alie k

Plus she's probably just mad because her parents/work/school/husband/friends won't let her get tattoos

Hahaha! Those are the worst kind of tattoo forum trolls - the ones without tattoos. lol

So here are my two questions for tattooers:

1) Do you prefer customers to come in telling you what they want or giving you creative autonomy?

2) How many times is too many for you to have to draw and redraw a design for the customer?

Tattoo customers:

1) Do you tell the tattooer what you want or let them have free reign?

2) How interactive are you in the process once you see what they have drawn up?

I HATE when people tell me "do what you want!". I prefer people to come in, show me something I've done and say, "I really like the way you did that. I want to get a blah blab blah on my [whatever area]. I was thinking of maybe adding some [whatever]. What are your thoughts?" More often than not, if someone tells me to do what I want, and I draw something big, they get really upset because they didn't want that much coverage, or they didn't want that type of flower or whatever.

I'll show someone a drawing. If they want some minor changes, ok, but I won't do several drawings. If they are coming to me, and they like my work, and they've shown me something they like, then they should be happy with the drawing (especially if they tell me I have artistic freedom).

I once had a client who had a badly done lower back tattoo by someone else. She told me how unhappy she was with it. She also told me that when she went to the original artist, she told him, "do what you want!". He did what he wanted. It wasn't what she wanted. She came to me to get it covered. I asked what she wanted, and she said, "I don't know, do what you want! Make it look nice!" I told her to go home and think about what she wanted, because I didn't want to do something on her that she wouldn't be happy with because it wasn't what SHE wanted, and then she'd be seeing some other artist saying that I did a bad job and her tattoo wasn't what she wanted.

Different situations may be different, but I feel that a client needs to have a pretty good idea first.

He does some really nice work. The book he is referring to in some of his pinup tattoos is really amazing too. Nice to see that he gives credit. Not too many people do that.

fun little tat, my artist, portfolio the list is endless

Only in a certain context, or all the time? What's wrong with portfolio?

I agree. What's wrong with portfolio?

Strong artists will continue to survive, as there are thankfully still enough people out there who know good tattoos from crap tattoos. It also boils down to self-promotion. If an artist doesn't do any self-promotion, how do they expect anyone to find them, and see how their work clearly stands above the dude's down the street?

Stars and dots or spiderwebs. Otherwise, you end up looking like a doodle pad (unless that's the look you want).

Nice simple and solid.

He does some really nice work!

I wish networks would stop making these shows. They are either disrespectful to the tattoo community (Tattoo School), or they give people the wrong idea about getting work done (they walk into a shop wondering why they have to make an appointment to get a backpiece "It shouldn't take more than 20 minutes to draw - that's how it is on tv").

It's not difficult to add a Japanese style background to an image of a rose, if that's what you want. Your best bet is to decide on an image you want on your foot, then look at artists you are willing to travel to, to get work done by. Once you find an artist who's work you like, you can meet them and tell them what you want in your tattoo, tell them how big you'd like it, and go from there.

It's always very sad to see artists without integrity who can't come up with their own designs, so they take the easy way out and copy someone else's piece. Who knows though, the client could have come in with a picture of Ms. Vargas' tattoo and told the artist, "I want THAT. Don't make any changes". Most artists won't accept that type of work, but some are more than happy to adjust a few things here and there to make an easy buck.

It's an unfortunate part of the age of the internet. If you post it, someone, somewhere will rip it off.

Been tattooing for a while. Site seemed like it might be interesting Thanks.