A Woman Made Her Husband Tattoo Her Name & IC Number On His Arm — & Other Bizarre Requests Local Tattoo Artists Have Received

Suffice to say, a tattoo artist’s job is a colourful one — and we’re not just talking about the works of art that they ink on clients. Sometimes they receive requests for bizarre designs, or worse, questionable tattoos that even the artists themselves feel compelled to dissuade their clients from making decisions they'll regret later on.

Sze (@sick_n_poke), from Wild Paw Tattoo Co, and Ian Damien (@iandamientattooer) of Feather Cloud Tattoo recently revealed the good, the bad, and the wild sides of their jobs on a recent Spill It! episode on You Got Watch’s YouTube channel.

Photo: YouTube screenshot

Like the time when Ian tattooed his friend’s penis. Yes, really. It all started when he was tattooing said friend’s arm, and they started joking about inking his privates.

Ian recalls: “He said, ‘Bro, I’d actually be pretty keen if you tattoo my dick’. I thought about it for a while, and we set a date. So for the first time in my life, I asked someone for a dick pic [laughs] — I used that as a reference to draw [the design] on.

“He turned up [on the day of the appointment] and then he just kind of just plopped it over and I held it and I was tattooing him. And the whole time we were just [chatting] like a normal tattoo session.”

Do you think either party is aroused when they’re tattooing a sensitive or private area, Sze asks in the video. “I can’t speak for everybody... But personally for me, absolutely not at all,” Ian replies.

Still, you’d be grossly mistaken if you think that tattoo artists will accede to any client request. Nope, there are times when tattoo artists decline or dissuade clients from getting questionable tats.

Sze remembers the time when a guy e-mailed her to set up an appointment on behalf of his girlfriend who had never gotten a tattoo before. “I have this thing about people not emailing me themselves, ’cos I’d rather talk to the person that’s getting tattooed,” she explains.

“The boyfriend emails in for her and says ‘My girlfriend wants a massive cross on her back’. I’m like, okay that’s quite normal — you’d think it’s those minimalist ones, just two lines. I opened the folder of reference images he sent and it looks like a gore folder, like it’s all bloody [pics] of Jesus. And it wasn’t ‘official imagery’, it was like people drew it out to look extra gory. I thought it was a bit disturbing,” says Sze, who turned down the tattoo request.

Meanwhile, Ian reveals that he once dissuaded a teenager from making a tattoo decision that he could regret in future.

“[There was a 19-year-old who came in] and he had a forehead tattoo that he wanted to cover up with [an even] bigger forehead tattoo,” he says.

“The thing is, his current forehead tattoo was kind of faded and [could be lasered off easily]… I managed to convince him not to blast over that small forehead tattoo with a full [tattoo]. I think a lifelong decision like that warrants a bit of thought. So he thought about it, and he didn’t come back, and I’m kind of thankful that he didn’t come back.”

But there are still bizarro requests that end up inked on the client’s body. Like the one time a woman made her husband tattoo her name and IC number on his arm. Say what?

“This lady comes in [to the studio], and she looks super angry, and she’s dragging her husband along. Husband has a damn shag face. I wasn’t the tattooer actually, but I was in the shop,” says Ian.

“She comes in and goes, ‘This is my husband, he’s going to get this tattoo done.’ She takes out her phone or notepad [to show the tattoo artist] and it says, ‘My loving wife. Name. NRIC.’ On his arm. First tattoo. Boom! It’s crazy!

“After they left, we were like, ‘What do you think happened?’”

Watch more episodes of Spill It at You Got Watch YouTube.
Main photo: Instagram/@iandamientattooer, @wildpawtattoo