07/05/2026
The previous post got a lot of attention from both artists and clients, so I want to come back and clarify a few points that came up in the discussion.
⭕️“I don’t need the artist’s opinion if AI can create exactly what I imagined.”
You absolutely have the right to want exactly what you imagine. And there will always be artists who don’t really care what they’re tattooing—their job is simply to put the design on your skin.
But not every tattoo artist works that way. Experienced artists are usually more ambitious. We want to create the best possible tattoo, not just copy an image. The reality is that a client’s vision is often far from what will actually make a strong tattoo.
That’s exactly why informed clients are willing to pay for our experience, artistic judgment, and understanding of all the details that make a tattoo work.
⭕️“Tattoo artists use AI too.”
Absolutely. I’m not saying AI is bad. It’s an incredible technological tool, and we use it too—but in a very different way.
AI is a complex tool that takes practice to use well. A simple prompt like “make me a lion tattoo design” won’t produce a good tattoo design.
We mainly use AI to generate REFERENCE images when we can’t find the right references for a very specific or overused idea. Those references then help us create a custom design by hand. In many tattoo styles, artists still have to draw the entire design from scratch.
⭕️“AI is a great tool for clients to show their idea.”
This is connected to the previous point.
Because most clients use very simple prompts, AI often produces images that look impressive but don’t actually work as tattoos. The client starts expecting a tattoo that matches that AI image as closely as possible.
The problem is that AI never tells you that the composition, details, flow, or anatomy won’t translate well onto the human body. After spending hours generating images, it’s frustrating to hear that much of it needs to be redesigned.
