It takes a lot of trust to get a tattoo. After all, you're walking into a shop and telling someone you barely know, "Hey, can you please alter my body with ink? Also, don't mess it up or it will follow me around forever, haunting my very existence." Except, sometimes you do mess it up and it does follow you around forever. Most tattoo artists are skilled enough to work around their mistakes and cover them up, but some are too big to fix and that's what the following entries are all about.
*The following article contains discussion of suicide/self-harm.
Reddit user, u/T_S_Sean, wanted to hear how you messed up when they asked:
Tattooists of Reddit, have you ever messed up a tattoo on someone and what was the fallout?
What A Tribute
I tattoo with my best friend. They wanted a tribute for their dog that passed and I had sketched a couple of designs up in my spare time. One night we were bored and decided to take their favorite sketch and slap it on them. It was supposed to read "Little James" with a little cartoon version of their dog beneath.
But the sketch read "Litte James" and we both failed to notice because the font was so stylized. Neither of us realized it was misspelled for 3 months! We're still best friends and love telling the story. They owe me a misspelled tattoo now and I honestly cannot wait!
There Is No Reason Why You Should Be Inking People
Holy sh-t. I bought a tattoo gun like 15 years ago and with no training just started going hell bent on myself and then my friends.
My thighs are literally covered with indecipherable crap that then gets slightly better as it works it way down towards my knees. Over the course of a few weeks I got slightly better and told this guy I could do a tribal sleeve LOL. F-cking way beyond my scope. I had no business putting a needle near anyone else's skin. The dude was flabby and I hadn't worked on flabby people before and it was all different. Basically it was a big f-cking mess and the guy was filthy, always covered in dirt so it got badly infected. So at least after that I realized I could really hurt someone and stopped.
Not All Machines Are Perfect
F-cked up some biomech on a guys f-cking HAND about 15 years ago. Still haunts me
What's biomech? I don't have any tattoos so I don't know if this is an industry term or what. Genuinely curious.
It's a style. Biomechanical. Basically integrating man with machine.
Maybe We Should Go Back To Teaching Cursive In Schools...
Had a close friend getting his first tattoo. Kind of an uptight guy. Our mutual bud is an illustrator and he calls him over and explains that his appointment for the tattoo is in 30 minutes and he asks that our bud write, in calligraphy, the word "home" to be copied by the tattoo artist. Although hurried our bud reluctantly does so.
Friend goes to the tattoo parlor and I see him late that night. He proudly pulls down his shirt to show me the word "home" written big on his chest in calligraphy.
But here's the thing: in cursive, unless you're really careful, an "e" is almost indistinguishable from an "o".
So I'm looking at my uptight friend, and he has in big floral writing the word "HOMO" tattooed on his chest.
I swore in that moment that I would never mention it to him — maybe that's wrong. But I'll bet I'm not the only of his friends who've noticed it.
Don't Stop...Bellievieing?
Not me, but a friend
He bought a kit from somewhere and tattooed random people (unlicensed)
What people didn't know was that he was terrible at art and horrible at basic spelling
So many people took him to small claims to get money back
My favorite? He tried spelling "believe" Resulted in "Bellievie"
It's Easy To Take One On The...Cin?
I knew a girl who had a tattoo of boxing gloves that said "Roll with the punces" (obviously supposed to be punches.) I pointed it out to her and she didn't care at all. Apparently she really was good at rolling with the punces. And no I'm not kidding.
AND NO ONE SAID ANYTHING?
I once had a woman come in when I worked at a walk in shop. She had her whole family with her. She was getting her first tattoo at 70+(can't remember exact age). She was getting something that included the birth-death dates of her recently deceased husband. Her whole family saw the design. They were really excited. Let me repeat, the whole family saw the design. So I do the tattoo, the woman loves it, and then her daughter sneaks back over while I'm tearing down.
She whispers to me that her mother had gotten the dates wrong. I felt so bad. They even knew she had dementia problems apparently, and no one looked at it closely enough to see if she had gotten the dates correct. Unfortunately it wasn't dates that could easily be changed to another number. I told them I could cover it after she healed but I never saw them again :/
In Time...
I got a tattoo apprenticeship as a teenager and a few of my friends got small tattoos by me. One night, very high, directly after my sweet 16 (I was still in my dress) I was tattooing a friend of mine who wanted "Eventually Everything Will End" written up her ribcage. Halfway through the Eventually we realize i've gone slightly off transfer and the whole thing is crooked. I am mortified. My blood ran cold, I imagined she'd hate me forever. Her boyfriend at the time just said "Just add a dot dot dot and make it mysterious, like "Eventually.." like you're trailing off' She looks at me and says "Dot dot dot me up" and I do. She loved that tattoo, even got it inscribed on a zippo.
Shortly after my 22nd birthday she committed suicide. As a tribute several of her friends got the word "Eventually..." tattooed in her honor, as if to say eventually we may see each other again. My worst f-ck up, one of my best memories. Miss you Kait
(If you ever feel like ending it all, please reach out to someone. Depression is a liar and you will be missed more than you understand)
If you or someone you know is struggling, you can contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255).
To find help outside the United States, the International Association for Suicide Prevention has resources available at https://www.iasp.info/resources/Crisis_Centres/
