Article created by: Indrė Lukošiūtė
If you’ve ever worked someplace where you have to interact with customers directly, then you know for a fact—they are NOT always right. Sometimes, they are so entitled, delusional, and demanding that they’re unwilling to listen to logic or common sense.
Today, we’re featuring some of the wildest, most uncomfortable, and bizarre interactions that tattoo artists have ever had with their clients, as shared online. Scroll down to check out their “are you sure you want that?” stories that’ll have you facepalming and cringing along with the rest of us.
Edit for picture link
Recently talked someone out of getting that stupid anchor tattoo with the words “I refuse to sink” around it. THAT’S WHAT ANCHORS DO YOU MORONS! I hate that tattoo.
I’ve told this story before but why not.
Guy comes in with girlfriend, want each other’s names, I protest, they insist. We know they’ll get it elsewhere and I’m in a walk-in shop at the time so I say okay it lets go. Get’s it across his stomach in old English, the moment we’re done she yells some like: “next time you’ll think twice before sleeping around behind my back!” And runs away.
It was awkward to ask for the money….
I witnessed a tattoo artist attempt to talk a guy out of a tattoo while getting one. This guy who was maybe early 30s came in, he was super awkward and had a few other people with him. They where obviously drunk. He explained to the artist he wanted a hello kitty tramp stamp the size of a cd. His friends all laughed and started to record this guy. The artist asked him why and he said his friends thought it was funny. The artist tried to talk him out of it.
He ended up getting the tattoo. I think about this poor guy who was obviously doing this to fit in with his crowd of “friends” and how he has to live with a tramp stamp of hello kitty.
Oh, boy…I was traveling through Germany in my late teens and had a few too many liters of beer, when I stumbled into a tattoo shop demanding a flaming pentagram, held by a demon’s hand, with a banner of my name under it. I’d been carrying a sketch for MONTHS…the shop owner asked me,”Bist du dir SEHR sicher?” (Are you VERY sure?) and I kinda had a moment there….I said…sorta tentatively, yes, and he turned me away immediately….too drunk to consent. saved my life!
I was getting work done and the receptionist came in to speak with the artist. She had someone at the front desk looking for a quote on “Barbed wire starting around his wrist and wrapping around his arm all the way up to the shoulder,”
“How about nothing, because that’s stupid and I won’t do it.”
“Oh, uh, okay, I’ll tell him.”
He looked at me and said, “Sometimes you have to be the good taste police. I did a Nike Swoosh once when I was broke and I still regret it.”.
A buddy of mine who ran his own studio once asked me to do an illustration for a strange request that a customer had. I had done a number of custom pieces, and some of them were pretty weird.
This one, though…
The guy essentially wanted a portrait of a 60’s era William Shatner “deep in thought.” He also wanted a dream bubble coming out of Shatner’s head, and inside that dream bubble he wanted the exact same portrait of William Shatner *with a mustache.*
Essentially William Shatner dreaming about William Shatner with a mustache. The dude wanted this engraved on his flesh. I was in awe of how beautifully stupid it was.
Being that portraiture wasn’t my strong point, I gave it to someone else. Last I had heard, the guy actually went through with it.
Asked my artist (25+ years experience) this during my last piece. His most notable was a guy who wanted a solid bright blue “speedo” tattooed on. Over every square inch that a speedo would cover. Said it was super awkward as it was one of his first tattoos but he made good money off of it. Nothing has really fazed him since.
This was actually a post tattoo proclamation.
Woman came in with her boyfriend wanting his name with a crown over It on her wrist. I tried to talk her out of it but she insisted so, my general policy is to do the tattoo well, maybe with a thinner line weight so it’s easier to cover later, but at least it’ll be a good tattoo.
So, fast forward to after the tattoo, she’s all wrapped up, ready to go, and she asks me to look at another tattoo to see how much it would cost to cover.
Turns around, pulls up her shirt, and lo behold, there, across her lower back, in HUGE letters: some OTHER dude’s name, WITH A CROWN OVER IT!!!!!!!
WHAT!?!?!? Are you KIDDING ME????? WHY WOULD YOU WANT THAT???
AGAIN!!!!!
Omg…
Sometimes, these people, it can be hard y’all. Please tip your artist.
Kind of a”reverse” of this. I was 18 and wanted stitches on my neck, all around, as if my head was cut off and sewn back on.
The guy said “at 18 you need a parents signature” which was true in Chicago at the time. My mom said ok and came with. I love her, but she’s not the best decision maker. The guy sees me roll back in with my mom.
He gives the price. It’s insane. I have over 30 tattoos, I now have vague understanding of the pricing (vague, I’m not trying to be that guy who thinks he knows my tattoo artist buds). This price was insane. Not just because of placement, difficulty and shop rate. The dude saved me. He knew I didn’t have that money, and he saved me by just giving me a crazy price. I could have gone somewhere else but just assumed, at the time, it’d just be that much.
TL;DR I was the customer with a crazy request and the artist duped me and saved my skin.
Guy wanted a barcode. Artist told him it wouldn’t actually work and that it’d be decorative only. Guy says okay. After it’s done guy pulls out his cell phone and tries to scan it. It doesn’t work. Guy is angry.
We had this lovely exchange student come into the studio for about a year to get all sorts of piercings and then the day finally came that he turned 18. So asked to sit down and a chat with him about what he wanted. Now the way he asked me made me think that it was going to be this big elaborate design.
He asked for a maths equation on his foot. He wanted 3+4=8.
I cautiously asked that he knew that was the incorrect answer to the equation. His response was “Oh yeah I know, I just think it’d make a funny tattoo.”
So yeah.
Not a tattoo artist but I asked the same question to the artist that did mine.
Young couple walk in and girl asks for guys last name on her rib cage. While doing tattoo guy never says a word and the girl is just going on about how much she loves him. When finished artist says “check it out in the mirror”. When she looks the guy is standing behind her with this blank stare. She spins around and says “doesn’t it look great!” The guy stares at her for 5 long seconds and then says “I know you cheated on me, have a good life” then walks out. She goes to run after him and the artist reaches out and grabs her by the arm and says “you’re going to have to pay before you leave the shop”.
Not a tattoo artist but…My dad has a terrible tattoo on his arm of his and my mums name. Years ago she told him to get something around it to make it look a little nicer and he came back with a dolphin on his pec 😂
*edit* Thanks for my first ever gold kind stranger!
Opposite end of this spectrum. I was 19 and my buddy from the dorms in college decides he wants a tattoo on his stomach of his initials. Think Tupac “Thug Life” tattoo but like gothic lettering initial or something. Sounded stupid to me but whatever, I am not a tattoo guy. But, we go into this tattoo shop that was pretty popular at the beach near us and he tells the guy what he wants and is looking at pricing and fonts etc. But, the tattoo guy starts trying to talk him out of getting his initials and instead says he needs something more “you know eye grabbing like VIOLENCE, or RAGE, or MAYHEM, you know something cool.” His exact words and suggestions. Strangest interaction by anyone trying to sell anything I have ever seen. To also put some perspective on this, this was 1999 and my buddy had a pooka shell necklace, frosted tips hair and wore cargo shorts and Ralph Lauern Polos every day of his life. He was not the “I need a tattoo that says VIOLENCE on my stomach” kind of guy and that was pretty obvious.
Well, my friend recently got 汤, the chinese word for soup, tattooed on his ankle
he’d been planning it for like 3 years. he reportedly did his research to make sure they didn’t tattoo “truth or beauty or some other thing”
edit: he didn’t get this from the big bang theory. he first proposed this idea like 3 years ago, idk when the big bang theory did it but i can guarantee you neither of us have watched an episode
A man came in to the shop my husband works at on his 18th birthday and got a pentagram with a goat on the front of his throat. First tattoo in a very visible spot that is satanic. I don’t know that kid but I’m pretty sure he’s regretting that decision. My husband refused to do this tattoo but someone else in the shop did.
A friend of mine had the anorexia symbol tattooed on her neck. I know it’s supposed to be a symbol of recovery(I think, it’s hard to say with all the pro Ana stuff,) but now when she looks in the mirror all it does is remind her of her disorder and how horrible it makes her feel.
I know a girl who tattoo’d a Wu-Tang ‘W’ on her upper thigh. Only after she finished and looked in the mirror did she realise that she had done it so that *she* could see the W but to everyone else it looks like an M. /r/noragrets.
Not me, but one of my artists.
he said a couple came in and the guy wanted his girlfriends name tattooed on his chest, like in big writing all across the top of his chest. him and the owner of the shop flat out said no. he told me they said no because he found out they had been dating for three months and the font/design he was wanting would’ve made a hard coverup. so they decided they didn’t want to do the tattoo since they knew it screamed “coming back in two months for a coverup”.
A tattoo artist friend had great stories. My favorite was the fellow who came in wanting “those two hands clapping with a necklace.”
It was a rosary prayer. He wanted a rosary prayer tattoo.
Not an artist, but when I was in highschool, a kid got a 7/11 slurpie tattooed on his inner forearm. He showed it to the guy who owned the 7/11 near by, who was so impressed he gave him free slurpies for life.
edit: here ya go!
Edit 2: also i forgot to mention, it’s a bad tattoo hahaha.
I know a girl with a camel tattooed on one of her toes – it’s only an outline and it’s hidden most of the time, but I do wonder what motivated her to have a tattoo with the theme of ‘camel toe’.
Not the artist, but I got “are you sure”d by the artist before my first tattoo.
Afterwards it was explained to me that it was because I was 25 asking for a tattoo roughly the size of the palm of my hand for my first one and he’d not done one that size on a young woman for their first before.
All went well though, which he confessed he was surprised about.
Edit for tattoo link (Circa 2013).
Obligatory “not a tattoo artist, but…”
I’m an artist someone wanted to commission to draw a tattoo for them. This was maybe 10 years ago. Dude offered me $100 to draw an obese raccoon in a diaper. I said “okay sure whatever, anything specific you’d like regarding color etc?”
He replied stating that he wanted the diaper to be “very full and leaking”. Now mind you, I have drawn worse things for money. When I was a teenager and into my early 20s, these more “questionable” commissions kept a roof over my head. So I wasn’t particularly shocked by the idea, what shocked me was that he wanted it tattooed. That just… seemed like the worst idea imaginable.
I ended up telling him that I wasn’t comfortable drawing that and refunded the $100. He replied with a massive wall of text about how close-minded I was.
I’m sure he found someone to draw him the thing but I just couldn’t do it. Not for a tattoo.
Not the artist, but was keeping a friend company. She wanted to get a wolf’s pawprint on her foot. Not the top of the foot, the bottom of it. Right on the ball.
The artist and I both questioned her decision. “Are you sure? You won’t be able to walk on it, and even then, the ink will probably sweat out so it won’t be deep.”
She was insistent, willing to pay, her choice, etc. About a week later, all that was left was the faintest outline.
My buddy almost got a tattoo with a fist coming out of the ocean holding a stack of cash with change and sharks in the water.
I wanted a tattoo on the bottom of my foot so bad. Three different tattoo artists told me no, and objectively they were right. Cuz like, that’s where it’s most likely to rub off, infection chance is much higher, it hurts like hell, etc. But I really wanted it, so I did it myself stick n’ poke. And it was the worst pain I’ve ever experienced. But five years later it’s still going strong.
Definitely the Pillsbury doughboy holding money bags, accompanied with the gentleman’s street name which I can no longer remember.
Not an artist but when I was getting my first tattoo I was sitting in the waiting area and this girl probably 18-20 was with her mom and they were talking with the artist. The girl wanted some Arabic script on her arm and the artist asked them if they knew what it meant at least 2 times and they said no but insisted on getting it. She did end up getting it.
Not a tattoo artist but my cousin has a tattoo of a carrot and a tomato boxing on his calf. Apparently he was drinking at a bar and they were playing darts. Whatever the dart landed on you had to get a tattoo of that. His dart landed right smack in the middle of the carrot boxing a tomato.
A friend of mine tattooed the Janelle chick from “Sixteen and pregnant”. She was mad that my tattoo cut 5 minutes into her and her boyfriends “YOLO” tattoos. When her boyfriend was done he looked in the mirror and got mad that my friend tattooed it backwards. He was reminded he was looking in a mirror.
Edit:
To be fair, I’m not sure what the boyfriends tattoo said but I believe it was on his leg.
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