I (29M) have a word tattoos my right forearm that I wanted covered up. It’s about four lines of text that is dark in some areas and fading in others 6”x5”. The tattoo is about 10 years old. I went to a tattoo artist, “K”, to inquire about a cover up. The reason I choose K is that my wife and I have gone to his apprentice for years and love all of her work but she doesn’t do cover ups. We figured the person that mentored her would be just as good if not better. Plus K has done pretty cool tattoos in the past. My initial consult for the cover up for January 21st. I told K that I was looking for a dark Viking/Nordic and/or nature inspired tattoo but I was also open to anything else he could come up with (as I know coverups are not straight forward) as long as I liked the design. I told him I wanted the tattoo in a February/march times line but I was also open so no rush. K had also just purchased the Tattoo shop he worked at so I knew he would be busy and I could understand that.
Months went by without anymore communication from K until I reached out on march 16th asking for an update. He explained that he had been busy with the shop and the Friday the 13th sale but he would look through his sketches. Then he lost the consult form and asked for it from me explaining “I have 60 client sketches at the moment”. I told him I understood and know worries. I understood that he was busy. I reached out again on April 15th asking for an update when he finally sent me the first draft. (Image 1). I was not in love with the design as it had none of the elements I asked for. I explained what I didn’t like and sent him more references of dark Nordic tattoos what I liked for inspiration. He responded that he didn’t know if anything like that would work as a cover up. I sent him his original design back with additions I made in canva as more importation. I just placed them on top as I am not an artist and was just trying to get an idea to him. April 16th he told be he was working on something. On April 22nd I reached out again with no response. On April 29th he reached out again asking for the canva pic I sent him and I got his latest design on may 1st (image 3). The design was clearly AI and didn’t even try and fix and of the over lap.
At this point I no longer wanted a tattoo from him and sent him this text “Thanks for getting this back to me. I think our visions for this design are mismatched and I’ve decided to take it in a different direction. I’m happy to continue supporting you and McKenna on other projects I’m envisioning in the future. That being said, can you please refund my deposit? I’ll be sure to reach out to the shop if there are other designs I think we could better collaborate on 😊” he responded very aggressively and unprofessionally apparently not understanding why I was dropping him as an artist and that I would not be getting my deposit back. So I sent him a very long text explaining why. K responded that I am no longer welcome in his shop.
Am I the asshole for not wanting an AI tattoo and wanting my deposit back?