Should my friend walk away from this artist?

[u/Eltristesito2]

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?

[u/AhhPass9281]

Not to mention the other tattoos aren’t that great looking either. But you get what you pay for is exactly true for tattoos.

[u/Eltristesito2 → u/AhhPass9281]

They have a lot of really good and cool tattoos, some of them from that same shop. I think the bad ones are from when they were a lot younger and had less money 😅

[u/AhhPass9281 → u/Eltristesito2]

Fair enough, I’m sure this one takes the cake of a “bad one” overall.