Weddingbee boards

I feel physically sick to my stomach... for the past 7 weeks I've been going to get a back tattoo completed. I've been really excited and really happy with the tattoo, until our last session.

Some of you might remember from one of our post a thons that I was getting a blue rose with a spiral galaxy. I researched and found a great artist and shop, we spoke about it, I sent him photoshopped pictures of exactly what I wanted. The rose came out great, but the galaxy, well the galaxy makes me want to throw up. It doesn't glow like stars do, its a solid mass of pink! I got this on my back with the intent to show it off!! This is what I get. I waited 6 years to get another tattoo after my first, I put a lot of time and effort into finding an artist I thought would be perfect and he botched the job anyway. I am heartbroken and embarrassed and out $600 for a tattoo that makes me sick to think about. And he loved it! He said it came out better than he expected (WTF) and wants me to come back in a month to take pics for his portfolio. Now I'm left wondering if I should go back and ask him to change things or find someone else and pay even more for this. I dont even know if its fixable, but it looks nothing like my picture. I bawled my eyes out last night and my fiance said it wasn't that bad, but it is. I can't believe I did this to myself, I am now dreading my wedding and my bad tattoo. I am so depressed I can barely work this is all I think about. I dont even know how to approach someone to tell them I dont like their work, I am such a doormat! Ugh, thanks for listening I needed to get this out somewhere because everyone I know knows I'm getting this tattoo finished "sometime" but now I'm to embarrassed to tell or show anyone. FML. 

I remember the picture from the post-a-thon and it was beautiful!  I can't really comment on whether it looks like your pic or not (without seeing a pic of what it looks like now).  I know you don't want to show it off, but I would still love to see how it looks now!

I think you should let him know that you are not happy with how the galaxy part turned out.  Tell him why you feel that way and be specific.  Yes, a tattoo artist is just that - an artist.  But this is something that you will have on your body forever and you want to love it.  I know it is hard to tell someone you don't like their work, but if you are feeling like this, then you will not feel better until you say something.  Maybe he will work with you to fix it up and make it more along the lines of what your vision was.  If you don't feel good about him anymore, find another tattoo artist who can help.  Either way, you need to talk to someone about getting it fixed up because you are clearly unhappy!

Just remember - your FI loves you and you are getting married to him!  So there is no reason to dread your wedding!  I think you have the strength to say "This is not good enough", so make sure you speak up and soon, or you will continue to be unhappy and that is not fair to you!  PM me if you want more pep talk - you can do this! :)

@oracle: I can try, but this guy was awesome. His portfolio was great with color, detail, I really figured he'd be able to reproduce a photograph that I gave him if he could do portraits, you know?

It's just because he left the galaxy til last and I had no idea how he was going to do it. He said he'd be mixing colors on the fly and that he'd just follow the picture. I noticed halfway through our last session that he didn't even have the picture this time! A galaxy should be light, glowing, and it is solid pink and purple. It looks like bubblegum got spirographed onto a rose. It's just awful.

I'm so worried this won't be fixable, that the colors are too dark and that you can't really make something glow without leaving spaces for the skin to show through. There is white in the for the stars but its miniscule. I didn't think I would hate this I love the rose! If he couldn't do it like the picture why didn't he F#%(* say so!

Probably against my better judgement, but here it is.

@horceez: it was just finished last night so I know I should wait, but I can't help but think theres no way I'm going to love it in a month. I expected a solid mass of stars, instead I get all these individual squiggles all over the place, not what I was expecting at all. I kind of want to do a white wash over the whole thing to help bring it together but I feel like its not possible :(

@kimbo89:Since I have to wait a month until it's healed anyway, I guess I will go back to him and voice my concerns. I'm just worried that if this is how it came out than he wasn't really in line with my vision. He didn't say it would look exactly like the picture, but if I knew this is what he was going for I never would have let him do this. He emailed me a picture of the lineart for it and said "it looks like a mess now but its to help me distinguish where the rose is versus the galaxy" so I decided to trust him on it. Now I feel like I should have gone with my gut (thinking that it looked odd) I expected more contrast, this looks like jelly, not bright like stars. I do hope that more white can be added, I'm starting to think he's not confident in using white if he used it this sparingly. If this was a complicated tattoo I wish he would have just been honest with me!

I don't know that I would go back to the same artist. I think it's clear that he majorly misunderstood what you wanted. And since you had brought in an actual photograph of exactly what you wanted, I don't know how much more clearly you could have explained it to him. Somehow I doubt anything you say now would make the lightbulb go off in his head.

If I were you, I'd research artists who are especially skilled in the art of cover-ups and corrections, email them pictures of your tattoo, and see what they suggest.

I also got a tattoo earlier this year that I was not entirely happy with. At least the part I don't like is small enough that I could fairly easily have it removed or fixed, but for weeks I was heartsick. I can't imagine what you must be feeling now. *hug*

@CorgiTales:

 Yep, thats my exact complaint. Where did all these extra colors come from? Why is there no hot white center? It's just... bad. I'm conflicted about going to someone new, I'm so worried that i'll end up pouring more money into another artist and now i feel like I can't trust anybody. I mean, this guy is proud of this. I've seen his work and this is not up to par! I'm hoping that he'll offer to fix it for free, but again if he was being so sparing on the white the first time what makes me think that he could possibly get it right this time?

And of course my main problem is going to be talking to him about this without getting too emotional and crying- I've only talked out loud abotu this with two people and both times I ended up bawling.

I'm trying to think of this as still a work in progress. Like, he may think its done but it's not. But at $150 an hour I just feel ripped off.

@jayce: Yea exactly, I dont know how I could have better dictated what I wanted. I really thought that a realistic portrait artist would be able to follow a simple photo.

For now I'm going to just try and forget it's there. Because I get sick every time I see it or feel it or think about it. I cant do anything for at least a month so I need to try and keep sane.

Looking at it again... you might be able to have certain parts removed by laser. Maybe you can get the pink/purple ink taken out, and try to lighten up some of the blue, and then another artist could go in and fix it. I think that would give you the best possibility of getting the tattoo you wanted.

If you don't want to go through laser removal, maybe another artist could alter it into something a bit different and make it look good that way. It might not be what you wanted at first, but maybe you'd be happier with it.

I strongly suggest emailing one of the folks at bmezine.com for help. You can register here: https://sso.bmezine.com/ and then ask here: http://ask.bmezine.com/submit-your-question/ These people are experts on every kind of body modification imaginable, and they've seen everything that can possibly go wrong and the ways they get fixed. The site is a little hardcore (NSFW) but they know their stuff.

Thanks girls, I was super upset yesterday but I know this can be fixed. I keep trying to tell myself that its not really a bad tattoo, its just not finished to the degree that I want.

@kitzy: I understand what you mean, but as a professional he should have told me that my picture wouldnt work as is if he couldn't do it the way I wanted. I didn't necessarily want it to be exactly like the picture, but what I received wasn't a likeness at all. I've seen space tattoos with galaxies, and really he just added too much detail when he would have been better off simplifying it into a larger mass of stars, and not put ink where it was lightest and added white where necessary. I am trying to decide now if I want to go back to him since I'm no longer confident in his ability to translate my image and i'm worried theres a communication breakdown somewhere and I will still walk away unhappy. But I also don't want to overreact when it might all be just fine if I go back and talk to him.

@jayce: I really think all it needs is a lighter wash over the center and get some wisps of the spiral in there. I don't hate it, but it just needs to be brought together. I dont want to go through laser treatments because they are sooo expensive and take many treatments. I think it can be solved with more ink :) I'm just going to try and stay positive for now, I live in a great tattoo city so I'm sure I can find someone that can make this work for me. Otherwise, it's going to become a solid rose!

@kimbo89: yea I'm going to try and get some white put on it, I'm not worried about the pain I just want it to be what I wanted. I feel so weird about telling an artist I dont like their work when theyre proud of it! I put the care of my skin into this dudes hands I dont want to piss him off you know? I am so nonconfrontational...

I got another picture of it last night and photoshopped a bit, it didn't take much for me to like it so I really think it shouldnt need much work, I've just never been unhappy with a tattoo before so I probably overreacted (what else is new?)this is also more accurate in color (since I'm not orange like the pics above, lol)

I'm so glad to hear that you're feeling better about it!

"I put the care of my skin into this dudes hands I dont want to piss him off you know?"

If he's any kind of a professional he wouldn't want you to be unhappy. When I wasn't totally happy with mine, I told my artist I wasn't sure about it. He didn't get upset or angry. And actually, now that it's healed and I've gotten used to seeing it on my body, I don't think it's that bad.

I'd love to see what your tattoo looks like in a month when it's healed and the colors have settled down. Keep us updated!