There are probably thousands of tattoo styles around now, with talented artists creating their own every day. But many of those designs are adapted from certain historically popular tattoo styles—many of them decades or even centuries old.
Here are twelve of the classic tattoo art styles, the ones you want to know before you begin getting into tattoo design. If you’re considering the perfect tattoo style, you may not be capable of using the exact terminology of what you require, but in all likelihood, you’ll have one of these in mind previously. Calculating how exactly you want your perfect tattoo to look is hard, but we hope the styles below will help you narrow it down.
1. Black and Grey
Jessica Mascitti of LA’s East Side Tattoo confers us great examples of diverse sorts of work in a genre that can encompass an extensive range of styles. Black and Grey images aren’t as restricted by subject matter, portraying anything and everything realistically in shades of Grey, initially done by watering down black ink to create a spectrum of shades.
2. Portraiture
Shane O’Neill shows us how pragmatic you can get with tattoos with his representation, a sub-set of the realism genre (which is just like it articulates—realistic renderings of imagery). Without the black boundaries of some of the more traditional styles, artists can achieve eerily accurate renditions of people in color and black and Grey.
3. Classic Americana
These may be the first description of a tattoo you think of, an old-school style defined by bold outlines and the use of similar colors and imagery. They are closely tied to the ocean and nautical imagery, female pinup figures, fierce predatory animals, or sequences of hearts, roses, and daggers. The tattoo style was generalized by Norman “Sailor Jerry” Collins in the 1930s but is a compatible choice today—shown here by Frankie Caraccioli of Kings Avenue Tattoo.
4. Stick and poke
Artist Slowerblack points off the opportunities of the stick-n-poke, where the artist applies a single needle to build simple designs. Newly popularized for DIY tattoo-ers, the art can go to impressive levels in the guidance of a professional, distinguished by thick and bold lines, most often in plain black with small decorative designs.
5. Realism
Realistic tattoos can depict anything from the scenery or things to animals and people. Whether in black and white or colorful, this is a classic tattoo style model if there’s something appropriate you aspire to portray. Realistic tattoos are hard to get perfectly suitable, and it takes a skilled tattoo artist or tattoo designer to create realistic-looking artwork with incredible visual impact.
6. New school
New School tattoos are like a mad comic work on your body. Jesse Smith’s craft is famous in this category, depicting incredible imagined worlds full of chaos and very often caricatured animals in vivid color.
7. Blackwork
Blackwork is a tattoo style initially derived from the original tribal tattoos, made of thick and bold black lines in various geometric patterns. But artists proceed to take this style to new levels, incorporating practices and imagery derived from sources into mesmerizing pieces swirling in different forms around the body, like these from Nazareno Tubaro.
8. Biomechanical
Typically freehanded, Biomechanical tattoos accommodate the unique flow of a person’s body, meant to mimic machinery hidden within the skin. It’s arduous to get endlessly from Roman Abrego’s name when you bring up these bad boys—his alien and mechanical-inspired images often covering the arms and legs of his clients.
9. Japanese
As we bestowed you in preceding support, there are hundreds of history for the art tattooing global. One that has sustained its reputation is the Japanese style Irezumi. Tattoo artists still conceive both traditional and new shares on these classic treasures. And it’s a genre mainly known for large images covering the back, arms, and legs.
10. Geometric
Geometric tattoos are prevalent right now and can be timeless when done right. They can either feature geometric elements or combine geometric and organic (often floral or natural) ingredients. The contrast between the precise, sharp edges of this tattoo style and the body’s curves makes them stand out boldly.
11. Surrealism
The art genre of surrealism provides artists loads of material to work with. The artistic style can improve, the subject can vary, but as long as the viewer comes out of the experience with that feeling of sublime fantasy, the artist has achieved their purpose.
12. Realistic Trash Polka
Germany’s Buena Vista Tattoo Club created realistic Trash Polka. Designed 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
