I was excited to have Frankie do my tattoo because he seemed really good at doing colors and I liked his art style. However the experience I had with him was terrible and it led to me paying $290 (tip included) for a disappointing rendition of my dream tattoo that was way bigger than any tattoo I would ever have wanted on my body. I trusted him because this was my first tattoo and I didn't know what to expect, but looking back, there were numerous red flags.
The tattoo parlor has a policy where you sign a contract that says the design your artist brings you at the beginning of the tattoo session is the final design, and if you don't want to get it the way it is you forfeit your deposit.
This was especially problematic when my consultation with Frankie lasted less than five minutes, and consisted of him having me send him example photos and telling him the size I wanted, even though this was already information I had sent him through the website.
He either forgot the size I said I wanted or ignored it completely, and contradicted me when I asked him if we could size it down. I asked for a 2-3 inch tattoo and he had designed a version that covered a large portion of my calf. I ended up with a tattoo that was nearly four inches, and that was after me asking him to size it down twice. He told me if he made it any smaller he would have had to add significantly less detail "because of how tattoos work" but it's pretty clear to see that this tattoo is not very detailed at all, especially considering its size, and could have easily been scaled down. Honestly I would rather have gotten a much smaller, much more simple version that I could have gotten touched up later, but the contract combined with his attitude made me feel like having him simplify it more would be too much to ask for.
He also either overtly or accidentally lied to me about the size of my tattoo, telling me that his original design that covered most of my calf was about 3 and a half inches, which is clearly not the case considering I had him scale it down twice before getting my tattoo, which measures slightly larger than that. It was so large that I couldn't put in the position I wanted and have it easily be coverable by a sock, which was my main goal for the size and placement of this tattoo.
Overall, there was next to no communication throughout the whole tattoo process. Because of the tattoo parlor's policy, I felt incredibly uncomfortable expressing my dissatisfaction with the design, but was also afraid of losing my deposit. (I don't make enough money to let $50 go down the drain.) I was able to ask Frankie to make a few small edits, but he never asked me questions about what I wanted to change and kept printing new versions without telling me first or showing them to me. He seemed like he was in a rush and was more interested in getting it done than making sure it was something I felt good about. His attitude made me, as a first timer, feel like a significant amount of compromise was just part of getting tattooed, even though I was the person making a permanent change to my body.
However, most concerning of all were the aftercare instructions he gave me. After cleaning the tattoo and bandaging it with recovery derm, he told me to keep the bandage on for 3-5 days, and not to mess with it even though it will become filled with blood and excess ink. Upon further research I found out that this is absolutely not what you should do, and that the original bandage should be changed and the tattoo should be cleaned within 24 hours to avoid improper healing and infection. When I reached out to Frankie to tell him this after the fact, he doubled down, saying "That's not how we do it," and "If you would like to heal your tattoo that way you can."
I can't attest to the skill or communication levels of any artist besides Frankie, but if what he says is true and the entire tattoo studio recommends this same method of aftercare, I would go in with caution regardless of whether you care about the design or size of your tattoo. read more