Tattoo placement

[Gingerninja]

I think that stencil placement is part of the collaboration process! If you don't like it, speak up and ask questions.

[bongsau]

Placement is critical. Poor placement can make an incredible tattoo design look terrible on the body and good placement can make the simplest design truly pop.

Most of my tattoos have had the stencil moved at least once. Sometimes its the tattooer not 100% happy with the placement or cut of the tattoo-edges on the body, sometimes its me wanting the placement tweaked ever so slightly. My tattooists have all been happy to oblige, but I also get a free pass because of the volume of tattoos I have; they appreciate how important placement is when you're running low on space. My tattoos in the last few years have become increasingly more of a challenge in terms of fitment, so stencil placement is crucial (and a fun part of the process) and I will only get tattooed by people who understand and respect that.

I made my tattooer re-stencil something 8 times because it didn't look aligned with adjacent tattoos. He's a close friend and made a lot of my tattoos.  But I think most would have been bounced da fuq out of the shop lol. In the end we nailed the placement and I got a sweet tattoo but also wicked razor burn from wiping the stencil off repeatedly :p

So I echo the above comment...stencil placement is a collaborative part of the process. So speak up if you are not OK with stencil placement. However I would lean on the experience of the tattooer in most cases. Trust in your tattooer to make you and your tattoo look good.

[Gingerninja]

The same thing has happened to me with stencil placement. My artists have moved the stencils more times than me asking them to be adjusted. It's interesting, a couple of times I was initially uncomfortable with the placement but was open about my concerns or what I was feeling. Through healthy conversation with my artist(s), I ended up loving the placement. It took me a minute to process. :)

[el twe]

23 hours ago, bongsau said:

So I echo the above comment...stencil placement is a collaborative part of the process. So speak up if you are not OK with stencil placement. However I would lean on the experience of the tattooer in most cases. Trust in your tattooer to make you and your tattoo look good.

^^^This.  I've been happy with placements that the artist ended up moving (for the better), and I've asked to have stencils re-applied in a different spot before realizing why it was better the first time!  Good placement might be the toughest thing for me to wrap my head around (other than the obvious eagle on the center of the chest, etc.), but boy do you know it when you see it.