Tattoo Artist Red Flags: What to Avoid

Picking a tattoo artist is one of the largest decisions you have to make when getting tattooed. A good one produces work you’re happy to sport for the rest of your life, and a bad one might leave you regretful of your work, with medical worries and cover-up or removal costs thrown in. The difficulty is that red flags aren’t always glaring, especially if it’s your first tattoo and you haven’t yet developed a sense for what’s okay and what’s off in a professional tattoo studio.

In this article, we’ll explain some of the red flags you should look out for, to help you determine if a tattoo artist is a professional you can trust, or if they’re someone you’d be better off avoiding. In this guide, we’ll be going over warning signs ranging from hygiene violations and misleading portfolios, to price gouging and lack of communication. If you don’t know anything about this, be sure to look at the next article in this guide, Tattoo Etiquette.

Hygiene and Safety Red Flags That Risk Your Health

When it comes to hygiene, it needs to look more like a medical office than a cool space. Red flags are if the artist is not wearing gloves, does not put on a new glove with every tattoo, needles are not opened from sealed packages in front of you, surfaces are not clean and disinfected between sessions, no autoclave is present and/or the workspace has stained or cluttered surfaces. If any of those are true, just leave!

Ask them how they sterilize their equipment. Good tattoo artists will be happy to discuss this. Ask them if they've seen their autoclave spore test. Ask if the studio is licensed by their local health department. Most countries require tattooing studios to be licensed. If they don't have their licensing clearly posted, don't get tattooed. Sometimes artists have studio space in their own houses. This is not always bad, and sometimes very good artists work in these places. But it makes the chance of an infection due to cross-contamination (contaminated ink cups, unclean equipment, razor cartridges used on several people, for instance) higher than at a licensed facility.

Portfolio Warning Signs Most Clients Miss

An artist's portfolio is their resume, but clients often don't know how to read these documents critically. One thing you want to look for is consistency. A good portfolio will exhibit the same style and skill level across dozens of individual pieces. If the quality fluctuates wildly between each photograph, it might be that the artist has other work included in their portfolio, but most importantly it shows inconsistent technique and, in turn, inconsistent results. Another thing you want to ask for is to see healed tattoo photographs. Tattoos always look better when fresh than when healed, and the initial swelling and the saturation of the ink can mask imperfections that won't stay that way once the tattoo settles and the swelling subsides. An artist who won't show you anything but fresh tattoo work could be covering for a weak, unsteady line-work, or perhaps patchy shading that is only visible on healed work.

Beware of portfolios where the photos look like heavy filters/overedited, there are no close-ups of lines or details, they only show pieces that look copied/trace-y, there are no examples of a certain style you are looking for (i.e. they could be amazing realism, but you want fine line work and they have none). Tattooing is all about specialization in a certain style, and a reverse image search can reveal if they have even posted anything else online. It happens all the time. I have seen people get ripped off on social media or on booking apps where they didn't vet the artist properly.

Pricing Red Flags: When Cheap Costs More

If an artist won't give you a ballpark number before your appointment or if a shop charges significantly less than the rest in the area, consider that a major red flag. Likewise, if the artist is pushy about making the tattoos you want bigger and/or more expensive, be wary. In almost all cases, extremely cheap tattoos aren't because the artist is being generous; they've cut corners somewhere along the line, maybe with the quality of ink or needles used, the shop's sterilization process, or simply the artist's experience. A tattoo price estimator can tell you what the going rate is for tattoos so you can determine the outliers (on either side of the scale).

The good news, on the other hand, is that the best artists aren't the most expensive. Some tattooists will demand premium prices for being famous on social media. It is important to make sure you go to someone with high quality of work, good experience, and price tags in line with these things and the general average for your area. Also be wary of people asking for 100 percent payment before you ever have anything to do with their tattooing. Usually artists will ask for some kind of deposit (10-30%) to secure your booking and will charge the rest after the tattoo session is complete. Someone asking for 100% before any tattooing is actually happening is definitely a red flag. See our article about how much tattoos actually cost to get some great ideas about the pricing dynamics of tattoo art.

Communication Red Flags Before and During Sessions

The manner in which an artist talks can say a lot about how they work. A few things to look out for during your appointment before you book: the artist never answers your messages back in a timely manner without explanation, the artist rejects your design ideas with no counter suggestions, the artist seems offended or defensive when you ask about the process, or the artist is in a rush to get you booking right now without giving you any time to think it through. It’s normal to feel confident and excited, but it’s also fine to be able to ask questions because a solid artist will not mind at all if you do. If the artist becomes combative about pricing, process or design, they will likely prove difficult to work with on the day.

If your artist isn't sticking to the agreed upon design/stencil in a major way without bringing it to your attention, or if they're rushing your work so they can fit in extra appointments, or if they aren't paying attention to your session, or if you ask them to take a break and they won't, or if you look at your new art and they won't let you look at it, you want to make sure this is a problem. You want an artist to check in with you on a piece throughout and work it so that it matches your vision. You don't want an artist who treats it as a one way street and your thoughts and feelings don't matter, because that artist will not create art that is what you want/expect.

How to Verify an Artist Before You Book

The only way to make sure you’re not stepping into a red flag situation is to check up on that shop and that artist beforehand. Go onto Google and read the reviews on the tattoo shop. Go onto Instagram and read the comments below the posts. Read reviews from forums for people who have gotten tattoos with that artist. Are there recurring themes in negative reviews? If that artist claims they have been tattooing for ten years, but they only recently started posting their work on social media, they are either lying, or they haven’t really been tattooing for ten years at all. Is the shop properly licensed by asking the local health department to check? Stop by the shop and speak to the artists in person before you book an appointment to see how clean and professional it is.

Tech tools can help you vet artists as well. Try AR tattoo apps to get a preview of a design before committing to an artist's interpretation, comparing that against the artist's style to see if it works for you. If you are vetting an artist on a verified platform with licensing requirements, it's safer because you have to upload a portfolio. Also, do not be afraid to ask for a consultation. At a minimum, have conversations with 2 to 3 tattoo artists and make your decision based on that. Seeing how different tattoo artists respond to your project will give you an idea of quality that isn't reflected in their work. Taking your time to vet artists can help prevent expensive fixes down the road.