15 Tattoo Artists Reveal The Biggest Mistake They Ever Made To Prepare You For The Worst
When you're paying someone to permanently ink your skin, you're putting a lot of trust in their hands. But because tattoo artists are human beings, sometimes they make mistakes. These stories of tattoo artist mistakes are here to prepare you for what's to come. Read on and vote up the worst big tattoo mistakes.
- 147 VOTES
They Misspelled A Name And Ended Up Having To Do A Huge Cover-Up
From Redditor u/Mister_Lurker:
This guy wanted ANNA tattooed on his back in huge lettering, and due to some miscommunication he ended up getting ANAN (thought it was a strange request at the time but went along with it anyway). Had to cover that up with a huge black tribal piece and then have the name tattooed elsewhere. Needless to say he didn't have to pay for either of the tattoos.
- 241 VOTES
They Misspelled 'Harley-Davidson' And It Cost Them A Tooth
From Redditor u/kaistallings:
Three years ago I worked in a shop with a bloke that tattooed a Harley-Davidson logo on a pretty rough dude. Well, he misspelled Harley-Davidson. A simple mistake that cost him a fractured tooth, if I recall correctly.
- 367 VOTES
They Forgot A Very Important Letter In A Song Lyric
From Redditor u/tradermjb:
I was getting work done on a sleeve and a mid-40s woman came in wanting the Tool lyrics "overthinking, overanalyzing, separates the body from the mind" on her rib cage. The artist sketched it out and she approved it and got tattooed. An hour later she came in crying; there was no "y" in analyzing so it said "analzing." The shop went silent and the artist did some sort of touch-up, but no one spoke the entire time. Was pretty bad... but after there were a lot of jokes!
- 457 VOTES
They Put The Wrong Time On A Watch
From Redditor u/JerkasaurousRexx:
I've worked at a shop for a while as a manager... I have seen several mistakes and most of them are spelling errors. For every tattoo we do, we use a stencil and always have the customer look at it to verify the spelling and placement. But one time, the head artist free-handed a piece on a customer. The customer wanted a pocket watch with her son's time of birth on it. Well, apparently the artist wasn't very familiar with pocket watches and put the hour hand an hour ahead of the time the customer asked for. That was an awkward time for a while since that customer was my girlfriend.
- 542 VOTES
They Mixed Up A Soccer Team's Colors
From Redditor u/Mister_Lurker:
Tattooed a soccer badge and [got] the foreground and background colors mixed up. They went away happy (sort of). You can't really do anything about that except cover it up and place the tattoo elsewhere.
- 640 VOTES
They Spelled 'Philippians' Instead Of Philippines And Everyone Cried
From Redditor u/sweetappohs:
Spelled Philippines like Philippians... Oops. He cried; I cried. We covered it with huge praying hands with a dark background. Lost a bunch of money doing the cover-up, but I regained my confidence and pride. Worth it. Glad he trusted me to fix it.