For TATTOOERS ONLY - most hated tattoo requests?

[JasonWalstrom]

I like to work.

[xjamestravisx]

Hell yea man! Amen to that! We are the luckiest people in the world to be able to do what we do for a living. Fuck it, bring on that tribal armband with my six kids names "hidden" in it! Haha!

Gotta love those hidden names. Glad theres so many biting the bullet and finding their zen place. Its always good to keep up the variety. It seems like if I do a kickass script name on Tuesday, I'll do em alllllll week though. But that's part of it, and I love my job more than anything.

[matt cee]

i cant stand when young girls come in and say " can i get a tattoo with white ink, im just not sure if im ready to have a tattoo everyone can see "

peace out! case you wont be getting that tattoo from me.

i rarely use white in a good tattoo with a solid black outline!!

[xjamestravisx]

I've had a 4oz bottle of white for almost a year. Still tons left in it. I use it very rarely.

[Kevin Campbell]

Fuck, there was some offset in the universe and I ended up doing 2 inner lips yesterday. The first chick had food in her teeth, and the second guy wanted "awesome" written pike style filled in red...I had to tell him I was not capable of doing that, and I wasn't sure if anybody would be capable of that. I don't know if I would even want to be capable of doing pike lettering inside a lip. That shit makes me wanna barf.

[matt cee]

another lame way to "have a tattoo" but "that no one can see" lame shit!

[Kevin Campbell]

another lame way to "have a tattoo" but "that no one can see" lame shit!

Yeah, I mean both of them had other tattoos, the dude was pretty fully covered. I'm not as much concerned with the lameness of it as I am with the grossness of the application. Blood mixed with drool mixed with ink mixed with me having to be close enough to see the plaque on their teeth...OK, I guess that's pretty fucking lame...

[irezumi]

It's all the same to me. Little tiny circles and blood.

[matt cee]

Yeah, I mean both of them had other tattoos, the dude was pretty fully covered. I'm not as much concerned with the lameness of it as I am with the grossness of the application. Blood mixed with drool mixed with ink mixed with me having to be close enough to see the plaque on their teeth...OK, I guess that's pretty fucking lame...

if they are heavily tattooed ill tattoo em anywhere. the lips arent to bad, hang the needle out and you aint gotta be all up in it. i charge $100 for that shit. takes more time to setup than anything

[Kevin Campbell]

if they are heavily tattooed ill tattoo em anywhere. the lips arent to bad, hang the needle out and you aint gotta be all up in it. i charge $100 for that shit. takes more time to setup than anything

yeah, it's a quick hundred bucks I guess, but I would have to hang the needle out like 15 inches to be far enough away from the blood/drool/ink mixture to not get grossed out.

[Rob_Gilk]

yeah, it's a quick hundred bucks I guess, but I would have to hang the needle out like 15 inches to be far enough away from the blood/drool/ink mixture to not get grossed out.

15 inches, haha, I just pictured you going straight through the lip and tattooing the chin.

[cigaretteadvocate]

anything that someone wants done in just solid white. honestly a majority of the time i dont mind doing most things if the customer is chill. a shitty customer can turn what should be a really fun tattoo into a complete shitstorm just by their attitude and some of coolest customers i have had have gotten some of the lamest shit.

[Kevin Campbell]

15 inches, haha, I just pictured you going straight through the lip and tattooing the chin.

A coworker of mine told me he actually saw a dude who's lip tattoo went so deep it blew out all the way to the skin on his face.

[Valerie Vargas]

do get a bit tired of doing pocket watches, i must have done ten this year (four in one week) most of them had a magpie on it, i'm still happy to do them but it's a pain trying to draw new watches as i'm not a fucking watchmaker!

yeh, i seem to do a lot of them, magpies, victorian type stuff, cute and quirky, thats the most kind of requested stuff for sure, im guessing its more of a UK thing at the moment? but it just makes the eagles and panthers and girl faces more fun when they do come in though!

[mario desa]

about two years ago i got fed up with the owl craze! i stopped doing them for about 6 months. the week i decided to stop 'em, i got 5 requests for owls! people understood and i was able to tattoo other things on them, fortunately. it seemed once i told them why i stopped, they didn't want the owl anymore anyway, since it was so popular. i just got sick of drawing them, and honestly couldn't conceive of any new or different way to do them, it was so out of control.

it's funny how people want to be so unique and singular, yet want the trendiest tattoos. perfect example: the finger mustache. every single person who's requested it has a hubris about them when they say what they want, and they are visibly bummed out when i don't burst into laughter and congratulate them on being a comedic genius! when i say "ok, cool, we do a lot of those", they act surprised and try to say they never saw it before and say how bummed they are because they didn't think anyone else had it. seriously?!?!? then, they change their minds. out of all the requests, i've only actually done two. and those people started off with "i know it's been done, but...". people are funny.

[Deb Yarian]

I hate doing parallel lines, perfect circles and upside down lettering.

[sarah schor]

it's not so much that i hate it but i just don't get why so many young girls give me the ol' 'i want it facing ME...it's about ME' when doing their little wrist tattoos. now i just say 'cool, so you want it upside down then? ok'. hahaha

[Brynne Worthy]

Thank you, I'm totally going to use that line because I don't get it either.

"But it's not FOR anyone else it's for me" -Oh so that's why it's posted on facebook and on your left wrist so people can see it while you're driving. Which is totally fine, whatever makes the client happy.

My pet peeves are the last minute "by the way, it needs to cover this," and the "I drew this myself and want it exactly like that." I have a folder of originals that would take your breath away.

[dari]

"I drew this myself and want it exactly like that." I have a folder of originals that would take your breath away.

Please please please post pics of these!

[aaronkicks]

I don't really hate doing any exact tattoo in particular. Like what was also said a few other times, I enjoy tribal and all that solid black stuff and little butterflies. I guess I just like the satisfaction of knowing I can do them better than anyone of the other 5 shops in the small ass town I live in. I got alot of requests for doing that type of stuff when I first started tattooing and I hated it. The more and more I tattoo and progress, I find I like doing that stuff even more now. I can say without a doubt, the type of tattoos and requests I hate the most are the ones that are so thought out to a "t" and have so much "meaning" and personalization to them that I get absolutly no say in the size, placement, any coloring, detail or any bit of information that could make it a well done tattoo. Instead it's just a tattoo fixated on personal meaning that is soooo metaphorical it becomes aesthetically unpleasing. Unfortunately I get a lot of that type of work being a small town with a private college. Intellectual types really piss me off when they use tattoos to show how intellectual they are in choosing a stupid owl with names in the wings, or as stated earlier, trees with names in the branches. Even worse, I hate Salvador Dali tattoos. I hate that the majority of people I have tattooed them on think they're an authority on art once they get the same fucking elephant everyone already has.

[dari]

Even worse, I hate Salvador Dali tattoos. I hate that the majority of people I have tattooed them on think they're an authority on art once they get the same fucking elephant everyone already has.

You know what would be really original, though? TWO Salvador Dali elephants, symetrically placed, nobody has that! Oh, wait...

[Jake]

weird. I love that painting but those just don't translate to body that well. maybe it's just because they're only the elephants and they're very literal interpretations.

I think a sleeve inspired by that painting could actually turn out awesome. like with the man holding the cross down by the wrist and a variety of crazy contorted animals wrapping all the way up the arm. the artist would HAVE to put his own personal twist on it to fit it to that space

[MsRad]

yeh, i seem to do a lot of them, magpies, victorian type stuff, cute and quirky, thats the most kind of requested stuff for sure, im guessing its more of a UK thing at the moment? but it just makes the eagles and panthers and girl faces more fun when they do come in though!

i think the victorian stuff is really popular over here too. well, at least amongst hipster kids.

[MsRad]

about two years ago i got fed up with the owl craze! i stopped doing them for about 6 months. the week i decided to stop 'em, i got 5 requests for owls! people understood and i was able to tattoo other things on them, fortunately. it seemed once i told them why i stopped, they didn't want the owl anymore anyway, since it was so popular. i just got sick of drawing them, and honestly couldn't conceive of any new or different way to do them, it was so out of control.

it's funny how people want to be so unique and singular, yet want the trendiest tattoos. perfect example: the finger mustache. every single person who's requested it has a hubris about them when they say what they want, and they are visibly bummed out when i don't burst into laughter and congratulate them on being a comedic genius! when i say "ok, cool, we do a lot of those", they act surprised and try to say they never saw it before and say how bummed they are because they didn't think anyone else had it. seriously?!?!? then, they change their minds. out of all the requests, i've only actually done two. and those people started off with "i know it's been done, but...". people are funny.

i just saw temporary tattoos for this today while i was killing time being sick on the couch.

[myleskarr]

my most hated requests are from people who want "concepts" - literally people who come in and want "something to depict strength without saying strength." or "can you capture elegance and frailty, but nothing figurative or organic."

im kind of over trees and owls, but its kind of my bread and butter at this point, so i just suck it up and try and push the design as far as i can.