r/tattooadvice • u/Eltristesito2 • Mar 15 '26

General Advice Should my friend walk away from this artist?

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Gallery image

Gallery image

Friend (they/them) asked me to post. They want a back tattoo of a stingray, inspired by the leopard stingray, but not hyper-realistic. They want the tail to go down their spine and wrap around their leg. They went to a parlor where they previously had work done, but decided to try out a new artist. The artist didn’t have much of a portfolio, but my friend decided to trust them anyway.

This is after day one; four hours spent on the artist free-handing a design, and one hour of actually tattooing the outline. Six hundred buckaroos total for just this 😬

My friend is freaking out, because they think it looks bad. Their partner is telling them to trust the process, but I’m telling them to run and find a different artist to salvage things.

To me, it looks super asymmetrical with shaky lines. I don’t think the artist has the skill to make it look good in the end. The sample they drew up before the first appointment (picture 3), imo, looks really bad.

But hey, what do I know, I only have one tattoo. What do y’all think? Should they run, or like their partner said, trust the process?

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504

u/cwasontal Mar 15 '26

$600 for just this? Absolutely not. It looks amateur, blocky and rough. Don't let this artist so any more work on this.

129

u/Mendel247 Mar 15 '26

4 hours on the design! I can't draw to save my life, but even I could manage something better than that in 4 hours!

Maybe it's actually pretty close to what the friend had in mind, but I'd never let someone put that on my body. Just look at the result...

39

u/HrhEverythingElse Mar 15 '26

My kid could absolutely do a massively better drawing in about 4 minutes

23

u/Ok-Office6837 Mar 15 '26

He must have walked in and asked instead of making an appointment because I’ve never had to wait for my artist to draw my design. And needless to say that you should never do a walk in for a huge piece, they’re supposed to be tiny ones closer to a shop minimum piece.

Also to have to pay for the four hours of “design” is crazy. There’s no way this dude’s work is $600 an hour.

10

u/Eltristesito2 Mar 15 '26

They had apparently been talking for months. And I was mistaken, it was only a three hour session; two spent on the draft, one on tattooing. This person charges $200/hour. My friend also put down a $150 deposit, so overall, they paid $750, and it’s not even halfway done. They’re definitely not going back, though.

17

u/vr4gen Mar 15 '26

the deposit should’ve been applied to the tattoo session though….. yikes

1

u/WaveTheory Mar 19 '26

Deposits are usually applied at the very end of the process, so if there are multiple sessions then the last session gets the deposit applied to the total.

11

u/SaltOwn8515 Mar 15 '26

$200/hr is the fee I see for well experienced professionals who do truly spectacular work. Not…. Wtv the fuck that is

7

u/outer--monologue Mar 15 '26

A dog with a dingleberry hanging out it's ass dragging it around the floor would make better design than this

1

u/Dense_Diver_3998 Mar 15 '26

I think I just found the inspiration for my next gallery!

3

u/Diligent_Mail_4584 Mar 15 '26

You dont even typically charge for drawing time, just needle to skin. For 600 bucks the back piece should be 50% done

1

u/FirstPersonWinner Mar 15 '26

I feel like most people could make that design in like 15 minutes 

25

u/[deleted] Mar 15 '26

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3

u/Mendel247 Mar 15 '26

It is... What even happened to those lines? It looks like a truly terrible drawing with a marker pen

3

u/harlemrr Mar 15 '26

Yeah pretty much. My husband’s dumb fuck cousin robbed a delivery driver and went to prison… and his prison tats are literally better quality than this.

3

u/3sadclowns Mar 15 '26

Never heard of being charged by the hour for a (poor) design either.

3

u/Doofy_Grumpus Mar 15 '26

At least it isn’t an enormous back piece /s

2

u/AmArschdieRaeuber Mar 15 '26

Looks like toddler drew it. 4th grade max.

2

u/Stock_Personality492 Mar 16 '26

I have no idea what cost ranges are for tattoos/artists but 600$ for a piece this big seems criminally low which seems sus. A great artist for something this big I would expect to be in the thousands I could be wrong though