Okay, so getting the tattoos with my family really means a lot to me, so I don't want to be negative about it, but the more the swelling goes down and the more I look at my tattoo, I am really unhappy with what the artist did, i.e. what is permanently inscribed on my body.
Context and backstory: So, my brother and sister and I wanted to get the deathly hallows from Harry Potter, but we wanted to each have the particular hallow that best represented us be the primary focus of our individual tattoos. The initial inspiration had the entire symbol done in white ink, with each sibling's hallow done in black. We wanted something similar, but decided against white ink because it has a lot of problems, so we thought we'd go with a light grey instead.
So, my sister has a lot of tattoos, and she gets them all from this same guy, I guess, at our city's trendy tattoo shop, and she insisted on going to her shop and her guy. Real talk: Her place and her guy suck. Because it's trendy and they think a lot of themselves, it's way overpriced. (This time, we were charged $10 more per piece than we had been quoted, which was too much to begin with.) The shop is in a shitty old house with terrible lighting. You know where I want to get a tattoo? In a fucking surgical suite. I want it to look as clean as an operating room, and I want there to be SO MUCH LIGHT.
Anyway, my sister made an appointment with her guy, talked to him about what we wanted, etc. We show up for our appointment, and no one knew who we were. The girl at the desk was completely oblivious, and the artist wasn't there at the time we had specifically reserved. So we have to explain everything to the girl at the desk, and then of course we have to do all the standard paperwork, which is fine, but after all that we still have to wait more than half an hour for the fucking artist to show up. He was not with another client; he straight up was an hour late. When he shows up, no explanation, no apology. Oh, and the only idea he had of what we wanted is he didn't want to do it like we'd ask. He said the grey ink would fade faster than the black, which is true, but not something we'll have to worry about for like 15 years, but he straight up said he wouldn't do it. I suggested several other alternatives, and he had a problem with each one that he had to explain to me was stupid in the rudest, most condescending way. By this point, I straight up hate this guy. But Ashley and Alex don't seem to mind, and the dick with the needle says he'll just do the whole symbol in black, but he'll do the part we want emphasized thicker and darker, which I'm sure was his decision to begin with, and he wasn't going to move from it. I mean, I am aware that I am not an expert, and I want an expert's opinion, but I also want the expert to work with me on making sure the piece of art that is going to be sewn into my skin for eternity is going to be what I want.
We get tattooed. His breath smells awful, and he spends the whole time talking with the other artist in there. My brother had to have his stencil redone because it was put on in a way that seriously warped the image; the outer frame wasn't even an equilateral triangle anymore. It was fucking isosceles, and when he asked to have it redone before it was indelibly etched in his skin, the artist was super pissed. Anyway, we finished, we paid this fucking asshole $300, and we left, believing things would look better when the swelling went down.
It doesn't. On mine especially, you cannot tell at all that there's supposed to be a difference between one part of the symbol and the rest. And mine came out the best! The lines on my mom's are really thin and I'm not sure they're even (hers is still really swollen, though, so it may actually be okay.) I tried to talk to my siblings about it, but they don't really care. My brother admits his isn't perfect, and pointed out that Ashley's circle is not perfectly round, but he's pretty chill so he just said he's bummed I'm not satisfied. Ashley is kind of pissy, and is defending the artist, which… okay. I'm sorry I even brought it up with them, but I wanted their thoughts on fixing it, since I can't think of one that won't make it worse.
Every other time I've gotten a tattoo, I've been thrilled with the result and so happy to have it on my body, etc. And this time I just feel really disappointed, and I don't think it can be fixed to make me happy, and I feel even worse because I brought it up with my siblings, and probably took some of the shiny off their happies. Ugh, fuck it, I just don't know what to do.
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