Tattoo Consultations

Why do we insist on tattoo consultations and why you should be wary if your not offered one by other studios

Why do we insist on consultations?

Since we opened our doors we have insisted on getting our customers to pop into the shop for a ten minute consultation before they book a tattoo time. We’ve done this for peace of mind for the customer and for our artists. As stated in our previous post, this time gives the customer confidence in our shop, the artist and is a great time for them to check our our hygiene and health and safety (and the shops a really cool place to just hang out in anyway!).
Not just that but it also gives the customer peace of mind that the artist is the right one for them and can go away with confidence that their tattoo is going to look awesome.
These consultations also help our artists out a lot. We get a really great brief of what and where you want your tattoo and gives us ample time to go through with the customer any particular design ideas or references they have. We pride ourselves on trying to be as original as possible if that means drawing a completely bespoke design for you or making sure we pick the best image for you, the placement and size to give our customers a kick-ass tattoo.

Want to save money? Then have a tattoo consultation!

How am l saving money by spending more time at your studio than needed? Well the simple answer is that you could save £100 or more by spending ten minutes with your artist!
In old school shops you’ll be able to walk in, give your design to a tattooist and an hour later they will start tattooing you. Firstly, WHY ARE YOU WALKING INTO A SHOP AND GETTING TATTOOED STRAIGHT AWAY?! Have we not taught you better?!!!!
If you do go down this route the tattooist will most probably charge you for that hour that they spend stencilling your design and changing the size and so forth whilst your sat in a reception (if they have one, which is unlikely) or wandering around town and your gonna be paying for this! Once your back in and then they stick the stencil on, then that’s another 10 minutes before that has dried sufficiently and then they may spend another 15 minutes setting up if they haven’t already. Using an average cost of £65 per hour you may have just lost £100 and an hour and a half of your life before a tattoo machine goes near you!
Spending ten minutes at the studio at least a few days before hand will save you all of this (at our studio anyway!). Your design is already finalised or very close to before you enter the studio, we make sure that our artist has the time to setup before you arrive and the size and placement will also already be done so you can walk in, grab a coffee, fill out the consent form, five minutes later have a stencil on and ten minutes later be getting tattooed. We do not charge you for consultations or designs and so only charge you for the time you are getting tattooed and so should all shops this day and age. Do you want to be charged for your tattooist going out for a cigarette? No, me neither!

Making the most out of your tattoo consultation

So you’ve booked in for your consultation, now what? Well let’s try to make your ten minutes really efficient. Firstly get in touch with the studio first just to make sure there is nothing specific you should take with you be it a picture or an object etc. Make sure you take everything you need to help out your artist. All the pictures you have as reference including ones that may not be of the design you want but might be in the same style or you might really like the shading done or colouring in certain pictures/tattoos.
Be confident when talking to your artist. Do not let them completely change your mind. It is your body after all and they are technically your “employee” when your getting tattooed, so if there is something you don’t like then let them know.
Make sure your are 100% sure on where you want your tattoo. Your artist may suggest somewhere else as they can see it fitting better and so forth but if your definite about the placement then let them know.
Saying that do listen to your artist, they (hopefully) have many years experience of tattooing and will suggest changes and modifications to your design that may help the tattoo become more bad-ass or fit better in a certain place.
You should also keep your expectations low for when you can get your tattoo done. Our artists are mostly booked up two months in advance so if your going to a great artist they will probably not be able to tattoo you for a few weeks. This is especially true if your looking for a complete design i.e the artist has to draw the entire thing. Artists only have the same amount of time in the day as everyone else and they will probably be tattooing for 8 hours a day so they need time to complete designs especially bespoke pieces.
The one thing we suggest you not do is go into a consultation having no idea of what you want or what style of tattoo you want. If your leaving complete creative control to the artist then at least go in with a theme or tell them what tattoos they have done before that you really liked. There is no problem if your going in to get a whole sleeve to simply go in and say you want a chinese sleeve or music themed sleeve as this will give the artist an idea of what your looking for.
Finally the last thing you must remember is to take some money with you. Our shop and most others these days only take bookings once a deposit has been taken. If you want the next available date then make sure you have enough money with you to pay a deposit. If your unsure of how much this will be then give the studio a call before you go in and ask what the maximum deposit is so that your covered if you need a whole day or just a few hours.

We hope you have found our newest blog post an interesting read, leave a comment below if you have any questions and we will get back to you asap.
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