The Excuse of Artistic Genius
Tattoo celebrities. Enhancing humanity. The Mayan brotherhood. Full-size sculptures of NASA rockets.
“LOVE this! Wish everyone lived this way, me included!”
“The best I have ever seen period. Thank you and keep up the good work. This is what is necessary to get America back on its feet.”
“It’s a shame more people haven't seen this, I think most people could learn a thing or two from this.”
Mayans MC president EZ Reyes stands before his brothers.
A fun game to play with clients is “Have you heard of this [insert current tattoo world issue]?” Usually, the answer is no, and you get to condense a month of internet tattoo discourse into a three-minute recap— it’s a lot like TikTok, actually.
The issue du jour a few months back was #TattooGate, a blandly named shorthand for the furor caused by a viral TikTok video posted by a tattoo client. In the video, the woman, who was looking to get a tattoo of a fox with flowers, paid a “consultation fee” of $180 to speak with the artist about her idea. The artist then required her to pay a “design” fee at one of three tiers: $1500 for a concept sketch and one minor change, $3500 for two concept sketches and a few alterations, and $6000 for multiple sketches and rounds of revisions, plus a “canvas” of the concept (these costs were separate from the cost for the tattoo itself). The client, feeling like she had to agree to proceed, chose the lowest-cost option.
The gag of the reveal is that the digital sketch she received looked like one that any tattoo artist could have produced in under five minutes. Aside from being far from the reference images and description the client provided, the rushed quality was palpable. Adding insult to injury, when the client pointed out that the drawing wasn’t the idea she had asked for, the tattoo artist replied that she’d have to pay the next tier of the drawing fee to receive a new version. You can watch the series of videos for the full absurd exchange, but the TLDR is that the artist refused to refund any money (including the additional $1000 deposit for the tattoo) and placed the blame squarely on the client’s “difficultness”— not to mention implying she was just too broke to commit.