YES he wants to know you should tell him what made you uneasy it might be really helpful to him.
I've spent the week poring over tattoo artists' instagram feeds, and one universal truth is: they all get a lot of smoke blown up their asses. Regardless of quality. I'm coming to the conclusion that over-inflated egos are the norm.
I guess Goop is influencing everybody.
Also I feel so bad saying so.
How's:
"The imperfections in some of your tattoos would bother me. I admire your designs, though."
Which is basically true. I could critique specific tattoos that gave me pause.
I think it's probably a favor to him to localize it in your evaluation of how his work looks rather than anything else about his service, because you thought he was fine and maybe very good in terms of the advice and the experience of dealing with him.
If you wanted to be gentle about it, you could phrase it in terms of having looked at a whole lot of his work on Instagram, and realizing that there was something consistent about his esthetic choices that you thought would produce results that wouldn't suit you. And that lets you off the hook for saying "Because you can't draw a straight line."
"I really liked your designs and service - I felt we had a good rapport. I'm uneasy about the execution - some minor imperfections on your other work you've done would bother me."
Is that better?
Also, if anyone wants to pore over instagram feeds, let me know. I'm back to setting up consultations and I suppose I'll have another year or so now to wait.
"When in the course of cutaneous events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the artistic bands which have connected them with another...."
Every year when summer starts I find myself started to see that young adults have so many tattoos. I guess I need to look at more partially-clothed young adults during the winter so I'm not surprised.
A friend's septuagenarian parents have just gotten matching tattoos - their first tattoos for both.
I think a good caption for nearly any tattoo is "Day drunk into the night."
Could you say something more specific and less qualitative than "imperfections"?
"These three imperfections right here."
A lot of his animals have a bumpiness that isn't there in his sketches, and I think it's because he's using a constant ink thickness instead of a finer line - he varies the heaviness more on paper than on skin. And some distortions - eyes not quite in the same plane, nose not quite straight, etc.
SOME PEOPLE HAVE NO SENSE OF PERSPECTIVE.
With any luck, he's a lurker, in which case: problem solved.
Is it possible to do as thin of a line on skin as you can on paper? I noticed that when I write grocery lists on paper instead of my hand, they're much easier to read.
OTOH, I don't press as hard as a tattoo needle would.
Yes, he wants to know. If it were a friend of yours (this part seems vague) I'd ask for more details or just suggest thinking harder about what he's like as a person, but given that he's a friend of a friend, it's not reasonable to be more solicitous than that. If he said that but doesn't really want to know, he has no one but himself to blame.
I think "Some of your animals are a bit bumpy, and some of the eyes aren't on the same plane" is way better than "Imperfection Detected *beeeepppp*"
In Beijing in the mid aughts, there used to be this traveling tattoo cart that would travel around nightclub and bar areas at night. That seemed like a great business plan for them, but also exceedingly unethical. Anyways, "getting a tattoo from the Beijing tattoo cart" became shorthand with with my friends for an exceptionally bad decision.
Ok, how about keeping it about my specific concerns about my tattoos?
"I'm very nervous about distortions in their faces, or that angles of the body lines might be off."
But I could go into specifics about his past work as well.
I think 20 is good advice. Be polite and very specific.
21: On the plus side, "Beijing Tattoo Cart Hepatitis" sounds better than "Hepatitis E" or whatever they're up to now.
I gave an honest answer:
Ok: I'm taking you at your word that you want an honest answer, so here goes:I really liked your ideas and the quick mock-up shading on the prototype cat. I also thought you were very professional and that you listened and took me seriously, and were thoughtful.
The problem: I'm very uneasy about the cats' faces being distorted, or the angles in their body lines being a little off. In some of your instagram work, there are small misalignments, like snout with eyes, for example.
If you did the purple-marker mark up on my body, I'm not sure I'd be able to identify that kind of problem in real time, but later it would bother me.
On the veldt, the prototype cat was a feared predator.
Thanks for helping me work this out, everyone!
Once upon a time, people believed the internet would save the world. But this is better.
I mean, apart from the Trump thing.
Now tell us we've all been really useful engines.
He wrote back a really thoughtful, generous response. I hate myself.
This is going to stay on your body forever. I think your decision and your respomse were both totally sppropriate!
If that was to me and my French fries, they might not stay for that long.
Well, I'm glad he seems to have been honest about wanting honest feedback. Not that I'm Mr. Big Tattoo Guy or anything, but just from having lots of tattoo artist friends, and acquaintances, and with a majority of my close friends having significant amounts of tattooing on their bodies, my impression is that the vast majority of tattooists would appreciate honest, constructive feedback more often. Keep in mind that tattooing is one of the more hellish customer service jobs -- they deal with A LOT of morons and assholes every day. So I would think hearing criticism from someone pleasant and articulate would be a huge breath of fresh air.
I have a random bleg as well for the Chinese speakers and Chinese grammar pedants who frequent this blog:
I have to write a paragraph summary of my dissertation progress in Chinese (!) for a granting agency, and I have a really stupid/minor question (well, among the million other questions). I want to write "this academic year..." "This" is normally zhe ge, but with year it is "jinnian". Academic year is xuenian. Would I write jin xuenian, since it's a year, or is jinnian enough of a set phrase that the addition of xue breaks it, and should I write "zhe ge xuenian"? If both are correct, which one is better for formal Chinese?
A Google search seems to imply that jin xuenian is used in HK and Taiwan, but zhege xuenian is used in the mainland?
My local authority says zhege xuenian, not jin xuenian.
OT: The Freedom Caucus is trying to make Congress stay after it's usual session if Congress can't fuck over America before August. That should make them some friends.
Who needs friends when you've got Freedom?
33, 35-37: thanks for the reassurance. This process is discouraging!
43 Here, have yet more reassurance. 33 is totally correct. You did the right thing.
39 comports with my instinct but I really don't know. I want to say that 学年 and 今年 are both set words, and that sticking 今 onto the former doesn't feel right, but Pleco gives 今冬 for "the coming winter", which I presume is what more like what you mean. Go figure.
I'm surprised mainland China doesn't have a one "this" policy.
33 is correct. Don't ask questions if you don't want answers.
"You" referring to tattoo guy.