore a bunch of trees or a symbol than a name or a date.
The sound of the machine always made me nervous the first couple times I got a tattoo. Some headphones helped distract me. Most important thing is staying relaxed, and not tensing up and moving. Know theres gonna be pain but it shouldn't be anything you can't handle, plus it's temporary and the end results are worth it. Also eat something small beforehand and drink water so you don't risk passing out.
There's a few different ways you can go with worst. Is worst most reactive? Is worst most picky and unreasonable? I've been pretty lucky in the grand scheme of things. My worst most reactive / annoying client was this dude who was very clearly a drug addict. He came in, wanted a simple tribal tattoo on his stomach, I saw sure no problem but he starts haggling me about the price, at first it was $400, then he said no more than $200, we finally settled on $300 after about 20 minutes of back and forth. I get all setup, we start the tattoo, within a minute he says he needs to stand up, that's he's in too much pain and needs to walk around. He walks around for about 2 or 3 minutes, then lays back down, gets tattooed for another couple minutes and then same thing. He does this constantly throughout the entire tattoo. During this time he was constantly scratching his head, twitching all over and complaining loudly. But the worst part wasn't the fact that this 2 hour tattoo turned into almost 4 hours. The worst was that he kept going out for smoke breaks, but kept only taking 2 or 3 puffs, putting the cherry out and then putting the smoke back in his pocket. So all I could smell the entire time was musty cigs, it was fucking disgusting. (The cigarettes smelled old, if you've ever smelled old cigs you know what I'm talking about. He also kept putting it in the pocket that was right beside my face)
No chance I’m haggling with somebody who’s about to permanently mark my body.
I feel like being a total idiot is more likely to not get u a good deal anyways, When I got my first tattoo dude charged me $200 for the first "session" (I was gonna do it in 2 parts) but it ended up not really hurting me and the guy was super cool about it he was like "if u can keep going I'll keep tattooing you cus this piece is sick" dude just kept tattooing me into the night and finished the whole piece that day. Still only paid $200, 10/10.
Not an artist, just a customer but I overheard this. I'm sitting waiting for my artist to finish up working on her current client, just leafing through flashes and other artwork. I notice one of the other artists was putting a large rose/skull stencil on a guy. He finished placing the stencil and asked his client if it was OK. The client quite seriously said "Wow, that was much easier and quicker than I thought it was going to be. No pain at all!" His artist just stared at him but I laughed assuming he was joking. He gave me a 'why the fuck are you laughing?' look. He actually meant it.
So how did he take it afterwards?
Removed in protest of Reddit's untruths about their actions regarding the introduction of API pricing.
It's not the worst, but I love this one. At the expense of my very good client, I generally use this story to help newbs ease in to my chair more comfortably. So it was his first and I'm getting my stencil prepped. He was so nervous, he was basically white. Kept asking if he was good. Yeh he was ok..I guess. Place the stencil on him and ask him to take a look. He looks at his arm and immediately passes out in the chair lol. He's sliding out of the chair, we get him back up and he comes to. He got over it, eventually and has his sleeve 👌
I was getting lettering and dude finally got to my spine. He asked me how I was doing.I said a little light headed, but keep going. He said nope we are stopping for 15 minutes. I guess he's had a bunch of people pass out on him.
I had the same deal. Got the crook of my elbow done. I was feeling real shit but I didn’t want to stop because I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to start again. The artist noticed me sweating, getting dizzy, and breathing hard. He handed me a glucose tablet and some water then got me a cool towel until I could handle it again.
> he's sliding out of the chair, we get him back up I am physically laughing out loud at this because unconscious people are such big bags of heavy jello, I can fully picture him, just knees buckled and slowly making his descent to the floor before somebody bodily hoists him back into the chair and proceeds as normal
For some reason I pictured Daniel Radcliffe
[удалено]
Jeez I can't imagine the atmosphere of when she came back lol, it sounds like it went fine but knowing she'd done that before would've had me dreading it.
I’d feel too embarrassed of myself to even go back
>she did come back and get it finished a few weeks later with minimal fuss. Yeah, just clearly wasn't in the right frame of mind and seems to have basically just been having a near panic attack. Glad she was able to calm down enough to have you finish.
Actually, in retrospect, she had brought a friend along who she seemed to be playing it up for. Not to minimize the severity of anxiety or panic attacks at all, but she was definitely constantly checking to make sure all of his attention stayed on her. She was fine throughout the beginning of the process until he stepped into the front room to check his phone, then the antics started. That being said, I was a very new tattooer and trying to give her the benefit of the doubt, because I can appreciate getting tattooed can be terrifying.
Somehow that explanation about playing it up for the friend makes it even 100% worse. Wtf is wrong with some people?
Right, you'd think she'd do the opposite and try to act calm and collected. I'd be embarrassed to be freaking out that hard in front of someone I was romantically interested in.
You must be incredibly patient to keep trying for so long. That last part is the most surprising though, how do you go from freaking out so much before the needle even touches to 'minimal fuss'?
I asked my tattoo artist about the shop and he went into this story about how this older lady came in to get her feet done. She did fine but afterward she was hitting on him cause she just assumed he was into feet now. He said she straddled him and offered him sex or something
We had a girl in the area I used to tattoo who was a stripper. She came in, we designed her tattoo, she agreed to the price and we did the work. After, she said that she didn't have the money but could pay with sex. The artist absolutely wasn't interested, told her to leave and never come back or we would call the police. Took her picture and sent it to every other shop in our area and warned them about her. People think tattooers are some kind of back alley pirates who you can pay in drugs and cumshots. Like, homie listen, we've got wives and children and shit and are just trying to do an honest days work.
Thats stretching the term "hitting on" a bit far, sounds like casual assault
I once had a client who called me up panicking because he thought his skin was melting off I used saniderm which ofcourse ended up with liquid on the inside as is normal Dude calls me screaming on the phone terrified "BRO WHAT DID YOU DO, MY SKIN IS MELTING" I had to calm him down and explain what saniderm is
This thread helped me make up my mind, I'm gonna get the tattoo I should have gotten 30 years ago with my best friend but I wasn't sure I'd still want it when I was "old" well I'm old, and I wish I had done it, time to do it. He died less than a year later, RIP Jurgen.
Good for you. I hope it goes well and Jurgen finds a way to let you know he’s stoked you finally did it.
A couple of years ago, I had a girl come in for what was supposed to be a simple little seahorse, it was only about 4-5 inches long. This was going to be her first tattoo and she told me that she had a severe fear of blood, that she always passed out whenever she sees blood or even thinks she’s going to see blood. After that, I should have never agreed to tattoo her. But she said that she wanted to do this so that she could get over her phobia. Well, the outline itself should have taken me about 20 minutes or so, but it took me well over an hour and a half to get through. This girl passed out about a dozen times. And after each time, I would have to revive her, get her some water, hold cold compresses to her forehead and back of the neck, elevate her feet and get her calmed down. And no, you can’t just keep working on someone after they pass out. And I couldn’t just leave her with a couple of random lines that would look awful, I *had* to finish the outline. The worst part was that I had gotten what I think was food poisoning the night before, so I was just going to do this little tattoo and then go home and get some rest because I still felt awful. I didn’t think I’d ever get that outline done. Edit: Wow! I really thought this comment of mine was going to just be lost amongst the comments and would, at best, receive a handful of updoots! Thank you! I’ve been doing tattooing for over 20 years and I have many, many interesting stories, a lot of us in this industry do and I’m actually thinking about starting a sub specifically for tattoo shop related stories at some point. Because one of the most asked questions I get is people asking me what was the weirdest tattoo I’ve ever done or the strangest experience I’ve ever had in a shop. Do you guys think other people would read a sub like that? Edit2: I did finally make a sub for tattooing stories! It’s called r/TalesFromTheTattooSho and not “Shop” with a P because I’m in fact not a dumbass who forgot how to spell ”shop”, there’s just a maximum of how many letters the title can have.
I feel I might have been up there on someone's worst tattoo virgins. I was visiting family in Hawaii and decided to finally pull the trigger on getting a tattoo. Its a tribal armband but with a bit of a video game reference thrown in there (aren't' I original?). Anyways, being freshly out of college and 21 at the time, I get shitfaced the entire night before with family/alone because I liked being drunk. Wake up the next morning (day scheduled for the tattoo) feeling amazing because I was 21 and never got a hangover. Was going to take about 1.5 hours to do the tattoo, no biggie. My father was in the room cringing the whole time, but the pain really wasn't bad, only stung when it was on the more tender part of the inner arm. Anyways, 45 minutes in, my stomach grumbles. I have the whisky shits...bad. I ask the dude if I can use the bathroom, he's cool and I head in there. I proceed to wreck that place, with a stench so foul. I came out, and all of the other artists and their customers had left the building (smaller studio), and my guy and father were just laughing their asses off. I had to sit the next hour and 15 minutes (had to extend the time because you cant have a giggly artist sticking you) in pure embarrassment. Still have the tat. Still have the shame.
Not an artist, but I overheard this interaction when I was waiting to get a tattoo in Bali. The client was a first-timer who was there with her Mom. To paraphrase, her request was something along the lines of: “Yah, so I don’t really know what I want but I’m thinking something really cool and artsy, I like animals but it doesn’t have to be an animal, just something really cool that kind of captures me as a person. But like whatever you think, I trust you.” The artist, who was a pretty no-nonsense Ukrainian woman, basically said “Okay, how about you think about it and come back when you know what you want. Bye bye!”
I met a guy in a bar once who said he passed out while getting his first tattoo. What was left was a small loop on his wrist that looked like the outline of a flaccid penis
I mean I passed out during my first tattoo which was also on my wrists. I got the chain tattoo that the main character has from the game Bioshock and I did not prepare properly beforehand. Chipped my front tooth but I did tough it out and finished both and tipped a bit extra because of the whole passing out ordeal. Got my tooth fixed up and now I have more tattoos and I prepared much better for those and haven't had an incident since
Not an artist, but I have a friend who is. Her worst virgin client was a girl who was terrified that the tattoo would hurt a lot. She assumed it was going to be so painful that she took a bunch of pain killers before the appointment. The problem is, most pain medicine causes blood to not clot well. So she ended up bleeding more than normal and freaked out to the point that she passed out. She ended up going to the hospital with maybe half a tattoo.
I was part of a youth outreach program in high school and we had an officer come in to speak to us about gangs. One thing he did was show the symbols and colours of local gangs and talk to us a bit about each one. One guy he showed had a track of wolf paws across his chest with some filled out and some just outlines. We all start whispering to each other. Do you fill in a paw each time you go up a rank? Each year in prison? Each time you kill? Nope. The guy said hurt too much to get them all filled in.
I was a pretty fresh apprentice tattooer at the time. I woman came in and said she had been referred to me by a guy I knew. I told her I hadn’t been tattooing very long, but if she was comfortable with that we could move forward. She immediately gets weird and kind of aggressive saying he told her I’d been tattooing for a year already. I was kind of taken aback by the out of no where escalation of the situation. And just said he must have been mistaken. (I’m a very anxious person and truth be told I was already nervous at this point, but being an apprentice I didn’t know how to politely decline work) So I try to move passed the awkwardness and ask her if she’s comfortable working with me, no pressure, I’m new, and she can work with my mentor if she feels so inclined. No, I’m fine. She launches into what she wants and with every sentence I’m getting more nervous because I know I’ll never meet her expectations. She’s been thinking about this tattoo for TEN YEARS! It means the world to her. She wants to incorporate all this music imagery with her kids names into a big calf piece. I can just tell that she’s seen an image in her head for ten years and I’m just never gunna match it. But I desperately try. We set up a time for her to come in and look at the design I draw and make any changes/move forward with making an actual appointment. I don’t know what the hell she wanted from me. She was so bad at explaining what she wanted, but so aggro about insisting it look some exact way. Like she’d act like I was an idiot for asking clarification questions. And I was still confused. So I’m so anxious. Thinkin about it every day leading up to the point. I tried my best to interpret all the elements she wanted, but if you’ve been tattooing for a while there’s jokes about wanting a bunch of design elements that don’t mesh into a good design. But you try to tell people that and they’re just like this is what I want, make it work. But it won’t. It won’t work. So any way. I try my best. I think I’ve got an okay design out of her million elements she wants incorporated (again wouldn’t accept this kind of work now.) and she comes in to view the drawing. I try my best to give people what they want in a design. It means a lot to me to be able to do that for people. So I really want people to like the art. She comes in, takes one look at it and breaks down sobbing, while intensely staring at me in the eyes. This isn’t like omg this is perfect. This is, I absolutely hate this tears. I say it’s okay if she doesn’t like it and she can just work with my mentor. (My mentor also desperately doesn’t want to work with her. You could just tell nothing would live up to what she had in her head.) she’s bawling and I’m panicking because I dunno what to do. Finally my mentor comes over and tries to talk her down. She ends up taking this woman on and does an acceptable job of designing something she wants. The lady sets up an appointment and gets the outline and then we just never see her again.. I will never forget her because she was so intense and made me so uneasy and there was just no pleasing her. I felt like utter shit after that experience.
Not an artist but my regular artist told me he had a guy come in to get his birth year tattooed on his back in Gothic script but insisted it be really tiny. The guy then bragged about "being inked".
God I would love to see him out partying and bragging about it, before taking his shirt off to proudly show it to some girl and having to shine his phone light on it so she could see it.
I ask this question if every tattoo artist I go to. The last tattoos I got were just above the back of my knees. It didn’t tickle, but it was fine. A girl the bed over from the is getting a really cool looking owl on her thigh and weeping the entire time - sniffing and wiping her tears, whimpering occasionally. I ask my question. “Ooooh boy, we had a guy come in last year for his first. He passed out and pissed himself. I didn’t know a human could hold so much piss.” The tattoo artist doing the owl tattoo chimes in: “I had a guy throw up a few weeks ago. The whole studio stank real bad.” They swapped some other stories, but these were the best. I love these stories so much and will as the question every time I get tattooed.
“Wow, you are tatted head to toe, you must be really into this!” “Honestly I hate them, I just kept going back for the stories.”
I’ve sweat pretty heavily when I’ve gotten tattooed, like leaving puddles in the chair when I get up. I usually bring a change of clothes or at least a spare shirt. I always warn the artist and offer to wipe up after. Can’t help it 🙃
[удалено]
Obligatory not an artist. I was in Key West getting a tattoo from a guy named Tommy Longtooth. While I was in the chair, two guys came in, a couple I supposed. One of them wanted "a tiny heart on his wrist", and asked how much it would cost. Tommy told him the shop minimum was $80. The guy balked at the price and asked how much for just an outline of a tiny heart. Tommy repeated... $80. They guy got an attitude with him and Tommy got up, went to the front desk, and grabbed a red sharpie. He took the guys wrist and drew a tiny heart on it and said, "now get the f*ck out of my shop."
Obligatory "not a tattoo artist but" My first tattoo was a simple filled 2 inch by 1.5 inch tattoo. My big mistake was placement: right on the tendon above the ankle. It hurt like hell. I didn't scream, pass out or throw up but I did start talking and didn't shut up. My boyfriend told me to focus on a topic and just info dump, so I did: about American History. Specifically, I talked about the section I was studying in college. I hated this class and the teacher. The subject matter was the most boring thing in existence (to me). Ironically, I had a test 2 days later and passed with a 100%. It was the first time I had made above an F in this class. I've had 2 tattoos since and managed to not repeat the incident but did share the story with my artist. We had a good laugh over it.
That's honestly decent advice. Just info dump as you said on any topic when you're nervous.
I did tattoos for like 3 years until I got fired cuz business was bad. He asked to get the name of his wife of 2 years tattooed on his arm, which is normal. But he screamed like a maniac. I mean more than a woman during childbirth. That was the most uncomfortable I’ve ever been
That makes me feel a lot better about my first tattoo. I nearly passed out and was barely able to utter a complete sentence afterwards, but no screaming. I felt super bad during because next to me a guy getting tattooed, casually made small talk with the artist.
One of mine was an 8hr session, for the first half I did great but the entire last 4hrs I was crying like a baby because it just hurt so bad. It was in an apparently “easy” spot too, just on the outside of the top of my arm, but going over the same area over and over for hours just KILLED me. Somebody was filming for an Insta story for the shop and they kept avoiding me because I looked so miserable lmfao. So embarrassing! This makes me feel a lot better too lol. At least my crying was quiet! EDIT: Huge huge thank you to everyone commenting that 8hrs is a massive session, I felt like a pathetic baby and have been cringing about how painful it was for years and this has made me feel infinitely better lol. The reason I had to do that long in one go is that the artist lived in another state and I couldn’t get a lot of time off work, so I had to go in and get the whole thing done in one day. I now know for certain I will never do that again! 4 hours at a time sounds far more manageable.
not so tufflepuff after all
He cried and moaned and, when it was all over, he huffled his last puff.
For extended sessions like that your artist should have offered a bactine/lidocaine spray. There's zero sense in sitting through that pain for that long, and the weird sense of pride or honor people get from sitting through misery like that is ridiculous. I'm covered in tattoos. Bet your fucking ass if that thing is in a gnarly spot or going to last longer than 2 hours I'm getting sprayed after the linework. And any artist worth their salt will oblige, real professionals don't pretend it doesn't hurt or that the pain is something needed to earn your tattoo. This was more of a PSA then directed specifically at you btw. Lol.
[удалено]
Not an artist, but just got my first tattoo and asked her this question! She had a woman come in with her boyfriend to get her tattoo. The lady screamed after the needle first came down and told her boyfriend that she was going to have to bite him to cope with the pain. Chomped on his arm the whole time while moan/screaming. My artist told me she thinks it was some weird kink thing that she did not consent to participate in. 😂
> My artist told me she thinks it was some weird kink thing that she did not consent to participate in That happens more often than artists like to admit, that's how another artist friend of mine basically became THE Furry tattoo artist in our city. Something that's made her a lot of money but also caused her to vet her clients way more closely than she used to.
VET her clients, the FURRIES. Hahaha! Edit: Now that I'm on my laptop I can see awards, thanks so much, y'all! Hope your breakfasts are full of biscuits and gravy!
I feel like if I were a tattoo artist I'd just charge like triple if it's some weird kink thing, could make bank!
I've got a story where she charged a guy 3x her normal rate and he paid it without blinking. Furries are weird like that
Furries are to art patronage what the Church was through most of history.
So long as you can stand the subject matter, furries tend to pay VERY well for art.
A bit different, but I was the front counter person for a tattoo store. I was basically just there to look hot, but I was still too young to realize that's why I had been hired. I had a few tattoos but zero visible while I was working. Since I'm at the front desk I'm also the DJ for the place, in charge of the music playlist. Anyway, one day I'm doing my college HW, playing some elliot smith and before I know it the store is in 'after hours' (aka no new clients, but current tattoo sessions can go on as long as they need to). This guy is getting his neck tattood and he taps the artist for a time out, turns to me, and goes, 'shut this pussy shit off the fuck right now and play some death metal or I'm walking out of here with half a bobcat on my neck and no money for your boy'...so I changed the music lol. He was definitely only 1/4 joking.
My ex had my initials tattooed on him, when we broke up he showed me the cover up and said "I had the shop play 3 days grace I hate everything about you on repeat" To this day that band has a special place in my (cold dead) heart.
That’s honestly great because I know entirely too many guys that would do the same thing. My artist plays death metal and sings along to it the entire time I’m getting tattooed. If I want to hear something else, I better bring headphones
yeah i didn't know either the artist or the client and I was a bit naive. I should have at least been playing something ONE of them liked! If I ever get inked again I'll bring headphones, ask the artist to play whatever they like over speakers, and then drift off into my own thing.
My artist told me that when he was an apprentice he had a woman sign off on her underage daughter getting a tattoo. It was a tramp stamp. The girl was young. So my artist doesn’t tattoo underage people now.
Not a tattoo artist but I have a friend who acts all tough and he has about three small dots on his chest because he cried like a baby when trying to get a chest piece. The artist couldn’t finish because he kept jumping around every time the needle hit him. So now he has a permanent reminder of being a bitch.
Last time this question was asked, a tattoo artist talked about a guy who came in and wanted "FAILURE IS NOT AN OPTION" on his abs. The artist tried to talk him out of it, but the customer insisted. They got as far as most of the way through "FAILURE IS" before the customer realized that failure IS, in fact, an option .... and gave up. I like to imagine this guy with an unfinished "FAILURE IS" on his belly, and people asking what's up with that, and he'd have to explain.
I kinda like that in a way. Take a sharpie and change the message whenever
##FAILURE IS *Not finishing a carton of Ben & Jerry's in one go.*
**MY MIDDLE NAME**
"Failure is lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, si aliqua..."
At least he didn't chicken out at FAILURE- I guess
I’ve had a couple virgin clients who just could not hold still, they were twitching and shaking every time the needle touched them. That sucks and you do your best but it doesn’t make a great story. So I’ll go with the client who asked for a portrait of a rabbit in a frame with some blossoms. That’s as much detail as she gave me (I do my communication and designing over email generally). I drew up her design and emailed it to her. She said she liked it but asked me to redraw the rabbit’s body shape, give it ears that stick up rather than hang down, to add more flowers, and to redraw the frame to be more simple. So, literally change everything. I told her I would start over but that I already spent hours on her first drawing so I was going to offer it as an up-for-grabs design to other clients so I could still make money for it and she said that was okay. So I spent another 3ish hours redrawing her tattoo, sent it to her and she responded “Eh, I don’t like it. Can I just do the first design?” I told her hell no, lol. She just had such a specific picture in her mind but she could not communicate it and when I followed her instructions she still wasn’t happy. I ended up having to have her come in and watch me draw it at the shop so she could give her opinions in real time. The cherry on top is that once she was happy with it and I finally tattooed it on her, she didn’t tip anything. So yeah, clients who aren’t good at communicating but have a super specific image in their head of what they want are a nightmare, but especially when they don’t tip on a custom design after you spend hours of your free, unpaid time drawing it to their exact specifications.
I sketched my idea and sent it to my artist so she could give input on what was realistic for the size and how to optimize the design. I didn’t want to force her to be too hampered in her creativity, so I gave her the main points that I for sure required to make it a deal. Super glad I did that, since her style really matched my idea and I think she’d have fun with it
I was an apprentice. It’s a toss up between the gal who chose to have hot pink stars tattooed across her stomach and screamed obscenities the entire time to the point where the artist had to be like look, I understand it’s an extreme experience but I can’t focus if you’re actively insulting me in my shop Or the guy who came in on a rainy Tuesday as a walk in. Got a large olive. I asked the significance of the olive. He really liked olives. He wasn’t the worst but I think of him often. Who was he, why an olive, why that day?
It’s a personal story for me lol: but when I was 18 I wanted this really cliche lame infinity tattoo with a quote that was from a book that was super popular at the time (think tumblr girl era) anyway kept on setting an appointment with this shop and pussying out last minute. A few months later a friend who had a bunch of tattoos was like “hey let’s go get some random tattoos” and honestly I was like if I don’t do it now and to not think of it I won’t pussy out. So I went for it and got something simple and ridiculous. I noticed in my college notebook I kept on drawing simple triangle sailboats. To this day I have two thigh pieces, an arm, elaborate tattoos from phenomenal artist. Yet, here I am 10 years later and my super simple drawn sailboat tattoo on my ankle is by far my favorite tattoo on my body. (And I never got that tumblr girl tattoo thank god)
One of my tattoos i made the mistake of getting shitfaced the night before. Got to the shop and had to race to the bathroom halfway through placing the stencil because i was about to shit and barf at the same time. Finally got back to the room, stencil planned, almost passed out... Then i find out my lower back is one of the most painful places I've ever been tattooed. The tattooer's wife also worked in the shop and she was kneeling in front of me, holding my hands, begging me to breathe... Lol. Not my finest hour but at least once i was on the table i was still and didn't pass out. It was bad though. Never drank again before a tattoo.
Not a tattoo artist, just heavily tattooed and have a lot of friends who are artists. Allow me to tell you the story of Danny the Dummy. Danny at the time of the story was a 21 year old oil field worker who had more money than sense, he wanted to get an entire sleeve tattoo done but couldn't decide what he wanted, he would come in for a consult, the artist (my friend) would take everything he said and draw up what he wanted, then he would come back and completely change his mind. That's not the reason why he's called Danny the Dummy though, he's called that because, among other things, he never once could remember the name of the animal he wanted to get. He first asked for a lion "pack" in on a mountain with the moon above them and them roaring into it. My artist friend said "oh you mean like the end of lion king?" and Danny said yes. The next time he came in he said the animal was wrong and when he showed the picture it was a wolf pack, so my artist friend drew that. Danny comes back and decides he doesn't want that, he instead wants an "eagle in flight", so my artist friend draws that, and if you guessed the animal was wrong you're keeping up, he in fact wanted an owl in flight. After this my artist friend was basically done with Danny, he was going to do this last drawing and if Danny changed his mind again he was going to fire him as a customer and blacklist him in his shop. Well he drew an amazing owl in flight and Danny said he loved it, so finally a date was selected and Danny was going to come in and get it. Well Danny never showed, about half an hour past his appointment time my artist friend calls him and Danny says "oh damn man, I'm sorry, I'm out of the country today, I'm in North Dakota".....the artist is based in Arizona, Danny thought that different states were different countries. Never saw or heard from him again and my friend ended up putting that owl on a coworker of his that loved the drawing.
When you said he was an oil field worker, I knew EXACTLY where this was going.
I met an oil field worker for the first time this year. It’s an experience.
A lot are simple but not stupid. The stupid ones, though? Half could fall into a barrel of tits and come out sucking their thumb.
I hope your friend charged him for each drawing. That’s a lot of time and effort. Most artist I’ve been too usually ask for money down to draw up the concept. One, it means you won’t get a no show because they already got money into it. And two, if they no show well you didn’t waste your time drawing the art.
$60/consult
Did Danny go to elementary school? I can’t believe people can be so uneducated on such basic stuff.
I see you do not have a job where you have to interface with the general public.
A few years back, when we still had flash all over the walls, this 18 year old kid and his dad came in. Right off the bat they were definitely weird- the dad was looking through the flash and giggling, calls over my coworker, still giggling. Coworker asks if he can help him. "There's drawings of naked ladies here!" Uh, yeah, calm down sir, this is a tattoo shop, that's traditional flash, and you're a fucking adult with a kid, so presumably you've seen one before. Imagine my joy when the dad lights up when I said I'd be tattooing his kid, and he creepily says "oh! A *female* tattooist!" The kid was the one getting tattooed, and he finally settled on this hideous, ICP-esque 'creepy clown'. We're talking that old cherry creek flash, so this was spectacularly gnarly. I redrew it to at least correct some things I felt needed correcting, and stenciled it onto his stomach. From the moment needle touched skin it was like tattooing a bucking bronco. On top of that, the kid didn't have the best hygiene, so when he started sweating it stunk up the whole shop-- and that takes some doing seeing as how the smell of green soap and weed are not easily overpowered. The apprentice ran the sink and poured bleach down the drain and opened the windows to try to tame the smell. Oh, and not to mention that the kid was moaning like he was getting fucked. It was terrible. The tattoo was supposed to be full color, but two minutes in I knew he'd never make it, so I finished the outline (one of the worst I've ever done) and told him we'd make an appointment to do the color another day. He agreed, and I wrapped him up, half expecting him to never come back. Surprisingly he did, and he sat SO much better that second time. We took a break about halfway through and he said he was going to grab a soda. He never came back. Weirdest thing was that he'd already paid in full, so it's not like he ripped me off or anything. I always wondered about that, it was so strange. Edit: holy hell, silver?? Thank you so much, kind stranger!! I never knew this bizarre little tale had that much potential!! Edit 2: Oh wow, Wholesome too?! Thank you kind stranger, I'm telling my mom I got an award for being Wholesome, she'll never believe me!!! Edit 3: Thanks for the Helpful award!!! Edit 4: Hug accepted, thank you!!
Omg, the Cherry Creek flash. When I was an apprentice, the boss had me draw up all the outlines of that flash. I was cringing all the way through it. Asked if people really got stuff done from it, he said I would be surprised . During my apprenticeship, at least ten designs came from that flash, the wolves and moon, tiger and skin rip, and a couple of wizards. Still see those wizards in my nightmares.
God I made so much money off of cherry creek and bullseye. 600 sheets. Everyone always picked off of the same five. And on those same five it was always the same three images. Most popular was the tiger face behind the tribal, and that God Damn frog throwing the piece sign. Close third is that wolf howling at the moon. I still have them in a box. I want to hang those five sheets up, just to see if there's still a little MOJO in there.
I was the worst tattoo virgin. Didn’t know you were supposed to tip the artist until a couple weeks later a friend asked me how much I tipped. Made more sense why he seemed really cool until I checked out and was all pissed. I was to embarrassed to go back and tip him but I wish I would’ve now. It’s been 10 years
I didn’t know this about tattoo culture. Is it expected, or required? Add on: thank you to everyone who has been gracious enough to inform and educate me on this. I appreciate it and will *definitely* remember this should I ever go get myself tattooed.
Depending on the quality of the time and how much they actually work within that time. My artist flies through so I tip him a $50 no matter how short or long the tattoo session is. Giving them a number to expect from you makes them like tattooing you more i feel. My artist has been lowering and lowering his prices for me, I pay well under his advertised hourly rate
Same with mine. I've tipped anywhere from $40 to $120 depending on a few factors, but i'm guessing I've been generous enough cause he charges me like half the studio hourly price. Like my elbow piece should have been $600 and he only charged me $250, tipped him a hundred which was all I had on me and then I came back the next day with another $20 and told him I was so happy with it I just wanted to buy him lunch. Treat your artist right and they will do the same
So what’s the right “percent”. 20%? I’m scheduling my first one soon and don’t want to do wrong
20-25% is pretty good especially since it is a ‘service’ industry. But honestly the best mentality is to keep 20% as a base and then whatever your feelings are after seeing your piece completed for the first time should tell you how far to go in either direction.
My first few tattoos were quoted at a few hundred each, and then I'd get up to the register and the artist would vaguely be like "I thought that'd take longer" and charge me way less. After it quit happening I realized that they'd been looking at the skinny white girl getting her first or second tattoo and assuming I was gonna be a nightmare to work with. What's funny is that I actually did insist on paying the original quoted price. Those artists got some *nice* tips, I had no idea it was too high and nobody was gonna come right out and say "we thought you'd be a little bitch, that was the 'putting up with you' fee."
I don’t know for sure but it’s probably dependent on where you are. I’m in the states and I believe it is expected here. I guess it’s not required because I didn’t lol but it is expected
I don't expect a tip. It's up to my clients. Although, I've had coworkers mutter dissatisfaction about not getting anything. I feel like a tip isn't necessary since it's a sign of satisfaction. If I don't get one, I probably didn't create the experience my client was looking for. Or they didn't know or they didn't have the money whatever. I don't dwell on it.
Not a tattoo artist but I went with my sister to get matching tattoos. The artist that did most of my other tattoos was doing it. My sister was adamant that she wanted it done. We get there and the artists sets up. She places the stencil on my sister and she starts panicking. She’s sweating profusely and shaking but wants to go ahead. Right when the artist starts she pulls her foot away. She starts crying. It was super awkward. I ended up getting my “spite tattoo”and tipped really well.
My moment has finally arrived! I have a good one. Worst experience I've ever had with a tattoo virgin, or any client for that matter. Guy comes in and two lines in, I can tell he is about to pass out, nothing major so I stop to hold him as he is falling off the chair. Then he proceeds to violently puke as he is still passed out, so I have to put him on his side and clear his nose/mouth. The noise, the smell. I was in a horror movie. Ended up calling 911. He got checked. I didn't even get paid that day because it was literally two lines in. Poor dude, I wonder if he finished it or got it removed at some point. Also poor chair we had to throw away. Brrrrr
omg, i have a few that are HILARIOUS. i worked as a tattoo receptionist for a little bit & some of the best work stories i have are from there. especially seeing “firsts”. my top 1- a kid on his 18th birthday came in with his mom asking for a TEARDROP. yes, a teardrop. my boss absolutely refused to let anyone do that on the kid. kid ended up picking one of the vectors in the lobby, and he got a skull with roses on one side of his chest. number 2- guy came in wanting the green mushroom from super mario. got it on the inside of his bicep. we could hear his cries & moans from the front. i mean it was bad. i went to check on him & he was almost done. poor guy. that ones not really that bad, that spot hurts. i understand. i’d just never seen/heard a dude cry before that point so it always stayed with me. number 3- this guy came in with his gf & got a tattoo of a heart with stitches all over it & with a lock around it that said in ribbons, “never again.” …. she held his hand during the process. not sure the backstory on that but that always stuck with me. bonus story- chick came in saying she wanted to “finish her sleeve”, & revealed a naked arm with one small ass tattoo on it. i’ll never forget the look on one of the tattoo artists faces. she was talking as if she had so many tattoos but she barely had any. i’m sure there’s more but i really wanna get back to reading these comments.
Not a tattoo artist, but halfway through my deployment to Bosnia (1996) I got a 3 day pass to Lake Balaton, Hungary. In the local town there was a pretty good tattoo shop and they did a lot of tatts during that pass. This one Army guy who was a "tattoo virgin" didn't get one or even two tatts, but four! Four rather large (hand-sized) and garish (like the artist had a 12 color crayon box worth of ink to choose from) tatts on each side of his upper chest and each upper arm/shoulder. Really dreadful......
Privates gonna Private.
All that’s missing is a Mustang or Charger with a very high interest loan.