Dark Horse Tattoo ATX

Amazing experience from start to finish. Hannah was so kind, patient, and truly listened to my vision. She helped bring my birthday tattoo to life and it turned out even better than I imagined. We traveled from Houston to Austin, and she made me, my husband, and our daughter feel so welcomed and comfortable the entire time. Her space felt warm and inviting, and she has such a gentle hand that the tattoo barely hurt at all. Highly recommend her to anyone looking for beautiful work and an artist who genuinely cares about their clients. I can’t wait for everyone to see this piece! 🫶🏼💪🏼🫶🏼

I feel like this review is necessary because ultimately I’m just let down by how unprofessional my experience was. Early this January, Jose ( ringoffiretattoos) held a raffle on instagram. I didn’t win, and honestly I forgot about the raffle. The only reason I remembered it was because Jose reached out to me himself and asked me what I would’ve gotten had I won and if I wanted like $200 off or something similar. So I told him what I would’ve wanted done but told him I was financially unstable to invest in a new tat. He then offered me a larger discount, to which I still declined. He then said that he also took trades if I had anything to trade. I told him I had only animal bones, to which he accepted. To me he seemed rather desperate to tattoo so I was more than willing to do this trade, especially if I could get something neat out of it. We went back and forth for a little while that same day. I sent him pictures of my whole collection and he noted the ones he liked. Then he ghosted me. For a good long while. He then reached out early February, on the 2nd, asking if I still was interested in the trade. I was, so we scheduled a meeting after discussing what the trade would entail. For all the bones I wanted 3 tattoos. The meeting comes around that Friday, so I bring some bones with me for him to view. He looks at them, tells me they’re for his GF as a gift but wanted her opinion on them more now he looked at them, which I respect. He couldn’t get ahold of her, so we rescheduled for the following day, Saturday, and I took the bones home. Now, he put me in officially on his books, took my reference pictures to work on sketches and that was that. He told me later on that his gf was only interested in two of my skulls, so we agreed on 3 finger tattoos for the trade that’s it. ( two stars and some lines and dots ) Saturday comes around and it’s about 1 hour before our appointment, and he reaches out to reschedule for Sunday. Things happen so I said of course. Sunday comes around and he asked to reschedule yet again, but sounded apologetic about it. I said that was fine but I had to do an earlier time due to prior arrangements. He then never spoke to me again. Hasn’t to this day even opened the messages. I wanted to write this out because I honestly feel like people should know about it. It was an awful experience, because not once did I reach out to him over this. I didn’t ask for this trade, he came to me twice for it and then just ghosted me completely. If I had reached out I would’ve taken my L and gone home but this isn’t even my L to be taking? Im sure there’s a better way to explain that I suppose. And I can’t say I got lost in messages, I’ve messaged him since and he’s posted several things since then. But what’s most infuriating is him posting about all the free time he has for walk in but he couldn’t do a 30 minute finger tattoo. I completely understand that people change their minds and don’t want to follow through, but he is a business artist and is apart of a larger business group. He should have the ability to tell someone it’s not something he is able to do anymore, especially when he wanted my product in the first place. I am fully capable of handling rejection, as I am a full grown emotionally mature adult. But to be ghosted and forgotten about when I wasn’t even the person who wanted this is just wrong. To me it shows a lot more about his character as an artist and I will say I don’t ever plan of getting a tattoo from here or him, mostly him in specific. I doubt it matters much but it’s just an annoying situation that I was given hope for no reason about. Overall it sucks that the artist has ruined this places image for me because I just can’t see it the same as I drive by. I was really surprised by the trade and excited to work with a new artist, especially because I’ve been wanting to find more artists in general to work with to make art on me sync nicely. The art online looked great and the shop looked really nice and clean when I was there, on a positive note.

We were so glad to have found this place - Dark Horse is a true gem! There was amazing art everywhere. The entire staff were all so nice and sweet, they really elevated the whole experience. We came in for tattoos and got to enjoy live music while we waited which was a treat. Rayvin did our tattoos and she was fabulous - she helped to create the perfect design and knocked our fine line tattoos out of the park! Overall we had a wonderful experience here and I highly recommend checking this place out. (And make sure to pop in to the bathroom - it’s beautiful!)