ominous-light

Evan Dowdell is nearby, he mostly does color illustrative stuff but I've seen him do some good black and gray. His composition is excellent, imo, and he could put together a really nice half sleeve: https://www.instagram.com/evandowdell/

Same with Travis McGregor: https://www.instagram.com/travis666/

If you can make it into NYC, the world is your oyster. There's tons of world class artists at just two shops alone: New York Adorned and King's Avenue. I would personally suggest Rose Hardy (https://www.instagram.com/rosehardy/) or maybe Matt Black if you want it to be really geometric heavy (https://www.instagram.com/mattblacktattoo/).

Both cities have many great tattooists, but for black/grey illustrative my list includes:
Sao Paolo = https://www.instagram.com/fetattooer/ and https://www.instagram.com/sevenflowerstattoo/
Toronto and nearby = https://www.instagram.com/davidglantztattoos/, https://www.instagram.com/coryferguson/

I think that artist just couldn't be bothered to do all that detail and gave you some BS, never heard "too symmetrical" used to turn down a design. 

Go to someone better and give him that design and maybe some other reference images to illustrate what you're imagining. Think about what style of tattooing you're going for, color or black and gray, etc. Where are you located so we can suggest some good artists?

You could use that as an inspiration piece for a worthy artist's own layout . . .

I don't know about the symmetrical issue, but it's waaaaay to much detail for an arm tattoo. That would have to be huge, like a full back.