3 Easy Ways to Piss off your Artist

1. Get Wasted before your appointment.

   Friday nights are the worst for this. One lady stumbled into the shop with a black eye and scrapes all over her face, she slurred out something like, "iwannagetatattootonight". For kicks I asked her, "What do you want?". "'Ilovedrugs iwanitnon my forehead." I told it would cost $2,000. "Lemmegogetthemoney". Never returned, big surprise. It doesn't matter if you made the appointment sober, you can't get tattooed in Oregon if you're drunk or show signs of IV drug use. It's the LAW.



2. Squiggle during your tattoo.

   You can seriously mess up your artwork doing this. One girl I tattooed kept squiggling during the outlines. I told her to stop moving around. When I got to a line near her lovehandle, she levitated out of the chair. I took my foot of the foot-switch to stop the machine and raised the machine high above her skin, but she jumped so high that the needle poked a small dot on the side of her design. I had to add "sparkles" to make it fit with the rest. To top it off she bitched about having to pay extra for the sparkles. You move, you pay.



3. Spit your guts out and confess to crimes.

   I like talking to clients during the tattoo. It's one of the reasons I love this art form; you get to see people in their purest and crudest state, but there are some stories I can do without. Don't burden your artist with all the nasty details of how you did your sister when you were younger. It's awkward. And isn't that you're sister holding your hand?