Randy Orton's tattoo artist is suing WWE and 2K Games -- the company behind WWE 2K18 -- claiming they used her designs without permission.
The woman behind the suit is Catherine Alexander -- a tattoo artist from Illinois -- who says she's been tattooing Orton going back to '03 ... and owns the copyrights to the designs.
Problem is, according to Alexander, Orton is depicted in the video games to a T -- tattoos included -- and she says that's copyright infringement.
The artists claims she raised the issue with WWE in 2009 .