11.
“Not a tattoo artist myself, but my tattoo artist friend says she automatically turns away all hand, face and neck tattoos unless the client is already heavily tattooed. Her reason is that she doesn’t want the backlash of future regret due to “job-stopper” tattoos.”—oddyysseyy
12.
“Obligatory not a tattoo artist but I asked this of mine. he says he once had a guy want a tattoo under his thumbnail like he was gonna rip the nail off, then come in to the studio so he could get a tattoo that would eventually be protected by a new thumbnail.”—bloodectomy
13.
“I’m not an artist, but I witnessed a denial that has stuck with me: Guy behind the counter is bored, reading a magazine. Young couple walks in, both of them probably 18 or so, looking around all nervous, they go up to the counter and she says, “hi…” Without looking up from his magazine, artist asks, “… help you?” She tells him, “Yeah, I want to get ‘PROPERTY OF BUCKLEY’ in all caps on my lower back.” Silence.
Painfully slowly, the artist closes his magazine and finally raises his head to look at them. Taking his time, he looks up the couple up and down, then asks, “And this winner right here, this is Buckley?” She kind of just stammered and nodded and the artist went back to his magazine. “No. We’re not doing that,” was all he had to say, considering the subject closed. The couple looked at each other, looked around, and just walked out sheepishly. Once they were gone, he looked over at me, realizing I had witnessed it all, and just said, “f—kin kids, man…” They probably thought he was a total asshole, and they were right, but he probably also did that girl a favor in the long run.”—raging_a-hole
14.
“Buddy of mine has lots of tattoos and told me a story his artist told him. She had a client who wanted a swastika on his chest, she agreed to do the tattoo, but disagreed on the placement. She said she would do it only if she could put it on his forehead. He refused. And left. She said that even if he did agree to it she’d had refused because f*ck that guy.”—ArcaninesFirepower
15.
“The word “filthy” across a 19yr old single mom’s forehead (brought the baby with her to the tattoo shop). Took the time to talk about face tattoos and why she should wait to make such an extreme decision. Went on dinner break, came back and my co-worker had tattooed it on her. Oh well, I tried.”—Rylan_Black
16.
“My artist specializes in Irish Traditional Tattoos, he said the number of people he has to turn away because they want IRA tattoos. He said if he allows one it will open a floodgate and he can’t risk having attached his name to those kinds of tattoos.”—ulilminxxx1
17.
“Elephant dick. Like the guy’s dick is the elephant trunk. I really doubt the majority of men would be able to handle the pain and just f—k that I’m not trying to hold a dick for a few hours.”—ElephantDick
18.
“Not a tattoo artist, but mine turned a request down. I wanted to tattoo one of my nipples as a part of a piece on my ribcage. I wanted to put sunglasses above the nip tip and rays around it to turn my nip into the sun for it. Fortunately, they knew me well enough to say, “Dude, you cried getting your ribcage done, your nipple would be even worse and it won’t take the ink as well. I like the idea but no” Mad respect to artists that keep it real like that.”—punkrockpizza
19.
“My artist refuses all hand tats without a minimum of at least a full sleeve on the matching arm. Also refuses all non-English text tats unless the person can translate the thing for him right there.”—Yongf
20.
“A lady whose child recently died Wanted me to tattoo “you should have saved her” on her chest. I convinced her to get the symbol for mental health (semicolon) and baby footprints instead. This woman was devastated, we talked a lot during her session And I always wonder how she is doing. another guy came in – he had one leg so I thought he was interesting, he wanted a tattoo on his hand and asked if it was ok to tattoo it since he had recently broken it (his hand), I said it was fine as long as it was healed up.
I asked out of curiosity how he broke his hand and he said, “I punched my dog”. I got him to fill out the form with his name and address and asked casually where the dog was and he just said, “gone now”. I told him I was sorry that I couldn’t do his tattoo and then turned his Sh*t into the cops. I should have just taken his other leg. F—ker.”—Grandnaguss