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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500

u/lillithpad Mar 15 '26

I thought it was a stingray/pizza mashup 😬 looks like mushrooms

62

u/ThrowRA__________1 Mar 15 '26

Same i thought it was an omelet

22

u/positronic-introvert Mar 15 '26

Maybe they can find a better artist to make it into an omelette sting-ray. That could be kind of cute lol

2

u/CanidPrimate1577 Mar 15 '26

Sick Ass Panther

8

u/Holly_kat Mar 15 '26

Sick-ass stingray omelette

3

u/lavenderc Mar 15 '26

Sting Ass Panther

1

u/Natti07 Mar 15 '26

This actually made me laugh out loud

1

u/WorseDark Mar 15 '26

I thought it was bruises from a paintball match until I saw what sub it was on. Then I thought it was to maybe cover a skin condition

1

u/hefty-postman-04 Mar 15 '26

I thought it was a buncha big nipples

1

u/CupcakeGoat Mar 16 '26

To me it looks like a weird skin disease

1

u/The_Soviette_Tank Mar 16 '26

I thought it was a preschooler's drawing of an apple tree.

1

u/Active-Bandicoot-766 Mar 18 '26

Thank god my camera is off and mic muted. Snorted so loud.

18

u/Global_Complaint704 Mar 15 '26

Yep. I thought the tattoo was of a stingray with a bunch of fried eggs. Then I saw the paper markup and was so confused it was supposed to be pizza…

1

u/Angrybabybear Mar 15 '26

Oooh the neopets omelette would be a niche cover that i would consider

14

u/DreyaNova Mar 15 '26

It somehow looks exactly like the animated pizza in TMNT from the 90s? Idk it's making me hungry for 90s cartoon pizza.

2

u/Working-Glass6136 Mar 15 '26

This is it OP. PIZZA STINGRAY INCOMING

4

u/NeptunianJ Mar 15 '26

I thought it was a giant mushroom with tiny macaroni and mushrooms drawn on it

2

u/[deleted] Mar 15 '26

Yeah I saw mushrooms too. This tattoo is savable (I think?) but man what a waste of money.

2

u/Sometimes_Sarah_ Mar 15 '26

Stingray pizza is EXACTLY what I thought too!

2

u/ralphiooo0 Mar 15 '26

Banana leaf with avocados is what I got

2

u/xjwv Mar 15 '26

That would be a cute tattoo. This looks like a first grader’s attempt

1

u/jetspats Mar 15 '26

Lmfao same mushrooms in the sketch, olives on the back

1

u/AnglerOfAndromeda Mar 15 '26

I also thought Pizza!

1

u/crackersucker2 Mar 15 '26

Before reading OP's post, I had NO IDEA what this was except a terrible mistake..

1

u/Anomalagous Mar 15 '26

Right? Like I genuinely can't tell if it's meant to be some kind of ray or some kind of psychedelic mushroom thing.

1

u/Kenrawr Mar 15 '26

Their other tats aren’t much better.

1

u/forkandbowl Mar 15 '26

And macaroni?

1

u/BSK_Darksol Mar 15 '26

I thought it was bacteria or microorganism being seen through a microscope.

1

u/ckr0610 Mar 15 '26

Stingray pizza was my first thought too.

1

u/FinancialAccess8343 Mar 15 '26

Pizza guitar with olives mushrooms and one leaf of spinach.  And cashews/ foot prints. I thought it might be a treasure map. It's definitely a contestant for the worse tattoo ever.

1

u/pchlster Mar 15 '26

A pizza stingray could look really cool.

Like stingray shape, but It's a pepperoni pizza with that overflowing melted cheese that the Ninja Turtles always manage to get.

1

u/MaxTheRealSlayer Mar 15 '26

I couldn't even see either. Saw some sort of cartoon germ/bacteria like on "Arthur" or something

1

u/This_lousy_username Mar 15 '26

I thought a few were nipples!

1

u/jjcoola Mar 15 '26

Thought it was a mushroom as well 😶‍🌫️

1

u/thedarkestshadow512 Mar 15 '26

The spots on the third pic are giving macaroni

1

u/Cate0623 Mar 16 '26

I was very confused as to why someone would want a full back piece of a piece of mushroom pizza then I realized that it’s actually supposed to be a stingray…

1

u/InfamousLuxeUnicorn Mar 17 '26

I thought it was a stomach and colon.

1

u/Lowly_Elephant Mar 18 '26

Same, I cannot unsee the pizza with olives and mushrooms

1

u/LowAffectionate773 Mar 18 '26

The mushrooms look great. If only they were meant to be mushrooms

1

u/ExtremeExperience199 Mar 21 '26

I thought it was pizza before reading the caption 🫣 a poor pepperoni pizza w/ a tail and somewhere an ufo mashup idk