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If you are going to obsess over details but are afraid to speak up about the lack of details on a stencil, then you really need to stop getting tattoos. Tattoos are NEVER PERFECT, even if you do speak up. I feel sure you'd have found something else you didn't like about it if he had gotten that right. You cannot get tattoos if small imperfections are going to bother you. You just can't. So maybe don't get anymore tattoos for now?

Tattoos are no different than anything else, you have to tell the other party what you're looking for. When you go to buy pants, you wouldn't just say, "I want pants." You'd specify style, size, color, boot cut, low rise, worn, and anything else you want. Same thing with a tattoo. If you want an exact representation of something I'd just say like, "I'm looking for someone that will do an exact representation of this image, is that something you're interested in?" Or, "I've got something really specific in mind, are you comfortable working within those parameters?" Or, "The last tattoo I got was really well done, but there were some additional lines added and the colors weren't as close to the original as I'd hoped. Are you comfortable working with that degree of specificity?" And then show him the image you provided and an image of the final tattoo. My artist would thank me for considering him, would but suggest I go elsewhere. And I'm OK with that. I let him know at a really high level what I'm looking for and he's exceeded my expectations on every tattoo.

I knew that detail might be overlooked and i thought about pointing it out to the artist before he began the tattoo but ... But nothing. It's YOUR job to make sure the artist knows what you want. If you think they might misunderstand, you need to be perfectly clear. Should i have brought in a better color reference? Is it my fault for not bringing up what i knew was a non obvious detail that might be overlooked? If a detail is that important to you, then yes you should explicitly point it out. An artist isn't a Xerox machine. I sent him a DM about a month later saying id just like to let him know that there was a small coloring mistake in the tattoo he gave me but that id still like to get tattooed by him in the future. I don't think I'd bust someone's balls then go back to them. The artist should show you the stencil before you start. It's YOUR job to point out anything you don't like about the stencil. Same if they draw directly on you. It's on you to make sure an artist knows if you expect an exact copy of the image on your skin. Never assume anything. If you do all that and it's not as you specified, THEN it's the artist's fault.

I think this is 100% on you ! you approved it by not saying anything.