Popular Tattoos

Here is an overview of some of the more
popular styles of tattoos and tattooing:

Freeform Tattoos

Abstract Art-Freeform is a modern style involving no outlines and a Picasso like appearance.

Gray Scale

Black and Gray work is thought to be the true test of a tattoo artist. Shading is heavy and the illusion of a 3D form is achieved without the use of color.

This style is derived from prison tattoos, but mechanically far exceeds the expectations of crude jailhouse tattoos; the only thing in common is the color.

Grey wash is a method of diluting black ink with water to achieve the grays from light to black.

Biomechanical

Biomechanical is a form of work showing humans meshed with machines. A common theme of these tattoos is the flesh being ripped away exposing the mechanical inner workings of an arm, for example. Artists such as H.R. Giger and Clive Barker inspire these works.

Celtic Tattoos

Celtic designs are intricate knots, which represent people and animals from, Welsh, Breton, Gaelic, and Cornish folklore. They are intricate weavings of a singleline knotwork.

Color

Color is a general term covering any style of tattooing involving color. Color can be subtle or vivid depending on the client and the piece.

Evil Tattoos

Evil has been a very popular theme for tattoos for a long time. Images of spiders, skulls, devils, demons, and death play with our fascination of mortality, death, isolation, and fear. Shading is heavy in this type of work as well as fine detail.

Fantasy

This generally covers fairies, dragons, angels, women, armored knights, unicorns, and wizards to name a few. These tattoos are generally done in splendid colors to convey the fantastical elements of the work.

Fineline

Fineline is a modern tattoo style, as tattoo machines have gotten better, and inks and technique have improved, more detail is being added to pieces. Common themes of these tattoos are portraits, animals, biomechanical, and any fine picture, even UPC code bars.

Club Tattoos

Gangster and Biker tattoos are symbols or permanent patches signifying allegiance to a club or gang. Commonly these are Old English script on the stomach, back, neck, or chest, the name of the gang or gang remembers gang name. Teardrops under the eye symbolize people killed, as well as spider webs on the elbows.

Haida

Haida is the design of the American Indian and Eskimo. Generally tribal flat pieces of animals, totems, birds, and use a few major color.

Memorials

Memorial tattoos are ways to immortalize a love one that has passed, or a child’s name. These are typically crosses, flowers, scrolls..Etc.

New School

New School is generally regarded as starting in the 1980s; it’s a culmination of every tattoo style into one piece. Generally different subject matters are mixed, such as an alien and a car.

Oriental Tattoos

Yakuza is a Japanese style. It is usually colorful and detailed, and contrary to European and American tattooing styles, this style uses the whole body as a motif.

No sticker tattoos here. The work is planned out to cover the whole body before the work begins. Tattooing in Japan was outlawed for the working class and the Yakuza (Japanese gangsters) took tattooing in as a secret symbol.

Portrait Tattoos

Portraits are some of the finest forms of modern fineline tattooing. The artist is extremely skilled in interpreting a photo to skin art. Some of the results of these tattoos are breathtaking and found in many tattoo magazines.

The key to successfully inking portraits is knowing exactly how much detail is too much. Too much detail can lead to fuzziness after a few years.

Prison Tattoos

Prison tattoos served as a badge or a warning. It showed fearlessness, much like the warriors tattoos in early times. These tattoos are generally threatening, featuring skulls, knife, women, or symbols representing crimes and death.

Today’s black and gray style of tattoos stem from jailhouse tattooing. Generally these tattoos were black, because black was the only ready color available.

The black could be from pen ink, the carbon collected from a burning toothbrush, or metal debris. Most are crudely applied and spawned a tattoo machine made of cassette player motors and such.

Religious

Religious, or spiritual tattooing has been the basis of almost all tattoos from the beginning of tattooing itself. The oldest man discovered, AKA the iceman, who was frozen where he lay, had tattoos on the back of his knees. The tattoos were believed to be talisanment or spiritual.

The Egyptians gave tattooing very religious meanings. The dead were often tattooed so they would have information in the afterlife. Priests were often buried with tattooed women who would serve as the canvas of the information he would need in the afterlife.

Women were often tattooed to aid in fertility. Christians during the time of Christ and shortly after would tattoo a cross under their hand on the wrist. This was a badge and a way to determine who were true believers and who were roman spies.

Most of these types of tattoos were very primitive, but lead to some the earliest forms of FLASH. Religious tattoos were carved and formed from clay and the image would be stamped onto the subject to serve as the stencil for tattooing.

Old School

Sailor and traditional tattoos are usually a very basic design, popular in the 1800s to present day. Typical works would be mermaids, daggers, flowers, ships, anchors, snakes, birds, and panthers.

With this style of tattoos, the absolute minimum is put into the tattoo, just enough to convey what it is and the meaning it represents.

More recently, these designs, which line the walls as flash in most tattoo studios, have been reinvented with more detail and artistic flair.

Tribal Tattoos

Tribal tattoos cover a huge spectrum of different cultures, from Polynesian, Micronesia, or Indian. They are generally all black in color, solid bold geometric designs that complement the shape of the body they are placed on.

Common themes are triangles, and curving lines. Modern interpretations have lead to geometric animals, fish, or even skulls. The tattoos are also referred to as Flat Tattooing, or Waycool Tattoos.

Wild Style

Wild style tattoos can be recognized from its similarity to graffiti on the buildings of most major cities. It can be a tag on human skin. Very similar to that of the skateboard culture artwork.