Looking for what are the different styles of tattoos? Check out our guide to help you decide which one is right for you.There are many different styles of tattoos, each with its own unique meaning and purpose. Some of the most popular styles include tribal, Celtic, Japanese, and American traditional tattoos.
Each style has its own history and symbolism, and choosing the right style for you can be a very personal decision. With so many different options available, it's important to do your research and choose a style that you'll be happy with for years to come. Let’s dive in!
What are Tattoo Styles?
Different methods of body inking are all that differing tattoo styles are. It's a type of art where participants express themselves using their bodies as canvases. There are many different tattoo designs, and each one has its own significance and meaning.
What Does It Take To Be A Successful Tattoo Designer?
These days, designing tattoos is a growing career. There is a rising need for skilled tattoo artists as the popularity of tattoos rises. If you're considering a career as a tattoo artist, you probably have some questions about what it takes to succeed in this industry.
First and foremost, you must be passionate about art. The second requirement is creativity and attention to detail. Thirdly, you must have patience and be a skilled communicator with your customers. The ability to work under pressure and fulfill deadlines i/s the final but not the least requirement.
How To Find Your Favorite Tattoo Style?
Discovering your preferred tattoo style is easy. One method is to peruse tattoo artist portfolios online or in magazines to find the designs that most appeal to you.
Attending tattoo conferences is another option to network with international tattoo artists. You will have a better understanding of the various styles available as a result.
Finally, you can always get referrals from friends or family members who have tattoos.
Once you've identified a few designers whose work you enjoy, it's time to focus your search and select the candidate who most closely matches your requirements. You must do this while taking a few things into account, like pricing, experience, and portfolio.
While price should be taken into account, it shouldn't be the sole one. You can always hunt for discounts or package deals if you're on a tight budget. However, if you want a tattoo that is of great quality, you will need to be prepared to spend a little more money.
Another crucial thing to take into account is experience. It's usually preferable to select a qualified tattoo artist with plenty of expertise. By doing this, you may be certain that they are competent and that they won't make any blunders.
Last but not least, before making a choice, you should browse the artist's portfolio.
What Are The Different Styles of Tattoos?
Traditional & Old School Tattoo Style
When you think about traditional or Old School tattoos, you are thinking of traditional American tattoos. It is the look your grandfather acquired while serving in the Navy.
Traditional / Old School tattoos are characterized by their strong black lines and vibrant colors.
Rules for traditional American tattoos:
- Use bold, thick lines.
- Maintain the traditional color scheme of yellow, red, green, and black.
Neo-Traditional Style
Neo Traditional tattoos, as the name suggests, draw heavily from the Traditional tattoo aesthetic. Neo Traditional tattoos, on the other hand, have a twist: finer lines combined with bolder, more unconventional hues, and more realistically portrayed attributes create tattoos that have a classic feel with a touch of the contemporary.
Rules for Neo Traditional tattoos:
- Make sure your blends are seamless and stick to a more subdued color scheme.
- Focus on clean line work.
- Images should be scaled realistically.
Script / Lettering Tattoos
Tattoo artists have a lot of creative licenses when it comes to designing unique works for their clients because there are as many tattoos writing styles as there are computer fonts. Even though making such letters is quite simple, most artists will encircle cursive lettering with some kind of filigree.
Rules for script tattoos:
- Clean up your lines. For script, long-tapered needles are advised. Even on difficult-to-tattoo places like the ribs, the greater precision makes the longer time spent tattooing the skin worthwhile.
- Let someone person read the tattoo first. Some fonts can occasionally make one word resemble another.
- Make sure the letters are sufficiently spaced apart. Over time, the ink will gradually spread a bit. It will be impossible to read and appear like a black blur if the letters are too small or too close together.
- If the script is in another language, try to have a native speaker review the translation to ensure it is accurate.
- Use Google to double-check your spelling because tattoos are permanent and you don't want to make a client's tattoo seem bad.
- When tattooing script, we advise "floating the needle" because it improves precision.
Tribal-style Tattoos
Since the inception of tattoos, tribal tattoos have been popular, with each culture presenting a distinctive design. Polynesian, Native American, and other tribal tattoo designs are common. They can be minor or whole body tattoos and typically feature intricate patterns.
Rules for Tribal tattoos:
- It is advised that you alter the design at least slightly. Some families and societies still utilize tribal tattoos as a form of identification. To avoid "stealing" someone's identity, modify a design to better suit you or the client.
- Use as large a magazine as you can. Tribal demands that you smear the skin with copious amounts of black ink. Large magazines will speed up the procedure and reduce the amount of stress on the skin by reducing the number of times you have to go back over it.
Watercolor Tattoo
It makes sense that the Watercolor tattoo design has grown in favor recently as more and more ladies get inked. Tattoos done in watercolor are extremely delicate and stunning. The colors glide across the skin with little to no definition.
Blackwork Tattoo Style
Blackwork tattoos are exactly what they sound like—tattoos that solely use black ink. The tattoo can be quite straightforward or extremely intricate. If you want a tattoo that will be seen, blackwork is a fantastic style to use.
Realism Tattoo Ideas
Realism tattoos are exactly what they sound like—realistic ink. These tattoos can be colored black and gray and look realistic. When you want your tattoo to exactly match its real-life equivalent, realism is the best option.
Rules for Realism Tattoo Style:
Avoid using rigid outlines. Creating a 3-D image is typically required for realism, therefore it doesn't actually end; it just bends. That will seem like a hazy, ill-defined edge on a two-dimensional surface.
If you're tattooing a portrait, we strongly advise utilizing curved magazines. Since they operate in conjunction with the skin rather than against it like a flat needle, they will assist you in achieving smoother hues while inflicting less harm to the skin.
Japanese-style Tattoos
It is not surprising that the traditional Japanese tattoo design has endured for so long. These artistic tattoos are excellent for using ink to illustrate stories. They have a distinctive appearance and convey their meaning through symbolism.
Rules for Japanese tattoos:
- To make the brighter colors stand out in your designs, use strong red, green, gold, and brown along with lots of black in the backdrop.
- Use conventional mythology as inspiration while creating a design.
Trash Polka Tattoo Style
A tattoo design is known as "Trash Polka" combines trash, realism, and blackwork. Typically, this tattoo design uses simple black and red, but it can also incorporate other hues. Due to its capacity to combine these components and produce incredible works of art, the Trash Polka tattoo style has recently grown in popularity.
Geometric Tattoo Design
The lines and shapes are the main elements of the geometric tattoo style. This modern tattoo design is more adaptable than it first appears, ranging from straightforward shapes to intricate patterns or making geometric shapes out of commonplace objects.
Black and Grey Tattoo
One of the most popular tattoo trends is black and gray. The black and grey tattoo design can be applied to any other tattoo style. This tattooing method emphasizes shading to create beautiful tattoos. And is what some refer to as the original tattoo design.
Rules for Black and Grey Tattoos:
- Just wash in black and grey; no color
- You should tattoo a little darker so the healed tattoo has the proper values because grey wash tends to heal 30% lighter than when it's fresh.
Aesthetic Tattoo Style
Almost anything can be tattooed in the aesthetic style. There are tattoos that emphasize the nature of beauty and how to appreciate it. This ink work creates a strong sense of visual enjoyment. As long as a tattoo is visually acceptable, it can be any size, in any color, or any combination of these.
Anime Tattoo Design
The tattoo trend in anime is highly well-liked. The Anime tattoo style is named after anime films, television shows, and comic books. Numerous artists also tattoo everyday objects in anime style.
Tiny Tattoo Design
Small tattoos have small tattoo designs. Other tattoo styles may be used, and they may be
colored or monochromatic like the tattoo seen below. Small tattoos are increasingly popular as both a first tattoo and a solution for those with numerous tattoos to fill in the empty space.
Abstract Tattoo Style
Like abstract art, which makes no attempt to portray outside reality, abstract tattoos do the same. Different shapes, forms, and colors are used in these abstract tattoos to create the desired look. The abstract tattoo style is versatile and a terrific way to add personality to even the most straightforward tattoo design.
3D Tattoo Design
A really cool and distinctive tattoo design is a 3D tattoo. The 3D red and blue lines are present in all 3D tattoos, regardless of how intricate or how basic they are. The way the tattoos are created makes them appear to be in three dimensions when you wear 3D glasses.
Cartoon Tattoo Design
The style of the cartoon tattoo is modeled from your favorite vintage Saturday morning cartoons. These tattoos are incredibly cool-looking and can be envisioned as cartoon characters or just about anything else.
Tattoo Design with Continuous Line Contour
The artist tattoos a form's outermost edges and any sharp contour alterations using the Continuous Line Contour tattoo style. Simply said, a continuous line contour tattoo resembles an "outline drawing," employs no shading, and seems to be permanently inked onto the skin.
Tattoo Portrait Style
You can get portrait tattoos of renowned persons or just the folks you cherish. They require a highly competent tattoo artist to create and have a very realistic appearance. Portrait tattoos can be basic or quite intricate, and they can be done in color or black and gray. A well-done portrait tattoo is usually a fantastic tattoo style selection.
Animal and Pet Tattoo Designs
Almost any style can be used to ink an animal. They are all quite significant tattoos, whether they are a dog picture, a cat cartoon, a horse watercolor, or any other animal. As long as the tattoos depict the animal as you remember it, these animal tattoo designs are fantastic.
Tattoo Style Sketch
Sketch tattoos are another tattoo design that has gained popularity. Tattoo sketches are typically black, like a pencil.
However, they can also be colored, much like colored pencils, as seen in the image below. The Sketch Tattoo Style provides any form of the tattoo with a not too clean, very authentic look and is a superb tattoo style option for practically any tattoo theme.
Chicano Tattoo Style
The Chicano style has had such a strong cultural impact that it has also influenced other styles. rooted in the history of the Pachuco culture, the Mexican Revolution, and Los Angeles low-riders.
The style was created by inmates who used the limited resources at their disposal to skillfully depict the things they adored and missed about life outside of prison walls. This kind of tattooing, which is typically done in fine lines, black and grey, and is influenced by Chicano culture, is utterly captivating.
Conclusion
There are many contemporary tattoo styles to choose from, and each has its own unique features. These styles are by no means all of the ones currently circulating, but they are some of the most prominent. If you want to find out more about booking tattoo appointment, check out some of tips and tricks featured here.
