1. Be as specific as possible about your ideas.
Every tattoo shop will always have the same questions for you. They need to know your ideas about style of the tattoo, size and placement. What do we mean about style of the tattoo? There are many different styles of tattooing. For example, color tattoos, black and grey tattoos, realistic tattoos, blackwork tattoos, fine line tattoos etc. Each style will require a different set of tattooing skills, so if you know exactly what style you would like to get, the shop can arrange the most suitable artists for you. Size and placement are very important too. Artists who have years of experience really know whether you find the right placement and size for your tattoos, they will give you good advice based on your original ideas.
Tip: Take a picture of the area of your body that you want to get tattoo on and find some pictures as references about the style of the tattoo. Send all these pictures with your explanations of your ideas.
2. Trust your artists
You might do a ton of research of the shop or the tattoo artist you want to get inked from before you actually meet them. Therefore, you must love their work and should really trust them. Many people just let the artists know their ideas and the artists will do the rest. As a result, whatever design come out from their favourite artists, they would love to go for it. However, you don’t need to agree with the artists about everything. You can always discuss with them to adjust the design as you want. However, you should never completely change everything from their original design to the way you want. You should rather find another artist to save your time and their time. Here’s the reason why, the artists know what they do best and make the design based on their abilities. Let’s imagine the artist would change everything as you required and did tattoo for you just because they wanted money. We bet you know how bad the results would be when they have to do stuff they were not inspired.
Tip: Carefully do your research to find your ideal artists and completely trust them. Because they are artists, so they can do the best work when they feel comfortable, inspired and do tattoos within their specialty.
3. Do not ask every single one of your friends their opinions about your designs.
It is alright to ask one or two of your friends and see if they like the designs, but you should have your own perspective and make your own decision. Herbert Bayard Swope said “I can't give you a sure-fire formula for success, but I can give you a formula for failure: try to please everybody all the time.” Every single one of your friend will give you a different idea, but the problem is not many of them can picture how the design would turn out with the change they want to make. There are two consequences, you might be super confused and the artists will be extremely frustrated because they have to do the design over and over again without the abilities to read all of your friends’ mind.
Tip: You better talk with the artists about what you feel not so good about the design and ask for their advice. They will explain for you why the design should be that way and what is possible to change and in what way.
We hope this blog post will be useful for you. This might help to save a lot of time for both you and the artists. Share it with your friends if you think they are about to go for a custom tattoo.