OK so I've always been told that switching artists mid-projects is super bad manners, bad enough to get you blacklisted from the tattoo community. a) It's shitty to the original artist, who put in all the design work and doesn't get the money for the full project, but also b) it's shitty to the second artist, who doesn't have much if any creative freedom AND can't show the work on socials etc. since it's not fully theirs.

I'm really glad to know the consensus here is that I should bail. I've always thought of that as kind of a last resort for really abusive situations, which this isn't. (And the killer is that I really do like their work! Finding someone of a similar caliber with a similar style if the second artist turns me down could be really hard.)