MINIMALIST

Minimalist tattoo is a laconic style that stands out for its simplicity and elegance of composition. The features of the style include geometric shapes, minimum colors, and small scales. Various characters, animals, flowers, illustrations from books can be notes of the main themes

Basically, a tattoo in the style of minimalist can be seen on someone who is not willing to see a big tattoo on their body, but a small one and very personal. We will not hide the fact it looks fantastically sometimes. So a minimalist tattoo is perfect for those who do not want to decorate a decent part of their body but have the desire to make a really beautiful aesthetic tattoo.

The main thing in minimalistic tattoos: is the accuracy of implementation and good appearance after healing.

BLACKWORK

Blackwork is originally derived from the original tribal tattoos, made of thick and bold black lines in a variety of geometric shapes. But artists continue to upgrade this genre to new levels, incorporating patterns and imagery derived from all sorts of sources into mesmerizing pieces swirling in different forms around the body.

Blackwork is pushing dotwork and linework to their extreme, with massive black tint areas, and complex geometrical and symmetrical patterns influenced by Polynesian tattoos and graphic art. It focuses on the design, mostly ornamental, rather than the meaning or realism. From minimal to extremely intricate, blackwork tattoos are standing out.

REALISM

Though classic realism has been a part of fine art as far back as the Renaissance, it only found its way to the world of tattoos recently, cropping up around the latter half of the 20th century. Since then, the style has become increasingly refined and extremely popular. As it now stands, you can find jaw-dropping color and black and grey portraits of pretty much any celebrity you can think of as well as realistic depictions of nature and just about anything else imaginable, even the surreal.

Realism tattoos look like photos embedded on skin. The artists who specialize in realism tattoos are typically highly talented with significant manual dexterity and an eye for detail.

These tattoos can look extremely true to life with the sitting process being longer than other tattoo styles in order to fit in all the detail.

WATERCOLOR

The watercolor style is currently in vogue. It’s in extremely high demand by the most recent generation of tattoo enthusiasts, who seem to be looking for something new to match the new millennium. It looks like what it sounds like, as if rendered with a brush dabbled in watery pastels. However, looks can be deceiving, while it’s easy to create this aesthetic when working with actual watercolors on paper or canvas, doing it with ink on the human body is no simple feat. Still, artists make all sorts of whimsical and poetic pieces using this innovative approach to tattooing.

Watercolor tattoos mimic streaks or spots of color similar to splashing paint on a canvas. Often the tattoo might be realistic or mainly line-work, and the watercolor effect might be added in the background or around the tattoo as an addition. Watercolor tattoos are, of course, very colorful and are coupled with themes of nature, animals and flowers. They may also be combined with line-work.

BIOMECHANICAL

Biomechanical tattoos have become exceptionally popular in recent years.
Typically freehanded, Biomechanical tattoos adapt to the unique flow of a person’s body, meant to mimic machinery that could be hidden within the skin. A recurring style involves tattooing the outline of a biomechanical tattoo to make it look like a person’s skin has peeled back or been slashed, exposing mechanical parts beneath. Artists who are skilled with shading can give the perfect depth to that type of biomechanical tattoo design and make it look very realistic.

LETTERING

The lettering style is simple but can hold great meaning for certain individuals. This style uses different fonts and sizes to ink quotes, phrases, and words. These tattoos are highly stylized and feature names, words, phrases, or numbers. Basically, it could be anything from your great-grandfather’s name to a phrase that you always want to remember. The choice of font is nearly limitless.

BLACK AND GREY

Black and Grey’s images aren’t as limited by subject matter, depicting anything and everything realistically in shades of grey, originally done by watering down black ink to create a spectrum of shades.

The “Gray Wash” style uses the grayscale color palette and various needle sizes in order to create contrasting colors and cast shadows, which produces a highly detailed tattoo. This style works well for portrait tattoos.

Tattoos can be created with a high level of detail by using various shades of black (shading) as well as different needle sizes. Just like the color technique, this is also popular for real, surreal and abstract themes.

PORTRAITS

Portrait tattoos are a difficult proposition. When done correctly, these are among the most enviable of all inked images. Rushed, and tributes to favored musicians or fallen family members become laughter-inducing fodder.

Portrait tattoos can be done with a simple background, or they can be done with extravagant scenery and extraneous artistic design. The freedom to create something truly unique is much more available with amazing portrait tattoos than many might assume. They can be made in color or black and grey, hyper realistic or with a more neo-traditional spin. Without the black outlines of some of the more classic styles, artists are able to achieve eerily accurate renditions of people both in color and black and grey.

TRASH POLKA

Realistic Trash Polka was created by Germany’s Buena Vista Tattoo Club. Created by Simone Plaff and Volko Merschky, it’s instantly recognizable for its collage-like structure, intricate and sampling from printed materials — from photography to hand-writing, paint splashes to type-writing.  Volko describes it as a combination of “realism and trash; the nature and the abstract; technology and humanity; past, present, and future. Opposites that they are trying to urge into a creative dance to harmony and rhythm in tune with the body.”

Trash Polka-style tattoos stand out because of their use of both bold and fine lines and heavy use of black and red inks. It’s designed to be fresh as in “just finished”.

Although true Trash Polka Tattoos can only be executed by the artists who created them, anything else is an imitation, the works of Simone and Volko can serve as inspiration for all those who want a unique and appealing realistic tattoo.

SURREALISM/ HORROR

The art genre of surrealism gives artists loads of material to work with. The artistic style can change, the subject can change, but as long as the viewer comes out of the experience with that feeling of sublime fantasy, the artist has achieved their purpose.

Full of symbolic scenes, strange dream-like scenarios, humor (sometimes the humor is gleeful, impish or sometimes it can have a sarcastic or cruel twist). Using bizarre creatures and people to create continuity between the images, some are single images used to shock or catch your attention.

GEOMETRIC

Since dotwork tattoos have been having their peak in popularity, another style has also become very popular: sacred geometry tattoos. Most of the time the two styles go together, geometric tattoos are often performed using the dotwork technique (as are animals, occult symbols and engraving-inspired tattoos). With sacred geometry, we refer to those shapes and patterns that are found in nature and that are perfect, such as the spiral of the golden section (we’re sure you’ve seen the nautilus shell in many tattoos), and other designs such as the flower of life or the Gordian knot. Most of the times these designs and patterns are perfectly symmetrical, and generally include circle shapes.

The geometry tattoo style is inspired by geometrical shapes and especially the geometric shapes and motifs we meet in nature. The ancient civilizations of Greeks, Hindus, Romans and Egyptians observed and cracked those timeless geometrical codes and embedded them in their traditional arts.

DOTWORK

Dotwork tattoos are one of the most intricate styles.  Complicated geometric images are created with nothing but dots. The tattoo artist must be very patient and very talented because he has to place every dot in the right place. The dot tattoo is usually done with black ink or grey ink. Sometimes red is used, but only because red creates a beautiful contrast effect on geometric tattoos. The dots technique is often used for mandala tattoos, and more often than not those tattoos are hand-poked. It is not uncommon for dotwork tattoo artists to abandon conventional tattoo machines in favour of the hand-poked technique. A tattoo gun is not the best tool when it comes to dots. Hand poking requires a lot of patience, but it’s the best method for getting all the details right. Dotwork tattoos are a style on their own, and the shading you get through dots is almost 3D. You can’t get that kind of shading with any other method. The dotwork technique is used especially for geometric tattoos, religious and spiritual tattoos. Some of the recurring subjects for dotwork tattoos are mandalas, symbols like the Hamsa hand, the Eye of God, lace, decorative patterns like filigree, and animal portraits (especially wolves, cats, foxes, snakes, butterflies), animal and human skulls.

SKETCH

If the vast majority of people associate a tattoo with something very bright, voluminous and clear, then the Sketch tattoo style completely refutes these concepts.
The word sketch means a certain sketch, an easy sketch, and this is exactly what a tattoo turns out – a semi-transparent, barely marked, not tolerating face.

Sketch work tattoos imitate the rough image aesthetic found in an artist’s sketchbook and depict what appear like unfinished images or designs. They typically feature semi-colored in areas and unclear outlines. Like a skilfully drawn pencil drawing on paper, the sketch of the tattoo is characterized by extraordinary artistry and graceful beauty. Very naturalistic and gentle in this style are portraits, animal images, subtle patterns and weave strokes. This style of art has a fresh from the drawing board feel. Use sketch lines to create your tattoo. Nothing is perfect, sometimes lines do not touch or close.

LINE-WORK

The main feature of the line style is the presence of straight lines in the tattoo, which are added to the specific drawing.
Line-work is a relatively young style of tattooing. The word “line-work” speaks for itself and means work with lines. You can also find the name “linear technology”.

It’s a beautifully simplistic style, great for those who want a tattoo but may not want to commit to a larger piece. Line-work is typically included within geometric tattoos.

Line-work is something that has been popping up more often. Tattoos can be stuffed with any colors, but black and red are used more often than others. Anything can be suitable as the theme for this style: geometric figures, movie characters, cartoons, etc.