Id love to have a tracker on my home screen. I did some research for a short time looking for one last night but couldn't find one that was both free AND had a widget - any suggestions? Starting 16-8 today!
Steadily sober after 20 years substance abuse. Stable (enough) income. Working in and pursuing my dream career. I feel incredibly fortunate to feel this way AND to feel like more good things are to come. I'm so grateful 💚
Celery and Skippy super chunk peanut butter, a whole green apple, and cabbage+chickpea green goddess salad with feta and fancy balsamic 🌿
I quoted a client of mine $300 for a tattoo we started the day before yesterday (my hourly is $100/hr, I estimated the whole thing to take 3). Very difficult skin to tattoo, I deduced that she had hyper mobility (and she later told me she has eczema) based on how resistant her skin was to saturating. It was like trying to tattoo straight rubber. Just took my time, it took the three hours to fully complete 1/2 of the tattoo, and will probably take another three to finish it completely.
I have another client who is a larger bodied person, has a lot of stretchmarks, and came to me from another state. Quoted the piece according to size. Come to find out he has pretty intense dermatographia. Every time I'd even touch the needle to skin it would swell and puff excessively. I had to split the session after linework and after I started color because it was so extremely swollen that I couldn't tell what my sautation even looked like. Another tattoo that was more than double the estimated time.
I am by no means shaming this people! I'm fully understanding that as part of my job I'm going to run into situations like this. I choose to take my time to make it right, and I'd never charge a client *more* than what my quote for their piece is because of this.
That being said, I'm wondering - how do other artists feel/deal when this happens to you? If you know a client is going to have challenging skin, do you quote higher to protect your time? If you find out one does, do you change the quote mid-session? If a client has difficult skin, what techniques do you use or variables do you change to get you through the procedure?
TL:DR: Some clients have hard skin and it takes a lot longer to execute tattoos on them than expected. Does it affect the way you price a tattoo if you know a client's skin is challenging? Any tips to deal with difficult skin during an appointment?
Pizza rat (one of my recent tattoos) for visibility 🍕🐀