Why I hate AI as a tattoo artist

 There are millions of beautiful tattoos in the world. There are millions more of beautiful images of birds, trees, flowers, and the universe around us. The rise in AI has made many people struggle to tell between what is real and what isn’t. Micro tattoos have further added to this by allowing people to believe you can tattoo something and have good results. News flash - just because you can doesn’t mean it will look good or the same within 6 months. I find it completely unethical all these artists willing to do micro work and take client money without explaining how poorly their design ages; but that’s a different rant. 

AI as a Tool

Back in the day if you wanted to see your tattoo on yourself we could spend an hour or two and photograph your body then superimpose it through photoshop and bend it or distort it to fit. It was novel but time consuming. Now you can simply put in the photos and prompt it to do it for you, almost to the point of perfection. It’s great if you’re not sure or you’re trying to see where you want to put something. You can also change colors easily if you’re not sure how you want to color a piece and create your own palettes from the images if you need them. 

Ai can also make impossible images happen. It can give you reference images for things that just aren’t possible in real life. As a tool AI does have useful applications. Want to know what your dog would look like in a space suit or how they’d look with flower glasses sipping tea? AI. While most of us as tattoo artists are capable of drawing these things having reference does help - within reason. I will give you below my most common problem when using AI as revenue, it’s awful. Almost every image that pulls up when googling “Wolf” these days is AI generated and they’re horrible. It takes me pages of searching and changing terms to find something that works because so much AI content is churned out. I spend 3x as long and then have to use the same images that every other tattoo artist has because there’s simply so little usable real references anymore.  So wrong with a couple of these barring the obvious - chihuahua paws? French fry teeth? Cross eyes? Well, if I google “real snarling wolf” I expect actual photos of wolves not this AI crap.

AI Tattoos

My biggest pet peeve however is AI tattoos and AI assisted tattoo photos. I don’t consider myself to be the best photographer when it comes to taking photos of my work. But it’s real and unfiltered and that’s what it looks like. Im not spending time smudging my shading to look smoother, nip and tucking lines that might have a slight wobble etc. It is what it is and frankly I feel like making those adjustments is lying to clients about their outcome and your skills. Now I don’t disagree with adjusting contrast or lighting, but when the white highlights glow like the lights of an outfield I think that’s giving you unrealistic expectations. 

The biggest problem I encounter is people sending me AI tattoos for quotes. They’re simply not tattooable, and it’s unreasonable of me to quote you knowing that the image isn’t going to look like that at all. Take these images below. They’re all AI. Some are harder to tell than others, but not one of these tattoos is real. 

The delicate ones are the bane of my existence right now. Some Korean artists like Sigak post line work only designs that are tiny and colorful. They’re real, but they’re also going to heal like trash and be cover ups in 1-3 years. The images shown are not real. Linework can’t physically be that thin, colors cannot actually glow off your skin and will never be darker than Black 2.0. It isn’t real. 

On top of that most people are going to be disappointed once you make it real because it won’t look like that. The delicate stuff isn’t actually solid when tattooed that thin, it fades almost immediately and will bleach out with the first sunburn. The contrasted black black will eventually end up a very dark blob that will be hard to cover. These are all awful executions in real life that ethically I can’t let you do. I want you to love that tattoo in 4 years, not tell me it’s a blob and you want to cover it. At least if you get someone else to do it when I say no I get the satisfaction when that happens of being told I was right. Being an older tattooed in this industry means I’ve seen things come and go, but this new era where people get their tattoos “for now” and not worry about what they’ll look like later is soul crushing because it says you don’t value your skin or my art. 

It goes without saying that tattoos are permanent, but at least if it’s done right you’ll still love it down the line.