Elysian Ink

Absolutly 10/10 awesome expeience friendly staff. Tiz hooked me up with some awesome flash. I will be back everytime I come through town!!

Super disappointed with my experience. I drove two hours to get a tattoo for the “ANY palm sized tattoo” “ANY ! ! ! -detailed, yep. Color, yep.” “Bring your own design.” (These quotes are directly from the ad)
Went in and there wasn’t any direction. Apparently there was a sign up sheet, but nothing directing anyone to it. After about 30 minutes, someone came out and moved the list up to where it could be seen.
Signed up, Waited for 5 hours, which wasn’t an issue. It was a walk in ordeal, so I assumed it would be a wait. Eventually they were getting ready to close, so they offered me and my friend a chance to make appointments to maintain the deal. We set up up for 6pm Tuesday, and the guy agreed and said it would work. So I drove the two hours home.
Tuesday came, I made the two hour ride back to Des Moines. They guy seemed to brush us off. When he greeted us, and asked what we wanted, we told him and he said he wouldn’t be able to do it. I had an image I wanted, but a few changes when he sketched it out (rounder flowers and a different color for the cat). He proceeded to say he didn’t have time to ‘design an entire tattoo for me’ even though I provided the image I wanted. It’s not designing an entire new tattoo if there’s two small changes on something you were going to have to stencil out anyway.
My friend described what he wanted (and provided an image but wanted to remove a few trees and make the mountains not as pointed), and the tattoo guy said. “Well I cannot read your mind, so you’re going to have to tell me what you want.” Even though that is what he literally did.
Since he said he was unable to, we didn’t want something that we wouldn’t be happy with, we just had to leave and drive two more hours to go home.
I suppose I’m mostly disappointed by the lack of communication. The ad didn’t say we had to have the tattoo fully sketched out for him, but it said they could do any design. One of the artists I know for a fact was sketching out the tattoos before hand to ensure it was what people wanted because I witnessed it firsthand on a girl that was waiting with us. If he had been upfront to begin with (“we close at 7 so we won’t have much time if you come in at 6.” Or had said that it had to be predesigned) I wouldn’t have been upset.

I drove eight hours and waited an additional five just to not get a tattoo.

My first tattoo experience was here with Mary. I love it deeply. I had an amazing time definitely check out the Elysian Facebook and check out the artists

Elysian Ink has amazing artists with over 25 yrs experience! The staff is very friendly and the studio is extremely clean. Love the decor of the space and the location is very accessible with plenty of parking and a large sign that makes it easy to find.

My husband got me a gift certificate. From the start, Jonny has been unprofessional and an awful communicator. He refused to draw custom work for me, pushing me to pick something off the internet, canceled appointments (he canceled once due to Covid, which I am not mad about, the multiple other times he canceled is what I’m upset about), lied to me, and ignored my questions. Just all around awful business man and communicator. When my husband (a very calm, level headed man) went in to talk to him, he cussed at my husband and called the cops on him. All we wanted at that point was a refund for the remainder of the gift certificate. Later that night, on his Facebook page, he posted many lies about his interactions with my husband. Just all around unprofessional.

This shop truely deserves 5 stars due to their artistic abilities, but it is the lack of the owners communicative abilities that has brought this rating down. He will leave your messages open after reading them, without a response and never get back to you. He will also give your allotted and scheduled time to another consumer without communicating with you about it at all. And upon confrontation, he will not take responsibility, and blame it on his other staff. I truly enjoyed the owner as a person and especially his artistic abilities, but he has deeply disappointed me by his lack of consideration. His ending response “whatever, find another shop,” has inclined me to do so, and to also post this review. I hope that whoever finds this review does not go through the same experiences I have. Because like I said, they do have great artistic abilities, it’s just disappointing when they let you down by making you feel like they don’t care.

Jonny is the man! Love this guy. Great artist, great prices. Clean, and stylish shop. Jonny has done a ton of my work, and I can tell you, he has my future work in the bag. On a scale of 1 to 10, Jonny and Lorelei get an 11.

Lorelei and Johnny are fantastic artists. Their shop is immaculate. They always make you feel comfortable and at ease. Their tattoos are works of art. I highly recommend them.

Super clean shop. Great service. Jonny is a super cool guy easy to talk to amazing artist has done my half sleeve and chest and also back of my other arm both are very clean and exactly what I wanted really takes time to get your idea right wouldn't go any where else

Awesome place. Clean with friendly artists. Dani did an amazing tattoo for me, she's very talented!