I have a tattoo that I absolutely hate. The guy that did the tattoo was going through a rough time with his girlfriend. He spent most of the session either complaining about her or going outside for a cigarette. He wasn’t concentrating as much as he should have been and was really rough with it.
It’s been a year now and it still itches quite often. Much of it is scarred and sticks up.
The tattoo covers most of my upper arm and I hate it so much that I make an effort to always keep it covered. I won’t wear short sleeves no matter how hot it gets.
There is a lot of places that the color doesn’t blend, the colors were not what I asked for, there are colors on the back of my arm where I didn’t even want color. There are a lot of places where the outline is bigger than the actual tatoo. It disgusts me.
I was wondering if anyone would be willing to look at it and see if they had any suggestions on what I could have done to it to make it look better.
I had been going to that artist for several years, and while I never thought of his work as amazing or stellar, he was better than most in this area. This was my fourth tattoo from him, plus three that he did for my wife.
When I told him I was unhappy with it, he gave me my money back, gave my wife a deposit she had put down on some work, and told us to never come back.
He told me that I had to appreciate how hard its going to be for HIM to know that someone is unhappy with his work, that he’s going to have to live with that now.
So, would it be ok to post a picture on it and see if anyone has any ideas on how to make it look any better?
Thanks Sam
So, here are the pics, the sad part is I had NO idea how it was turning out. My neck and back got screwed up in a bike wreck years ago, and I can’t turn my head very far to the right, and what little I can, I can’t for long. I wish I could have watched so I could have stopped him sooner.
The picture I drew him, and the reference photos I gave him were supposed to be of a sillouhette of a bear, with a southwestern sunset in the background, I was VERY specific about what I wanted. There was supposed to be JUST enough color to show the light shining from behind the bear. The color JUST around the edges.
First is a picture of what I gave as a reference for the color and lighting.
http://lamerephotography.zenfolio.com/img/s8/v0/p119621757-3.jpg
He was very adamant about wanting to put more color in it. so I told him as long as it was just barely past the edges of the bear and mountains, he could use these colors
“Horse silhouette” by stuart powell | Redbubble
what I got was
The mountains were not supposed to be outlined, there was not supposed to be ANY red, ANY orange, the tree was not supposed to be there.
I know that its impossible to make it look the way I wanted. But does anyone have any suggestions on how to make it look better, at the very least I’d like it not to look like a kindergarten drawing of a forest fire.
I wanted a sillouette of a bear with JUST enough color to show the light behind it. Just past the edges of the bear and mountains.
I gave him a drawing of all the black work, and gave him this picture for color reference.
he insisted it needed more color. so I offered this pic and said this is the MOST color I want for this tattoo and ONLY want it to go just past the edges of the bear and mountain, 1/4 to 1/2 inch at the MOST.
Well, the guy had been having trouble with is girlfriend. I know this because he spent most of the session complaining about her, then getting upset and going outside to smoke a cigarette.
I wish I could see what he was doing so I could have stopped him. I kept questioning about how far he was going around the back of my arm, it felt like he was going further than what I expected, but of course he kept assuring me it was fine. He would also get rougher every time I mentioned it. I saw him reach for red ink at one point and I told him I don’t want ANY red. He said he needed it just to mix the right shade for what I did want and told me it would be fine.
So, I walk out with this
other than the obvious things, like the edges of the bear not being right, especially the hair, the colors are obviously NOT what I asked for and obviously WAY more than what I wanted. I specifically said I didn’t want a black outline over the mountains.
Where the HELL did this dead tree come from?!?! It was NOT in the picture I drew for him OR the stencil he made from the picture. On top of that, to the left of the trunk of the tree he put in a black “cloud” that makes that section of red (@#$#!RED) look dirty.
The texture on the arm band is not what I told him I wanted. He had done an armband on my other arm a year before that and I told him I wanted the same texture. He later told me that he had decided that it would be better to use a different texture for variety. Nice of him to make that decision for me.
I don’t know what he was thinking when he picked the colors . The two above reference photos were printed out and sitting right there.
I also don’t know what he was trying to do the way he just slopped the color on there like that
maybe nit picking, but the bear in my drawing and in the stencil had top teeth and the nose looked completely different.
and the dark spot to the right of the mountains is an orange spot. It’s not a mole or a scar or blemish in my skin, its actually part of the tatoo. All I can figure is he was distracted and went to put the wrong color in the wrong spot.
a better shot of the “dirty” area
sorry about the multiple posts.
It looked like they hadn’t gone through, I didn’t wait long enough for trying again.
I know I can get a lot of it cleaned up by someone who knows what they are doing. Short of having it “finished” by someone else and having it still look like a forest fire. Is there anything that could be done to “tone” it down? Tribal, clouds, any other black work that can cover some of the color?
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