Tattoo disaster. Please give your advice how to fix it.

I need a help with small disaster on my chest.
For couple years I was thinking to cover the old scar that I have on chest. I have this scar since childhood when I split the boiling water on my chest...


I wanted to have a tattoo that would cover the scar and at the same time will be neutral (abstract pattern, or flowers).


I went to the studio that is over 15yrs on the market so I was confident that they won't 'break it'


After few suggestions from the 'artist' we decided to do related to this attached pic.


After first session I'm completely disappointed and depressed.
The effects you can see below.


The 'artist' said that this is good tattoo and 'I should KNOW that it won't be perfect on my skin' ...if he told me that before he selected the final pattern with me ...I would definitely decide for something else.


I ran away from this studio and I'm lost now. I don't know how to fix it. What 'new' pattern could be good here. What to do to have something pretty not horrible like this.


For the whole my life I was hidding the scar, and right now I have to hide the tattoo.


Please give me some ideas, suggestions how I could fix it.

Here’s something to think about …. Experience and longevity.

Experience is not always a guarantee of competence, some people do something badly for a long time, often thinking it’s good, without truly assessing the quality. I’ve seen tattooers two years in completely kick the butts of old dogs with 20-30 years under their belts.

A tattoo shop can be open a long time (longevity) but that does not mean it has kept the same tattooers all this time. If it’s tattooer owned then probably that one person has been there all the time, but what about the others?

I say this as (IMO) this is a poor tattoo, irrespective of your scar tissue. There are many blow outs and inconsistent lines and I don’t thank many tattooers would say this is good work. I accept it’s not finished and it could probably be rescued with some intelligent black fill and shading, used to mask the blowouts and shaky lines by effectively creating new line edges.

When choosing a tattooer the golden rule has to be that you see ‘their work’, preferably in real life and healed…and more than one piece. I’m often amazed at how some local tattooers in my area post absolute garbage and still get clients….maybe its about price.

Apologies for going off topic slightly but you made the point about ‘this’ tattooer being in a shop of 15 years, and what we naturally infer from that is difficult to appreciate here.

I do think this is fixable as I’ve suggested above, and you will need to go careful over your scar tissue. If the skin is very delicate you can build black up over time with dotwork, which is far less traumatic per session.

Good luck with it and I hope you are able to post a great rescue job in the future.

At the moment it doesnt look good, but it isn't finished by a long way....talk to the tattooist, tell him/her your concerns, ask them what their plan is for the tattoo. As Whippet has said, the lines can be fixed and I'm assuming that there is going to be a lot of black in the tattoo, shaky lines and blowouts can be corrected when the solid black is done.....It's always difficult when a tattoo isn't finished and you're not liking it, going to another tattooist sometimes isn't the answer, they might say that they won't finish another tattooists work, so the best bet is to go back to who did it and talk to them.....I'm hoping to see a photo of the completed tattoo in the future, good luck.

Thank you for all these nice words.


I spoke with tattooist. Unfortunately I couldn't get information how he sees the final project. He wants to work creating the pattern 'on live'... I can't agree for that so I decided to find a tattooist that have experience working in scars and would be able to tell me what we get at the end...

Currently the tattoo lines are completely different what we planned to do, so I don't even have any idea how it could look at the end based on his plans.



Next plans.

I want to upgare the current tattoo. Adding solid colours and shadows.

I want to check other possibilities and maybe do some cover up.

what do you think. Do these lines set a lot of limitation to create something different? Eg something realistic/nature?


I will share the final project here, of course.


Best wishes for the new year!!!

To give you an idea (not my work):


The trick is to choose the tattoo very carefully, this just cannot be done "while at it".

adamru said:

Thank you for all these nice words.


I spoke with tattooist. Unfortunately I couldn't get information how he sees the final project. He wants to work creating the pattern 'on live'... I can't agree for that so I decided to find a tattooist that have experience working in scars and would be able to tell me what we get at the end...

Currently the tattoo lines are completely different what we planned to do, so I don't even have any idea how it could look at the end based on his plans.



Next plans.

I want to upgare the current tattoo. Adding solid colours and shadows.

I want to check other possibilities and maybe do some cover up.

what do you think. Do these lines set a lot of limitation to create something different? Eg something realistic/nature?


I will share the final project here, of course.


Best wishes for the new year!!!

Click to expand...

That really sucks that happened. I’ve heard a lot of horror stories with tattoo artist. I’ve had a couple bad ones myself before I started tattooing. when I was really young I had Gotten some bad ones only to have an artist about 10 years later go over some stuff and completely cover my entire right arm. I had blow outs and shaky lines and all kinds of stuff just like your tattoo does. the person stated before that a good tattooist can fix that with shading and that is definitely correct. there’s a lot of good tattooist out there , like the person said before that replied to you, you really have to take a good look at all their work and hopefully you can see someone who has had tattoos by them like they said that’s the best bet. they gave you really good advice on that. But do t Don’t trip potato chip you’ll get it fixed. There’s a lot of tattoo artist out there that actually like fixing other people stuff. There’s also a lot that won’t touch it like they said, but again there is that possibly. Go on the hunt for people who specialize in coverups.

adamru said:

I need a help with small disaster on my chest.
For couple years I was thinking to cover the old scar that I have on chest. I have this scar since childhood when I split the boiling water on my chest...


I wanted to have a tattoo that would cover the scar and at the same time will be neutral (abstract pattern, or flowers).


I went to the studio that is over 15yrs on the market so I was confident that they won't 'break it'


After few suggestions from the 'artist' we decided to do related to this attached pic.


After first session I'm completely disappointed and depressed.
The effects you can see below.


The 'artist' said that this is good tattoo and 'I should KNOW that it won't be perfect on my skin' ...if he told me that before he selected the final pattern with me ...I would definitely decide for something else.


I ran away from this studio and I'm lost now. I don't know how to fix it. What 'new' pattern could be good here. What to do to have something pretty not horrible like this.


For the whole my life I was hidding the scar, and right now I have to hide the tattoo.


Please give me some ideas, suggestions how I could fix it.

Click to expand...

Thanks for your comment about tattoo.

adamru said:

Thank you for all these nice words.


I spoke with tattooist. Unfortunately I couldn't get information how he sees the final project. He wants to work creating the pattern 'on live'... I can't agree for that so I decided to find a tattooist that have experience working in scars and would be able to tell me what we get at the end...

Currently the tattoo lines are completely different what we planned to do, so I don't even have any idea how it could look at the end based on his plans.



Next plans.

I want to upgare the current tattoo. Adding solid colours and shadows.

I want to check other possibilities and maybe do some cover up.

what do you think. Do these lines set a lot of limitation to create something different? Eg something realistic/nature?


I will share the final project here, of course.


Best wishes for the new year!!!

Click to expand...

I can fix that for you mate

I'm so sorry this happened to you. That absolutely sucks.
I know that a lot has already been said in this thread, but adding my 2 cents, for future reference - it's always good to do in-depth research before choosing an artist. Insta is always a good place to start, and I've also seen websites popping up where they recommend artists by location.

I'm sure you'll get this piece fixed and have a way better experience than you had with the original artist.

MoshMaz said:

. Insta is always a good place to start,

Click to expand...

Hmmm…be careful on this.

yes you can access many artists (local or otherwise) on Instagram, but you may not always see what you need to see.

First thing, images on Insta can and often edited. This can range from colour balance or contrast enhancements, right through to editing out imperfections in a tattoo, or even ‘drawing’ parts in…some artists are well known for giving false impressions of their work.

Second thing, and more important, you should always try to see work in the flesh (see above) AND healed. Very few (as a %) of artists on instagram will show their healed work. Your tattoo will heal, so for the rest of your life it will look like the healed version, not the fresh one…that has to be your benchmark.

whippet said:

Hmmm…be careful on this.

yes you can access many artists (local or otherwise) on Instagram, but you may not always see what you need to see.

First thing, images on Insta can and often edited. This can range from colour balance or contrast enhancements, right through to editing out imperfections in a tattoo, or even ‘drawing’ parts in…some artists are well known for giving false impressions of their work.

Second thing, and more important, you should always try to see work in the flesh (see above) AND healed. Very few (as a %) of artists on instagram will show their healed work. Your tattoo will heal, so for the rest of your life it will look like the healed version, not the fresh one…that has to be your benchmark.

Click to expand...

Absolutely true.

In 2011 I had a tattoo done by a Columbian artist that worked at a reputable tattoo shop. Excellent work, perfectly executed, I still have it.

Two years later I went for a second tattoo to the same shop. The artist had left but the owner (who's supposed to have knowledge and experience, since he opened the shop) did the requested tattoo. The result was absolutely horrible. It looked like he used a 5 or 7RL for lines that should have been done with a 3RL at most. Some five years later because of that disaster I started with Laser Tattoo Removal and in fact did remove it. Since then I started tattooing myself and when I had enough experience I actually redid the tattoo in the way it was originally intended to be.

So you see, even with a reputable shop that was active for years (I don't know if it still exists because obviously I'm not interested anymore) where you may have had a good experience, there's no guarantee it will always be like that.