14 Tattoo Artists Reveal The Worst Mistakes They’ve Ever Made On Someone’s Skin, Permanently
Found on r/AskReddit
1. I was tattooing a couple of friends one night, and a friend wanted a skull with cross bones. I started with one of the bones, she forced me to stop because she couldn’t hack the pain, so I stopped but now she has an unfinished tattoo that looks a ballsack on her leg.
2. In high school a friend of mine got the Thrasher symbol, with the text “Live to skate / Skate or die” going around a circle. The artist wrote, no joke, “Live to share / Share or die.” She managed to fix it but I think he should have stuck with the alternate version.
3. My cousin was a tattoo artist for a few years, mostly working in a ghetto shop. A woman came in with a photo of her still-born child and wanted the baby’s face tattooed on her arm with some text below it. Since my cousin was a high school dropout, his spelling left a lot to be desired. Her caption read “God’s little angle.”
4. A family friend of mine is a tattoo artist. I remember when he was still doing it out of his garage. One of my Dad’s friends wanted a tattoo of the American flag with an eagle carrying it.
He got the outline done on him, then started filling in the color for the Eagle. Which ended up being absolutely gorgeous. Then he started doing the colors for the flag. From the top he started with white. For those who don’t know, the American flag starts with red strips and ends with red stripes, not white.
Anyway, no one noticed for a long time. Then a few years later during a Super Bowl party at my parents house, someone noticed and told him.
5. I had a machine in high school. I misspelled “independant” on my friend’s leg. She was dependant on a smarter artist after that.
6. My friend is a tattoo artist (and usually a pretty good one). One year after download festival he decided to get the words ‘black platoon’ tattooed on his leg (which is what the group of lads there called themselves). He tattooed his own leg and only after showing it to everyone realized he’d written ‘black platton.’
Gutted doesn’t even describe the look on his face when we pointed it out.
– phreakyh
7. I asked for a 13, but I got a 31.
8. I’m not a tattoo artist, but a friend in high school was very proud to be Norwegian and decided to get a pirate ship flying a Norwegian flag that covered most of his back. The tattoo artist fucked up and drew the Swedish flag instead. My friend went back and ended up having the flag portion filled in as all black. Now he has a huge meaningless tattoo of a pirate ship flying a black flag. It’s awful!
9. My friend went to the $13 tattoo day special on Friday the 13th and then complained when the tattoo looked like a $13 tattoo day special on Friday the 13th.
10. My father-in-law has a tattoo of an American flag that says “DEATH BEFORE DISHONER” below it. It’s on his shoulder and months passed without anyone saying anything. I saw it one day told my husband, who burst out laughing and pointed it out to him.
He went back to the artist, who (I suppose correctly) pointed out that he approved the design before it was done. He tattooed an “O” over the “E” and called it a day. You can clearly see that the O is covering up a misspelling.
11. This really stuck up girl I know wanted a tattoo that said “Jealousy is a curse” on her back, the tattoo artist put “Jelasy is a curse”. Lol.
12. Not a tattoo artist, but my girl friend has a tattoo that was misspelled “Never a victim, always a figther” FIG THER. I want her to get it fixed because it’s… well… so… NOT CORRECT.
13. Idk but my buddy has a tattoo across the collar that says “Dimond in the rough” lol #fail.
14. I have/ had (since been covered up) a pinup girl on my forearm that had six fingers. didn’t notice until a few hours later. my artist gracefully turned it into a fingernail. I have no idea how, but it worked. Until it healed and the grayscale that was supposed to not heal as dark stayed almost black and she looked like a dude. i took the transgender pinup jokes for 2 years and here I am now with a koi fish where she used to be.
