Devestated.

Shelli2

Hi guys, haven't posted much recently. Lost my original account as I couldn't reset my password by email, took a while before I created a new one.

Anyway. Went to Tattoo Jam in Doncaster there a few weeks ago. Was a great weekend, despite all the bloody politics involved.

Backstory: I have admired a certain artist's work for a very long time, a few year now (i'm still undecided if I want to name him) He is based in the UK. At the start of this year I made plans to go to a few conventions in the UK, Manchester, Liverpool, Doncaster and London. I visited his booth in Manchester and my friend got a piece on her ribs done by him there, it's stunning and made up my mind for me, on the second day of Manc I spoke with him, showed him a basic image of the design I wanted and asked him if he would be at Liverpool, he said he really liked the design and would be happy to do it at Liverpool and wanted to enter it into the competition. I was sooooo excited.

I had been in email contact with him for the next few months, confirming dates, time etc. About 3wks before Liverpool I had to cancel due to my family stuff, and he was really understanding, said he would be happy to do it at Doncaster as he had nothing booked in for the Jam yet, and he would do it on the Saturday.

Fastforward to the Sat at the Jam. I was booked in for 2pm, arrived there at noon, hovered around his booth waiting for him to finish a walk-in that he took last minute. 4pm he finishes this girl, has a quick break and says he's ready for me.

He has no sketches with him, even though I had emailed him my design, and other ideas he may or may not have wanted to incorporate. The original design was quite dark, and we both agreed that the piece should be much brighter and in full colour, and bigger than the original. All he had was a bad quality print out of the pic I sent him. Now as I said I had spent years looking at his portfolio and have seen first hand many free-hand pieces he had done, so I trusted him. The last piece I got last year was freehanded on, literally 3 sharpie circles on my leg and needles from then on, and turned out amazing....as I had researched the artist and trusted him. So this time would be the same...or so I thought!!

He drew on some placement lines, the piece goes from my knee, the full length of my thigh on the side of my leg. Asked me was the size/placement ok, and went to work. Couldn't see what he was doing as I had to lie down. He did the outline and then we took a break, I was happy with the basic out line, there is some script in the piece and it looked spot on.

So on we went to the colour. I should now mention, that at the start we discussed what colour should be used. I'm not a huge fan of red so asked that it should be used sparingly. told him I like pinks, blues, turquoise, purple etc. I explicitly told him that I had a very bad reaction to yellow ink in my last piece, just yellow. He half shrugged me off and said that won't happen with this brand of ink that I use.....should have really set alarm bells off, but I was just so excited, and had put my faith in this guy.


So, few weeks down the line, the yellow he insisted on adding has caused a reaction, and is raised and scabby when the rest is perfectly smooth and healed. But that's not the main problem, that will calm down eventually like last time. The problem is I hate the piece itself. He asked if he could change the skull in the piece...I said yes, do whatever you think best with the skull, just pay loads of attention to the main elements which are the headphones and microphones and the script.

The whole skull (quite large) is blue, with a few bits of black shading in the eyes and teeth, looks like a huge blue blob to me. The headphones and microphones are outlines with a bit of black/grey shading, no details what so ever, there are a few pink shading bits as background which he didn't discuss with me at all, and there are parts of the script where he didn't even keep the colour within the outline.

The whole thing felt rushed, he seemed tired (I did ask before we started if he prefered to leave it until the next day as he mentioned he had no more bookings for the weekend). He seemed uninterested in the piece, and didn't want to enter it in the competition afterwards (I'm not surprised looking at it). He didn't even seem happy with his own work, it's certainly not something he wants to show off, as its not in his portfolio (all 3 other pieces he did that weekend are now in it).

He said it needed a background, and that I could travel over to him to get it if I wanted or that he didn't mind if someone else did it?

I have to admit, I was happy enough on the day, it wasn't what I had planned on, but the colour looked sooo bright, my leg was pretty swollen so I couldn't see the mistakes very well, and as there was no mirror around when he finished I kind of had a weird twisted view of it. I asked my friends who were there, they all said it was amazing, but looking back I think they didn't want to hurt my feelings. He charged me less than we originally agreed (guilt??), so I even gave him a whopper tip!

I'm sorry for the totally long rant, i'm just so cut up over this. I certainly wont be going back to him. Have to save more cash now and try to get someone to do something/anything with it.

I'll get a pic up of how it is now when I get a chance....this is a pic of it just finished on the day:





And the original design I gave him:

bryaner

I see where your coming from, (it's not bad just not as good as you want) I'd imagine it could be easily modded though.

CK2010

tbh i think if you went somewhere else and got some more shading and maybe add to the outlines, if that makes sense?, you might get the design you want.
i think the design you want will be easy enough to get, as you can always add to what you have. at least you dont have the problem that he went too dark or put too much in, you can get someone better to add detail!
i think its very workable! its really bad workmanship (is that the right word?!) on his part that he didnt listen to you properly and didnt focus enough though and im sure you've lost alot of respect for him.its not a bad piece though, like its workable to get what you want.
seems like he got bored, which is really crap of him.
sorry you're not happy, you've every right to be raging.
its not what you wanted but its a nice tattoo! ive seen alot lot lot worse!

i hate when you've tipped someone and only notice their faults afterwards! like at the hairdressers! its worse that in your case its permanent and they've got your money! :mad:

ClutchIt

It's not too bad I was expecting worse. Maybe a bit of a background would improve it alright. Don't worry too much though it's OK.

Zombienosh

dunno why u travelled to get this done, Think you could have got it done a lot better locally. I'd get someone here to add some more shading a fix up the outlines

Shelli2

Zombienosh wrote: »

dunno why u travelled to get this done, Think you could have got it done a lot better locally. I'd get someone here to add some more shading a fix up the outlines

If i'd have known this would be the outcome I wouldn't have travelled. :rolleyes:

Zombienosh

i meant like, it wasn't really an unusual design so i wouldn't have seen the need to look at overseas artists.

CK2010

Zombienosh wrote: »

i meant like, it wasn't really an unusual design so i wouldn't have seen the need to look at overseas artists.

i think thats why shes so devastated... she travelled to make sure a simple design was done well by an artist she admired and instead she was given something that she was trying to avoid by travelling- something basic and not very 'wow'.

Sorry for speaking on your behalf Shelli!

Zombienosh

Well that sucks, i sympathise. but its not the end of the world, get someone good to fix it up, itll be fine.

niallam

The original idea was great and i think that he made a total balls of it, sorry for being honest...
What was he thinking with the pink???? Did he decide to put in the bottom jaw? I was thinking that the X of microphones was like an X over the mouth?
At least the tattoo is large enough that it shouldnt be too hard to fix

Shelli2

He did mention putting in the bottom jaw, and I said yes. As I said the skull is not supposed to be the main focus point. As for the pink, he didn't mention it to me at all, I had no idea about that until I was shown the finished piece.

The yellow has calmed down now, but most of it rejected and I'm left with patches of skin. It's not as if the yellow was even really needed, he mixed it with a blue in instead of using a green ink. I have not had problems with pre-mixed green ink, just yellow.

nevaeh-2die-4

Have to say the concept of the design is great but that tattoo artist should be ashamed of him self disgracefully done

Just my 2 cents,

bodice ripper

hello. I am hesitant to wade into this, and I want to firstly make it clear that I am NOT commenting on the artist in question, merely on the tattoo on a technical level. It is not a bad tattoo, but unfortunately it isn't what you wanted. All of the following is an opinion.

Assuming what you wanted was something that looks more like the original image but more colorful and brighter:

The tattoo is not actually dark enough in the darkest parts. Even in a very colorful tattoo there really ought to be an area that is close to black (or a very deep blue/green/brown/purple) in order to give it depth and strengthen the colors around it.

Believe it or not, the fact that this depth isn't there is a good thing from your point of view - in that it gives who ever works on it next the ability to correct it easily, rather than having to put up with whatever is there if you get me. There is a lot of scope to add detail with darker tones that should have been there to start with, with very little in the way.

About the pink - there ought to be some background with a piece like this, and it ought to be in a color that works with the skull. pink is a good choice with the blues and greens, but again it should have been a selection of tones running from dark to light instead of one tone.


Anyway, I suppose I am just wanting to say that additional work will be easy, and not to worry.

Shelli2

Thanks for that, it gives me some hope that I can get this fixed and have something close to what I wanted.

The reason I was not expecting the pink is because this is not a stand alone piece. I have other pieces planned to surrond my leg (the artist knew this) and wanted to add a full background once they were done. I'm hoping for a smoke/mist with negative space music notes.

dcjudge

actually was expecting something alot worse after reading your piece, similar thing happened me about 6 months ago , 10 hrs work only to be dissapointed .......thing is im in the process of gettin it sorted , thank god it can be done and lookin at yours it can easily be redone ,prob is alll aint cheap!!!

Genki Sudo

Personally I'd be more devastated by the shirt:D

TerrorFirmer

I think the lower jaw is a bit off too, if you actually look at the finished product, bad and all as it is, it looks a lot better if you take the lower jaw out of the equation. And when I say 'as bad as it is', it's not actually really a bad tattoo in itself, but it is so detached from what you wanted that it beggars belief, and it looks like he put a decent amount of effort into the skull at the expense of other aspects of your tattoo. Even the script doesn't look the same. This is always my biggest nightmare, going somewhere to get a tattoo and the results being anything less than what you've built up in your mind. Being honest if I was you I'd probably be reduced to tears. I've never gotten a tattoo at home, always been far too afraid, though I have gotten them in the states and in Dublin, but thankfully a new guy set up shop in Galway a while back that is astounding good. He's done work on both myself and several friends and he's better than many artists I've seen in the bigger places in Dublin. But that little bit of fear always remains...

Shelli2

Genki Sudo wrote: »

Personally I'd be more devastated by the shirt:D

Huh??