I was excited to go here because I had seen his actual work on a few people and I liked what I saw. I made an appointment to discuss my tattoo, after which I walked away with a good feeling and excited for my appointment. I must tell you all this was my very first tattoo so I had thought about this for a long time, looked at many, many photos of tattoos and art and knew exactly what I wanted.
The day came to get my tattoo and I was a little nervous and excited of course, especially since this was my first. I am a professional chef and my tattoo design was of my chef's knife and the wording, "Just say yes chef and do it" was to be printed across the very straight line of the top of my knife's blade. He drew up a design and pressed it on my inner right arm, the place I had finally decided on it. It was to have the tip of my knife at my wrist and the handle to end inside the bend of my elbow. I stood up in front of the mirror to make sure it was straight and placed where I wanted. It looked good to me. He had me sit down in front of him and rest my arm on a padded rest and he started. I was watching the whole time just amazed! I was so excited and I couldn't wait for it to be finished. Finally it was completed. My very first tattoo was permanently on my skin. It looked cool and I stood up in front of the mirror again and it looked good but... something didn't seem right to me. I mean the art was great but the knife looked a little crooked to me. I didn't say anything (looking back on it, I was a little embarrassed and I didn't want to make a stupid statement of maybe I wasn't seeing it right). I kept thinking it will look better when I get home and look at it. It didn't look better and I called him back the very next day and even sent him photos I took of my arm
The top of the knife and subsequently, the wording was definitely crooked! I was in shock! Mostly because I did my homework ahead of time and saw his artwork and reviews. He was very nice about it and said he would make it right. I couldn't sleep that night and thought about what could've gone wrong and why hadn't this artist, who said he'd been tattooing for 26 years, caught this??? I finally figured it out: when I was standing up and looking at the placement of his drawing print on my arm it was straight but when I sat down and placed my arm on the padded rest that's when the skin on my arm shifted over naturally while resting there. Hell, I didn't even think about it until after the fact. In my opinion, a veteran tattoo artist should've known this! He should've instructed me not to rest my arm in such a way that the skin would move. When I suggested this he kinda said well maybe that was it. He never apologized but he did allow me to come back a few times free of charge to make it right. I actually came up with the idea how to correct this: I told him to make an old type banner around the wording with a droop in the middle as if it was supposed to be like that. He filled in the knife here and there along with the handle to make it look straighter. It looks ok now but it's not what I wanted as the handle design had to be changed due to filling it in more and the blade also. I wanted strictly black and gray but we had to add color to the banner around the wording to make it look right.
My vote here is 2.5 out of 5. He is a nice guy but this shouldn't have happened with an artist with 27 years experience.