13+ Tattoos That Give New Meaning To The Phrase 'Think Before You Ink'

Brittany Rae
Unsplash

Good tattoos are absolutely delightful to look at. Bad tattoos, however... They're the same, actually. Who doesn't like a bad tattoo?

These tattoos are the worst of the worst, I have to tell you. Sometimes, it's no one's fault. Sometimes, it's the tattoo artist's fault. And sometimes, someone messed up by giving themselves a tattoo (yeah, that's in here). Let's go have fun.

This wasn't worth the price.

The price was a guitar, by the way. It was traded for this tattoo when the owner was 18. I truly thought it was a lotus flower at first, and then I just kept scrolling. Nope. Goku.

Get your head out of the gutter.

It's supposed to be the Eye of Sauron from Lord of the Rings. And the middle one is the Vitruvian Man, which is not what I saw when I first glanced at it. Oof.

This tattoo looks like it was done by an eighth grader.

Which works out perfectly, because it literally was. This incredible piece of art was a tattoo the owner gave to himself when he was a teenager. How did he get anywhere near tattoo supplies?

I swear my future *Star Trek* tattoo will not look like this.

This is so tragic. The Starfleet delta isn't supposed to be weirdly pointy in multiple areas. As one commenter on Reddit said:

"To boldly no."

That one sums this tattoo right up.

Apparently, the client literally asked for this.

I can't imagine being a tattoo artist and being asked to make a purposely bad tattoo. That might kill my soul a little, to be honest. Also, why do the Louis Vuitton pattern and skip the "LVs"? Ugh.

Expectation versus reality strikes again.

The drawings were pretty okay! But the tattoos? Oh boy. Why is the bat so many different colors? Why is the coffin rounded? Is that supposed to be a middle finger at the bottom left of the book?

Oh, I am afraid of this fox.

It looks like it dabbled in illegal substances and is ready to hunt me down and eat me. Tell me those eyes don't have murder in them, I dare you.

WHY.

Not only am I just entirely puzzled by the choice to get a COVID-19 tattoo, I'm also so disappointed in how uneven those letters are. If you're going to do something wrong, do it right.

With apologies to Metallica.

I have some questions. Did they just straight-up swap the head? Is that the client's head? If it is, do you think he was horrified about his weird teeth? I would be.

I'm sorry.

Can you imagine having this covering your entire back? For the rest of your life? This is going to take so much work to cover up. That is, if they choose to cover it up.

And that's on what? Karma.

"Some guy tried to copy my tattoo artist's work = nipple tattooed on his arm."

See, this is why you don't copy others. Now some guy has another dude's nipple tattooed on him forever.

Sorry to this baby.

I do take comfort in knowing that baby looks nothing like this tattoo, because WOW. Whoever did that owes their customer money. Also, the "BB Girl" is a hilarious touch.

This is actually so sad.

This was supposed to be a galaxy, but instead it looks like...I'm gonna say a zombie's brain? Maybe? I can't help but feel sorry for this woman. She probably spent so much money, and for what? Worms.

Don't worry, though — she's getting it covered up!

This one is such a bummer.

"I want to get this covered up. Got it on a whim and I just wish I didn't. I want to get a viking warrior wearing a helmet." It's kind of cool for what it is, I just wish I knew what it is.

Please let Marilyn rest.

Tattoos with teeth are pretty tricky, but this is just so far beyond tricky. Maybe we should just stop getting tattoos of Marilyn Monroe. We should agree to that as a human race.

I THINK these are supposed to be deer?

It's either deer, or some Italian greyhounds. Either way, they have weird little piggy ears. The most tragic part?

"According to the artist this is exactly what the customer wanted."

Brutal.

The artist removed the wrong "s."

Oh, I feel so bad for this person. The cover-up may have worked if it had been done properly, but they took the "s" off of "keeps" instead of "thats" for some reason. Oh boy.

Guys...what?

Why didn't they go with the concept? Why did they put a weird, alien cat in the middle? Are those Shrek ears? Why is the tongue out? And why can't I stop looking at it?

Why is this tiger crying?

First of all, you'd have to knock me out to tattoo my hand to that extent. Second of all, was it worth it? Were the weird, red-shaded teeth and the crying eyes worth it?

Uh...

How...and why...and just...how, once again. Her face is merged with the lion's face, and then her chin is the nose? And do not get me started on those eyelashes.

This sure is a face.

Dotted and stick-and-poke tattoos take some serious skill. Whoever did this didn't have any, to be clear. Maybe stick to pants through the summers from now on.

Spelling is hard.

One of my favorite bad tattoo genres is misspellings. So many things had to go wrong for a full-on typo to be tattooed on someone's body forever. It's a perfect storm of unfortunate events.

I sincerely hope this wasn't an attempt at a *Jurassic Park* tattoo.

Okay, where do we even start with this one? I can't tell if this design was intentional or if the artist was just seriously lacking in the talent department. I just have so many questions.

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