You can only imagine the crazy requests Tattoo Artists get everyday. Sometimes the requests are so obscene they have to say no. Don't say Tattoo Artists never had your best interest at hand.
Self Portrait Of Girlfriend
“A guy came in and got his wife’s name covered up with a portrait of his new girlfriend. My coworker used part of her shirt in the picture to cover up the name. Then two months later he turned his now ex girlfriends portrait into a demon. I started working at another shop and in came in the same guy with a third girl and they were getting matching tattoos on their hands. When I walked to the front and saw him he totally pretended he didn’t know me.”
M or W?
“I know a girl who tattoo’d a Wu-Tang ‘W’ on her upper thigh. Only after she finished and looked in the mirror did she realize that she had done it so that she could see the W but to everyone else it looks like an M.”
It Is What it Is!
“The guy that does my tattoos said a drunk man came in and asked for an anatomically correct vagina on his butt cheek, with the words ‘Hot P–sy, Cold Beer’ above and below it. The shop doesn’t usually allow drunk people but it was slow, and my artist was like ‘why not’, so he did it. When he was finished, the drunk man was so moved by it, he wanted ANOTHER anatomically correct vagina, on the other cheek. Above that one, he wanted the words, ‘It is what it is.’ He paid and tipped him, and my artist never saw him again.”
Autograph Session
“Last year, while doing a guest spot in Portugal, I had a guy come in while he was on holiday for his stag party. The guy wanted all the names of his friends tattooed on his a– cheeks. 13 names on each cheek, and 3 of his mates wanted to sign their own names… sure buddy… sure hahahaha”
Red Rocket
“Guy came into the shop I work at wanting a coverup of a previous regrettable tattoo. Pretty normal until he casually mentioned it’s on his d–k, and it’s a red rocket. None of the dudes in the shop wanted to cover it up or even see it, only person who stepped up was one of the female artists. She was like, ‘I don’t think I have a d–k tattoo for my portfolio, so f–k it, lets cover it up’. The only possible way to cover it up was the add so much black work, so she freehand drew a tuxedo onto his shlong. Dude ended up with a dapper d–k and he was happy with it. Weirdest day at work ever.”
Wowww
“I worked in prison and had to document the scars and tattoos on all new inmates coming into the prison. One guy had the words ‘Slippery When Wet’ tattooed around his a–hole.”
Visible From 10 Feet
“I tattooed F–K on a woman’s hip. She still loves it, but it makes me really uncomfortable when I think about her at the beach. I also had a friend want me to tattoo his girlfriend’s name in old English on his arm. I said no girlfriends. He was mad, because I was his friend and should do it. I said that’s exactly WHY I wouldn’t do it. If they don’t last, I’m still his friend. It’s incredibly hard to tell someone you won’t do their tattoo, because their relationship might not last. Newsflash: he got our competitor to do the tattoo. Breaking News: they aren’t together anymore. Another guy, when I first started out, wanted to get the Nazi Hunter image. It’s a cartoon guy clubbing a swastika. Even though it’s an anti racism image, he still would have looked like he had a giant swastika on his chest from 10 feet away and would spend the rest of his life explaining it. I decided to not do the tattoo.”
Chinese Word For Soup
“Well, my friend recently got ?, the Chinese word for soup, tattooed on his ankle. He’d been planning it for like 3 years. he reportedly did his research to make sure they didn’t tattoo ‘truth or beauty or some other bullsh-t’. He didn’t get this from the big bang theory. He first proposed this idea like 3 years ago, idk when the big bang theory did it but i can guarantee you neither of us have watched an episode.”
Born To Be Wild
“My two best friends got Born to ‘Be To Be Wild’ in Black with Red Flames right above their johnsons. Now since they are hardly ever professional vag punishers, their pubes just mask it. But in college they would trim and use it as a party trick. It worked, lots of girls wanted to see it, maybe like 3 or 4 BJs came from it with the aid of some Distilled Potato Water. But I told the story goes of them getting it done: The 2 dudes, with cleanly shaven pubes, getting ‘Born To Be Wild’ above their d–ks…and their Artist says ‘I recommend ‘Bad To The Bone’ It’s Funnier'”.
Prison Pen Pal
“I actually refused to do this one– an 18 year old girl came in wanting her boyfriends name on her lower back. She had never met him–she was his prison pen pal for a month, and he was being released in a couple weeks and she wanted to get it to surprise him. No judgements on ex-cons or 18 year old girls, but I got the impression the relationship wasn’t going to last!”
The Goat
“A man came in to the shop my husband works at on his 18th birthday and got a pentagram with a goat on the front of his throat. First tattoo in a very visible spot that is satanic. I don’t know that kid but I’m pretty sure he’s regretting that decision. My husband refused to do this tattoo but someone else in the shop did. On another note my white trash biological father had ‘let’s f–k’ tattooed on his hands when he laced his finger together. I never knew what they said when I was a kid. I finally realized at his funeral. I’m pretty sure he got it in prison.”
OMGGGG
“I’ve had 3 tattooist’s ask me ‘Are you sure?’ All because of the same tattoo. Long story short, I lost a bet, ended up with a penis on a surf board tattooed to my a–. Well it turns out this is a great conversation starter and always gets a giggle from everyone who sees it. But the tattoo itself isn’t great, so I’d like to tidy it up and make it look better/less scratchy.
Every single tattooist I’ve asked has looked at me like I’m crazy. One went as far as to tell me a young woman should not have surfing genitalia on her butt.”
My Little Pony
“I know this guy who tattooed a ‘cutie mark’ on a guy’s a–. A cutie mark is the marking the ponies have on their rear in the My Little Pony series.”
Angel Getting Her Wings
“Friend wanted angel wings tattooed on her back and asked me to go since I was the only person she knew with tattoos. We walk into a pretty well known tattoo shop in LA and she explains to the artist what she wants. As she explains it gets even more elaborate with the wings starting to decay the farther down her back they went and the artist shows us some pretty sweet wings he’d done before. He explains how it will be done, he’d do the outline first and after a few weeks she could come back and he’s start the detail work. Fast forward to 3 days later and she’s topless lying on his chair/bed? and he’s laying a stencil down. He asks her what other tattoos she has besides this one and she tells him that this will be her first one, tattoo guys face drops instantly and he starts saying how he’s going to end up tattooing some of the most painful parts you could tattoo( the ribs mostly) and he asks if she can handle it. She says yes and after a little more talking it happened. She cannot take the pain at all, she’s crying and griping the cushion like she’s about to die. Artist looks at me and his face reads like (is she really going to do this the entire time?) after half an hour of tattooing with the occasional break he says he can’t deal with her screaming in the shop so he stops. He had probably 10% of the outline done on the right wing. We leave with another appointment set so another person could re help her with the tattoo and make it something smaller. I didn’t go back but she went with 2 female friends and from what I heard was another 10 minutes of tattooing she had a nice wave outline on her back.”
Too Cliche
“Was in booking a tattoo one day and a woman came in to buy her soon to be 16yo daughter a tattoo. Owner and tattooist says ‘sure we can sort something out, what is she wanting’ mother says ‘she wants to get the playboy bunny on the inside of her wrist’ artist refused and said ‘I don’t want to be responsible for something so cliche and visible on such a young girl’. There was an argument, but the woman leaves yelling she is going elsewhere where her money is good enough. He had strong views on neck, face and hand tattoos. Didn’t stop him from doing a fast food character orgy on a guys back though!”
He’s Definitely Regretting It
“Mate had to tattoo a picture of Bill Cosby to a dude’s back in the mid 2000’s…. poor guy probably regrets that now…”
She’s Definitely Regretting It
“Some guy came in and told me he wanted a picture of Monica Lewinsky on his lower stomach — I swear to god that guy is regretting it rn”
Duck Face Selfie
“Dude came in and asked me to tattoo a portrait of his girlfriend. Only the portrait was a duck face snapchat selfie. I jokingly suggested adding her holding the phone, taking the selfie, but he thought it was a great idea. They’ve only been dating 6 months and he didn’t tell her he was going to get it. He came back a month later to add her name above it.”
Punny
“I know a girl with a camel tattooed on one of her toes – it’s only an outline and it’s hidden most of the time, but I do wonder what motivated her to have a tattoo with the theme of ‘camel toe’.”
Australian Tattoos
“Definitely had many of these. One really great penis related one recently. I work at vic market tattoo in Melbourne. If you know the area, you’d know its one of the older Melbourne tattoo shops, with that history comes a lot of older customers who ramble on about their experience of getting tattooed here over twenty years ago, which is why they inevitably come back. This older gent (easily in his 80s) comes to the front desk, and points me out from way down the back of the shop ‘I want to talk to that guy!’ Confused, I meander up to the the front to be met with a blush of embarrassment. He stumbles into his request. ‘Now I’m not here to offend you, or to make light of the wonderful work you do, but I do have a strange ask for you’ he states. Here’s where it gets weird, and i really feel like he could have led with sentence better than ‘so, I was watching this young chap take a piss the other day, and he had just the most beautiful bee tattooed on the head of his penis, and I wanted to request to have the exact same bee tattooed on my penis’ slightly taken aback and slightly amused, I tell him that we can definitely do that, but that there are extra costs involved. Once i told him the price, he almost fell over, didn’t respond and mumbled his way out of the shop. Never will I forget ‘I was just watching this young chap take a piss'”
There’s No Place Like Home
“Not an artist but a receptionist at a shop. I have a couple of stories here. I’ve only been working at this place for a few months, but wow we have some stories. Most recent, a woman called up and inquired about getting her vaginal area tattooed. Tentacles. She wanted tentacles coming out of her vagina and was wondering if any of our artists would be willing to do it. The kicker was that she didn’t have a vagina yet, she was having her surgery in a few weeks and wanted to spruce it up after it was healed. Second, we always get drunk people come in, and instead of saying no I just say that we don’t have artists available for walk ins. Boring day, nobody had appointments, and this homeless guy walks in. Wants ‘be nice to animals, drain my lizard’. On his arm. Says right away he wants it to get attention. And he wanted ‘be nice to animals suck my d–k’ but didn’t want it as vulgar. Third, this guy comes in the other day later in my shift, and wants Dorthy from the Wizard of Oz tattooed on his a– and lower back. Drunk as f–k. He came in during a rush too so our artist who works in the front got him to leave so I could work on piercings. Bonus story, some poor 18 year old lost a bet and had to get tweety bird smoking a cigarette on his bum. We did it. In all good fun of course.”
Orange Face
“An artist at the local tattoo parlor I go to tattooed a guys ballsack all orange with an scary face on it. The guy referred to it as a sack-o-lantern.”
Your Name Here
“Another tattoo I documented in prison was on a guy’s d–k. It read: ‘YOUR NAME’. I told him I thought that was weird because #1, it must have hurt like hell and #2, some big burly biker dude tattoo artist had to hold your pecker in his hands while he did the work. Inmate told me it wasn’t too bad and he had made a lot of money from it. He said that anytime he was broke, he would just go up to someone he had never seen at a bar and make them the bet that I know we’ve never met, but I’ll bet you $50 I’ve got your name tattooed on my d–k. Since the mark didn’t know the guy he would figure that was a sure bet. Into the bathroom they would go and the guy would show him his d–k and collect his winnings. Don’t know if he was telling the truth, but its a good story.”
Awkward Client
“I’ve told this story before but why not. Guy comes in with girlfriend, want each other’s names, I protest, they insist. We know they’ll get it elsewhere and I’m in a walk-in shop at the time so I say f–k it lets go. Get’s it across his stomach in old English, the moment we’re done she yells some like: ‘next time you’ll think twice before f–king some skanky a– b–ch behind my back!” And runs away. It was awkward to ask for the money….”
The Blue Speedo
“Asked my artist (25+ years experience) this during my last piece. His most notable was a guy who wanted a solid bright blue ‘speedo’ tattooed on. Over every square inch that a speedo would cover. Said it was super awkward as it was one of his first tattoos but he made good money off of it. Nothing has really fazed him since.”