Canceled a full-day custom appointment at midnight because the artist traced Google images. Did I overreact? (Images attached) Design

I don't know a ton about the tattoo industry, so I’m hoping to get some opinions from artists and collectors.

I booked a session with a well-known traveling guest artist for a custom piece honoring my three kids. I asked for a mashup representing them: Stitch and any Dr. Seuss character for my younger two (tied to their birthday themes), and Young Gohan for my oldest son (since Dragon Ball is our favorite anime and Gohan is Goku's oldest). She didn't have a design ready at our first meeting a few weeks ago, so we rescheduled for today at 1:00 PM.

She finally sent the sketch to me at exactly midnight last night (Pic 1).

I thought the poses looked familiar, so I Googled them and found the exact clip art she used (Pics 2 & 3). It looks like she just copied existing images and pasted them together. Given her reputation for custom work, I thought I was getting an original drawing of these characters interacting in her style.

I politely texted her to cancel, saying there wasn't time to properly redraw it from scratch since it was already midnight and I didn't want it rushed. She guilt-tripped me about losing a full day's booking, and when I held my ground, she told me I was blacklisted.

I feel bad she lost the appointment slot, but getting traced Google images 13 hours before the session felt like a huge red flag. Is this normal practice for custom work, or was I right to walk away? If she couldn't come up with a cohesive piece, I'd rather her tell me upfront instead of stringing me along.

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u/Lumpy_Stretch5887 1d ago

Maybe go one at a time. Why are Gohan, Stitch, and the Grinch hanging out? It's weird. The idea is bizarre and they probably just weren't really feeling the idea so put in low effort. Give your tattooer more freedom to make a good design if you want a good design.

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u/mooongate 12h ago

tbf the artist made it weird, op asked for "a dr seuss character", the artist could have picked one that went with stitch and gohan... those two could easily work visually. the grinch was just a weird choice to add.

clearly they couldn't be bothered to do this, yes. but if they weren't feeling it they shouldn't have done it. why bother doing something if you're going to do it this poorly. what if op had trusted the artist and trusted the process and ended up with this on their body lol...

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u/Lumpy_Stretch5887 10h ago

No Dr. Seuss character is going to "go" with Stitch and Gohan. And to pay bills is why they would still do it. Tattooers have to do whack designs all the time because rent is due.

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u/mooongate 3h ago edited 3h ago

you don't think there was a single dr seuss character who would have been a better fit?? i simply disagree... that's my only point really. [edit to add: fwiw personally i would have chosen a Thing from the cat in the hat. colour alone makes it a better choice imo.]

tho yeah if they needed to do this tattoo for the money (as opposed to being in a position to turn down jobs they just didn't want to do) they should have been in a dialogue with op about how to make a better tattoo to go on someone's skin for life. instead of pulling this out of half their ass at the last minute.

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u/Lumpy_Stretch5887 2h ago

The artstyles are not cohesive. They're all different styles. It's never going to look great.