The Dumbest Tattoos Canada’s Top Artists Have Been Asked to Ink

On the inside of my left forearm is a signature of a West LA battle rapper named Dumbfoundead. After seeing him live in Toronto and shooting the shit with him for a few minutes after the show, I asked him to sign his signature—which he writes as "DUMB" in a graffiti-esque style for short—on the appendage I stretched out before him. After telling him I was going to have it tattooed, he was a little bit apprehensive but obliged anyway after I assured him I wouldn't regret it. The next day, I showed up to a local tattoo parlor with half-faded marker on my arm.

Today, it's real black ink, and I only kind of regret it. It doesn't look particularly bad and I still genuinely believe Dumbfoundead's music is excellent, but in some strange way, I can't help but look at it and think I jumped the gun a bit. I mean, I do have the word "dumb" forever etched into me. With that said, it's what got me into tattoos and I can say with confidence that I'm truly satisfied with all of my other pieces since.

This is not the case for everybody, however, and there are a lot of straight-up shit tattoos out there. In fact, I'd go as far as saying there are entire cities I'd avoid for their tattoos. Some places just shouldn't be touched. From a poorly-drawn pink octopus on the neck of a high school friend, to the words "KUSH KING" on the forearm of a passerby in Hamilton, garbageman tattoos exist all across Canada. Curious about what kind of crazy-ass stuff tattoo artists must have seen during their careers, I asked five of the best artists I know from across Canada about their experiences tattooing anything people ask them to.

Editor's note: The following photos are these artists' good shit. Not surprisingly, artists don't want dumpsterfire-worthy tattoos to be shared with the world.

VICE: You specialize in black and grey realism, right? What's your favorite kind of piece to do on somebody?
Robin Labreche: I love tattooing women's faces. Portraiture, I mean. Not on women's faces. Something about the imagery is very beautiful by itself. I think what's more powerful to me is the reason people get them. Celebrities as inspirations are pretty popular, or even just for sentimentality is one way of looking at it. Another way is when people get stuff done for a relative or a friend who's in memory. It's an honor to work on that kind of idea. Not into gory stuff, though.

I'm guessing portraiture isn't a regular thing for most people. What do people generally come in to get? Anything trendy?
Oh yeah, lot's of people bring in the same reference images over and over again. Aside from basic stuff like infinity signs or one-word quotes—which I think all artists get incessantly—people are constantly bringing in pictures of the same sleeve that's been floating around social media for the past few weeks.

There's, like, five images that will blow up on Instagram or Tumblr [every few weeks] and those will bring in tons of people who want a specific sleeve copied. Once they start describing it, I can basically tell exactly what they're talking about before they show me the image. I don't know why people want the exact same thing other people have.

What's the craziest stuff you've been asked to do? You must've been asked to tattoo some weird shit.
Yeah. [Laughs] There's weird requests all the time, but I think what takes the cake was a girl who wanted me to tattoo butterfly wings around her vagina.

Did you do it?
It's pretty funny because I told her that while I was down to do it, she had to think about this being on her forever, not to mention the fact that getting such a large tattoo down there would be extremely painful due to how sensitive the area naturally is. Needless to say, she came in for a consultation and never came back.

If you had to sum it up, how would you describe your kind of tattoo?
Helena Darling: Well, being out in Nova Scotia, there's not enough people out here for us to really specialize in one style and be profitable. You have to kind of do it all, so most artists might have a preference out here, but still are able to fulfill any request. Someone might be good at black-and-grey traditional or color portrait work, but they probably can't do it all the time, simply because their client base isn't as large as in the rest of Canada.

For me, I really love doing color pieces that have strong line depth and really electric color palettes. Anything that's bright and zany.

What's your favorite request to get?
I really like when people ask to get their pet's portraits done on them because I love animals. Anything that's stylized with lots of color, but preferably cats because you can get so much depth in a cat's eye. I also like bunnies and shit like that. [Laughs]

When someone brings in a design to you, do you tend to see certain pieces or designs more regularly than others?
We get a lot of Sailor Jerry requests—which are traditional, old-style, sailor-sorta pieces—but like most major cities, a lot of people come in with pictures from Pintrest, or who want infinity symbols, "Live, Laugh, Love" scripts, the usual stuff. Oh, and lots of family crests. I don't think anybody's excited to do any of those, but most artist are generally really good at them due to pure repetition.

Do you ever get annoyed with dumb requests?
I think everybody does. A lot of people will come in and ask you to take your style and apply to something you don't want to do or won't work. I get a lot of people asking for tribal sleeves and celtic crosses, neither of which I'm good with or want to do.

Please tell me you been asked to tattoo some insanely dumb stuff.
I have a little story if you time to hear it.

I do. Please tell.
The weirdest request I've ever gotten was a guy who asked to get his penis tattooed. Thing was, he wasn't a regular client of mine, he was a client of my male co-worker, but he did not want my co-worker to touch his dick. It was the beginning of my career so I was going to take anything that came my way, and it ended up being kind of uncomfortable, I didn't really enjoy it. It was very awkward skin to work with and I didn't really know how to stretch it out to do the best job I could have done. I never did one after that and I'm not interested in doing anymore.

Is that it?
That's not the end. I got a call a while ago from a guy who said, "Hey, you did my penis tattoo a while ago and I want to get it fixed up." I just went on a fiery tangent on the phone. I was like, "Listen man, it's not really my job to touch your dick. I want to do art on people. I don't want to touch your genitals or have them in my face."

Every time he tried to talk to me, I kept cutting him off before he would begin and reiterated my stance. I brought up that I had a fiancé and that this was not going to work. He then paused for, like, a really long time and said, "So you can't finish my phoenix tattoo?" My stomach just kind of sank and I asked, "Wait, have you been saying 'phoenix' or 'penis'?" Turns out he was saying "phoenix" the entire time.

Holy shit, I did not expect that at all. That's fucking hilarious.
Yeah, definitely the funniest one I've had.

What did you originally tattoo on the other dude's junk though?
Oh, he got a four-leaf clover. It was really stupid.

Anything in particular, an image or style, that you really like to do?
Edward Truong: I learned how to tattoo as a black-and-grey, traditional-Asian artist, so I've always really loved to do dragons. Anything like full dragon sleeves, chest pieces, legs, stuff like that.

Why dragons?
Well, I think coming from an Asian background where dragons have significant cultural and mythical significance has had a huge effect on me. They hold great value in Asia, so it's kind of epic and powerful [to have as a tattoo], especially when you're the one drawing it all out on somebody.

You described your style as neo-traditional, so I'm curious to know what kind of difference you see in older and newer style tattoos. Is older stuff generally poorer in quality?
It just comes from a different age. Kitchen tattoos—the old type of traditional—are just not a modern art style. Full, booming colors and straightforward line work is kind of a staple of it, while newer stuff is usually a lot more complex when it comes to shading and such. That doesn't mean they're all bad, a lot of them are really good in their own respect.

But you must see some shitty stuff on the bodies of people coming in for new work, right?
Yeah, a lot of older guys will come in asking to have me redo pieces or work them into new stuff. Things fade and some things just don't hold up. A lot of the classic tattoos really do get tiring to see.

What kind of classic tattoos? Pirates? Mermaids?
Small pieces, for sure. Flash work is so incredibly common to see on people. I find most of my regular clients to be very calculated with their work, though. Not many of them have mismatching pieces. A lot do it right from the start.

What's the strangest thing you've been asked to tattoo?
Um, some person wanted me to do a vignette of a back alley with dead prostitutes and people doing drugs. A straight-up crime scene. That was definitely the weirdest.

You're telling me you don't want a picture of a dude doing blow on your back?
I think I'll pass.

I already know a bit about your art from having got a piece done by you [Marilyn has done some scale work on a dragon going up my arm], but tell me a little about your style.
Marilyn Nguyen: It's definitely within Japanese-Asian influence, although I wouldn't say it's just straightforward Japanese style. A lot of windbars and strong lines, stuff that's typically found in Asian tattoos. I think a lot of it has to do with, being that [Chronic Ink] is mainly an Asian-style parlor, it's kind of just rubbed off me from everybody I work around.

Within that Asian-traditional realm—what's your favorite kind of image to bang out on somebody?
I think Tigers to be honest.

What's it about tigers that does it for you?
I really just want a tiger tattoo for myself. [Laughs] Haven't got one done yet.

Speaking of Asian-style tattoos: How often do people come in asking for you to "Hit them with that dragon" while not really knowing anything about the culture or history behind the image?
I think a lot of people just get Asian tattoos because they look cool, which is totally fine, and some of my clients might come with some sort of symbolism—like a koi fish swimming up a river to represent triumph over adversity—but most have some idea of what it represents. I don't mind people just getting something because it looks badass though.

What kind of requests do you get frequently?
A lot of people come in asking for dragons, phoenixes, foo dogs, koi fish, that sort of thing. I think I get a lot of that. I think people also go through different phases. Like, a couple years ago, every girl coming in wanted a feather done. So many feathers.

How often do people come in with really bad tattoos?
Well, in terms of cover-ups, a lot of people just come in with tattoos that are too faded, and those tattoos tend to be tribal. A lot of tribal used to be trendy before and I'm sure at the time it used to be the coolest thing, but now that people try and cover it up, it's very tricky.

Be honest, how do you actually feel about tribal, Marilyn?
How do I feel honestly? Tribal can be cool if it's done well. Some newer artists are doing some cool stuff with geometry and symmetry, but stuff from the 80s was just not well thought out. It definitely was not the best back then.

Ever get a request where you think, "What the hell?"
Nah. There was this one time this girl brought in an idea for random brushstrokes, so that was kind of abstract, but most clients get screened at the desk so I don't see the really weird stuff.

Let me stop you. Random brushstrokes? Was she just kind like, "Hit me with some Microsoft Paint?"
[Laughs] Not exactly. I think it was a little neater than that. She was just trying to display her love for art in a strange way, I guess.

If you had to pick something to tattoo—and I mean an image, not something to tattoo on—what would it be?
Saga Anderson: Any kind of portrait—the human face is highly interesting to me and there's a lot you can do with it. I'm into any sort of face that can deliver emotion.

Is there anything you wouldn't tattoo, something totally off-limits?
I try not to place myself in a box like that, but I have definitely become more self-aware when it comes to different cultural and societal meanings of tattoos. Like, some tattoos may be inherently offensive even though they have been appropriated into a tattooing norm. Native headdresses, for example, I'd be very wary of. As an artist, you have to be mindful of what images mean to other people.

Anything else?
Some are just a bad idea. A girl once asked me to tattoo a smiley face on the bottom of her foot because she was afraid of the pain and wanted to have a hidden tattoo before she decided on more. The bottom of the foot is incredibly painful and doesn't accurately represent the actual experience. I also think it's important for people to be sure of themselves before delving into any kind of permanency.

I do clown around though. My friends and I do a thing call the "sack challenge" that is pretty ridiculous.

The sack challenge?
Yeah, so it's basically like tag but we tattoo ballsacks on each other instead. The person who starts gets to choose what color, the style in which the sack will be done, and then the person who gets the tattoo passes it onto the next person by carrying on the process. We're all tattooers, so we all get to play around with different types of ballsacks.

That's the best fucking thing I've heard all day.
Hopefully it blows up into a trend!

Follow Jake Kivanc on Twitter.