What tattoo style suits you best?
There are a lot of different styles of tattoo art, with new sub-genres being classified all the time. Knowing what style to ask your artist for can help them understand which direction you’re looking to take your tattoos in. Here are a few of the most popular current tattoo styles. This is by no means an exhaustive list. Keep in mind that most of these styles encompass both colour and black and grey options.
Traditional: Think bold, black lines and solid colours. The imagery is often more simplified than other styles in order to allow a design with thicker lines to remain readable over time. Subject matter is often iconic and similar across the industry, within different cultural categories. Ex. American traditional vs. Japanese traditional.
Neotraditional: Imagine taking the bold elements of traditional tattooing and weaving in extra detail, varying line weights, and a broader colour palette. This style is suited to really any subject matter.
Realism: This one is pretty self explanatory. The artist recreates an image with as much lifelike detail as possible in tattoo form. This style is often used to replicate photographs of people and animals, wildlife and nature, and interesting objects.
Geometric and Dotwork: These two styles are often combined. Patterns and geometric shapes that can be simple or intricate. Dots can be used to create designs or shade in areas, often with a gradient that looks peppery up close, and smooth from a distance.
Some other terms:
Fine Line: This is referencing the line weight used to create the tattoo. Rather than the bold, heavy lines we see in traditional and neotrad work, the artist uses a smaller needle grouping to make the design dainty and delicate looking. While this may allow more detail to be included in the design, it is still important to allow breathing room between lines for the ink to spread as it ages.
Illustrative: This term is quite broad and can encompass several of the styles mentioned, but will incorporate linework to generally resemble (you guessed it!) an illustration. Think story books and textbook illustrations.
Colour vs Black and Grey: There are varying levels of saturation an artist might use in their work, but let’s focus on the two extremes. A colour tattoo will be filled in solidly for the most part, with pigment saturating the full design. Darker pigments will be used to create contrast against lighter inks, which are usually brightened with titanium dioxide. A black and grey piece will use only black ink and black diluted with water (called grey wash). The person’s skin tone is used as the lightest shade within the design, with the exception sometimes of white ink highlights. This means there will be some skin left open within the tattoo, or only lightly shaded.
Micro Tattoos: These tattoos are very small, as the name suggests. There is controversy within the tattoo community as to whether tattoos like micro portraits (tiny realistic portraits) are a good idea. It is important to understand that as a tattoo ages, the ink blurs and spreads naturally within the skin, and so very small details may not remain readable over time. When “very small details” applies to the entire tattoo… you get the picture!
There are so many more terms and subgenres in the tattoo industry! These are just a few that might help you describe your next idea to your artist.
