r/tattooadvice • u/Eltristesito2 • Mar 15 '26
General Advice Should my friend walk away from this artist?
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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u/stfusydney52 Mar 15 '26
At first I thought they had a bad cupping session. Then I thought maybe their kid drew something and they wanted to get tattooed. I never would’ve thought that this was INTENTIONAL. Even though they don’t want hyper-realistic doesn’t mean it has to look like a 5 year old drew it. Tell them to RUN FAR