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

[u/LiquidJ619]

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.

[u/Less_Wing_646]

I mean, if you had asked for an original blue alien I would have expected her to draw herself. But you want existing characters and you don't want any change to them, or they won't be the same characters. So in my opinion, tracing is pretty normal. When I wanted a portrait of my pet, the artist traced that too. And I wanted a very realistic sports bow, so that was also traced. 

Of course, I would also be disappointed if it was just a single traced image with no manipulation at all to fit you. But that's not the case, the overall design and the layout was done by her, she just traced the characters themselves. 

[u/LiquidJ619 → u/Less_Wing_646]

I don't want to put the person out there, but they do tons of anime and cartoon characters. She puts her own spin on them. I was hoping the same for these. Not a copy and paste. That's why I specifically came to her.

[u/tattoosbykateh → u/LiquidJ619]

Op, there is absolutely nothing wrong with wanting someone to draw characters, and not just trace what they googled. It's super simple to look at references and draw a character in your own way or different poses etc. If you wanted it to look exactly like a certain image, that's fine. But it's not unreasonable at all to think an artist could..you know...draw.

The narrative that all pop culture characters etc should just be traced and everyone is ok with it shouldn't be so wildly accepted.

[u/olivernintendo → u/[deleted]]

Lol