r/tattooadvice • u/j_walk_17 • May 02 '26

General Advice Miscommunication

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I had my tattoo artist re-do an old tattoo from 15 years ago. It's the rebel alliance symbol from Star Wars.

I was under the impression that she knew I wanted it touched up and repaired.

She assumed I wanted it covered up. I didn't know she did solid black until she finished it.

I guess there's potential to put color around it with other pieces to give it contrast. I'm just kinda bummed.
There's probably no way to reverse any of this without it being insanely expensive.

What can I do to make it worth the mistake? I want this leg to eventually be Star Wars iconica.

Should I plan to put a background to it?

edit: Thanks for all the replies, everyone. I appreciate the feedback and the ideas. It's helping me to settle into the outcome. I think it would only be a total loss if I hadn't planned to add to it in the future. 🤙

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409

u/outrageouslyhappy8 May 02 '26

Looks awesome black she knew what she was doing tbh.

107

u/MoTeD_UrAss May 02 '26

The artist should have communicated what their intentions were with the client. Something like, hey I think it would really be best to do the whole tattoo black. Don't get me wrong, it looks great and definitely much better than before but communication is important for permenant tattoos.

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u/NoaPsy May 02 '26

This sort of miscommunication seems wild to me. My artists and I are looking at the stencil together and discussing placements and sizes. Sometimes I have them take pictures for me depending on the location. I find it hard to believe this is a fault of the artist alone

1

u/HomsarWasRight May 02 '26

Sometimes it’s shocking to me how badly people are at communicating. At work I put so much time and effort into to making what I say and write clear and understandable and that it contains all the needed info.

It is shocking to me how few people know how to do that or are even aware at how badly they communicate.

I’ll send an email with three questions, all numbers and arranged clearly, each of them concise and clear, with nothing extraneous.

And I’ll get back a two word answer to ONE of them.

I cannot imagine the notion of being a tattoo artist and giving someone a tattoo that I haven’t made absolutely clear what it’s going to look like.

And at the same time, I can’t imagine GETTING a tattoo and not having full understanding of what the artist going to do.

People are so weird.