[metalheadjessus]

Some tattooists charge to draw up the designs, and the fee may be dependent on either the length of time it would take, or the area the tattoo covers with colours, position and level of detail being taken in to account also. The best thing to do would be to take the design in to a few different places and ask them to give you a guesstimation as to what the overall cost would be.

As for knowing whether a parlour or specific artist is reputable or not, ask around and look at their portfolios. Do not get a kitchen magician to do the job and make sure that they use fresh needles and proper sterilised equipment each time. When I had my septum pierced, the piercer went out of his way to show me that ALL of the equipment was new and made me watch him remove each item from the vacuum sealed bags and boxes.