So female, 28 a couple months ago a tattoo artist from a shop that I frequent posted a Instagram story about a free full sleeve tattoo. He’s an artist looking up to build his portfolio.The post stated only requirements would be that he had full creative control on the on the topic chosen by me so I went with a Naruto sleeve. The next thing that entailed was a meeting with him and everything that I would like in the sleeve. Since it was a free tattoo, he did tell me that he was gonna take some time to do piece by piece. He ends up doing one character at a time on the sleeve. The first two sessions were free and then by the third session, he contacts me through Instagram and tells me that the following sessions was going to start being charged at $100 because of the time and the labor and all that. Although that was not the deal, I decided to go ahead and do that because we were already halfway through the sleeve. Also he was doing a great job too, so I understood that. In total, we’ve had 6 sessions and 4 have been charged $100. I understood the amount of detail that was required for these pieces so I thought that was fair. Fast forward today this morning. We talked about the last session and in this last session he told me that he was gonna have to charge me for the session because it’s been a lot of time and effort put in this piece and he needs to do it for his own stability and income. Which I was a little shocked by this because of the fact that he had already changed it up on me twice. He told me that the next session it was gonna be $800 for a final filler piece that he was gonna do on my on my upper arm. I told him that I stand on the fact that he’s already changed it a few times for me and that I am actually disappointed at this fact that he waited till the last session to tell me that he was going to charge me $800 that I was no way capable to afford that due to the fact that to begin with he had told me it was going to be free and I was already paying him 100,150 depending with tip. So am I the asshole for looking for another artist to continue the full sleeve he already started ??
NTA. Fell for the old “free sleeve” eh?
NTA. You fell for a scam. Even if it costs you the same amount to get out of this mess, better to give the money to a non-scummy artist than to continue to reward this clown.
NTA. He scammed you. I don’t care if it was because he badly missed calculated how doing a full sleeve would cost for him or if the whole thing was on purpose. He is still a scammer to change the deal.
NTA
Free sleeve means the whole thing is free. You don’t start charging in the middle of it. He should have stood by his word. I would also put a negative review on his Google page or Yelp. Show the email and the details where it was supposed to be Free.
Definitely! Which is why I was mad. I don’t want to have a fall out with the shop because I like the people there. But I definitely feel like it was fucked up of him to change it on me at the last minute. Especially since he’s been the one doing what he wants with the sleeve. I’ve had no input on what we do, again because I felt that was part of the deal.
The shop should be aware of what he did. Not sure why you’d have a fall out unless they scam too. If not, this ruins the reputation of the shop and they may want to ‘discuss’ it with him.
What’s crazy is he is the shop owners boyfriend. So I’m sure she’s aware.
Or he thinks he can get away with it because of their relationship. I’d want to know if a place I was trusting to do anything permanent to me was okay with this kind of thing
She definitely knows.
I wouldn’t trust anyone in that shop to do work on you.
Leave a detailed review and find someone to finish it.
Perfect example of bait and switch.
NTA
NTA. You basically got a discount with the first to sessions free. I don’t know if he was using the last session to make up the discount and get some money additional but he initially never mentioned that after the first two you’d then get charged and then came at you with a huge cost to finish it. It is business and I’d go elsewhere. No need to feel guilt; he doesn’t. Wonder if that was his plan all the time?
This is a type of fraud. NTA.
But I wouldn’t stay with the artist regardless. If you negotiate anything lower in cost, do you think the artist will do a good job?
When you find someone else, don’t tell them about this. Sometimes, there are issues of artist’s code (no legal meaning) where they won’t touch unfinished work if the issue is payment. And they’ll believe their own over you. And get the price plus work in writing from the new person.
Good luck!
Just don’t go back. It’s fine to find a new artist. This guy suckered you in with “free full sleeve”. I would not go back and I would not allow him to take pictures for his portfolio. NTA
He scammed you. Id walk. And I’d tell other people that is free tattoos werent free at all. He wanted $1200. NTA