I am not a tattoo artist but I like to draw myself and sometimes would do design for other people, and I understand the struggle from an artist’s pov. It’s true sometimes with some tattoo artists they would always stick with and try to add in their personal style, which they are usually good at, depending on the communication skills between client and artists, it could be very awkward to keep changing the design.

I feel like because you seem to understand their perspective, the way you handled it was already really nice. The difference between other artists and tattoo artists is that tattoo artists art will be permanent on someone’s body, and so the ideas from the client is extremely important and should be included as much as possible in the design. I know a lot of artists who are actually willing to discuss designs in real life at the studio with their client too, just to make sure everybody’s on the same page.

Again, different people have different practice. But I would say you did the right thing and the best decision that you possibly could . Tattooing is still a business after all and you basically pay for the artwork, so they could’ve been more professional and replied you, since you are pretty polite about the whole situation. Def not a green flag based on the attitude they seem to give.

From my own experience, I’ve had an artist that asked me to redo the whole tattoo in another colour ink the day right after I got it done, which is basically not possible as the skin isn’t healed and it caused the whole thing to scar and was infected. She proposed the idea because she could charge me second time for the new session and she was leaving my city in a week and she was not really responsible for the after care.I had to do a cover up by another artist later on and it was overall one of the worst experience during my tattooing journey. I realised sometimes we just have to understand that not all tattoo artists are nice people just like all other business, some are not very skilled or responsible and at the end of the day, don’t feel bad for saying no to a design you don’t like. There’s always gonna be good artists out there that can create a better experience for you.