Like everything else in life there's different genres and styles of everything. Tattooing is no exception. So lets go over the basics before anything else; Just like any art form, tattoos can be expressed as line drawings, paintings, cartoons, caricatures or even as airbrushed creations. Tattoos may be classified into distinct styles. Each style incorporates specific artistic elements which many are not familiar with. So here’s a look at tattoos, not as a form of rebellion, a health hazard, or a display of “coolness,” but as an art form.
- Black and Gray work. This style originated in the prison system of America, where it was difficult to get colored ink. These tattoos have the kind of warmth and depth to them that you usually associate with a charcoal drawing.
- Traditional. This style of tattoo refers to work that features bold black outlines and pitch black shading contrasted with very bright colors. The style has origins on military bases in the 1930s and 1940s.
- Fineline. These delicate tattoos are very detailed and usually associated with black and gray work. Fineline is also often used to express a realistic depiction of an image. Fineline images cannot be too complicated as sometimes over time the image can degenerate into a blotch or a shadow.
- Tribal. These designs are black silhouettes. Most are based on ancient tribal designs. A popular modern mutation of this style is to modify a traditional design so that it appears to be tribal. Many of the most popular styles are modeled after the ancient styles of the South Pacific Islands. These tattoos are usually abstract, artistic representations that consists of combination of discrete design elements such as spikes swirls and spines. Tribal tattoos are often designed to fit or accentuate a specific part of the body. For example, a tribal tattoo might snake along the contours of the lower back.
- Realistic. These designs are usually portraits or landscapes that mimic the fine detail of a photograph. Mostly they are done in black and white as it takes a master tattoo artist to emulate images in colors. Sometimes this style is also called photo-realism.
- Oriental. Usually the oriental style of tattooing involves using the entire body as a canvas rather than adding a single image here and. Images are used to weave a story or a myth on an entire arm or over the entire back. Usually this is very fanciful, bold, yet detailed color work. Big murals of dragons, flowers, fish, and other animals are the most common oriental tattoos. A dominant image such as a dragon might be surrounded by “fill work” that consists of artistic, fluid-like swirls of color. The oriental tattoo often follows the rules of Japanese perspective in painting that is concerned with symmetry and balance. Also the symbols in a Japanese tattoo often have deeper meanings. For instance, a tattoo of a carp represents wealth and prosperity.
- Celtic. These silhouette style tattoos have thick bold black lines, and sharp angle. A Viking offshoot of the Celtic style includes mythological creatures such as griffins. They are primarily completed in black ink only. Because they are difficult to do, Celtic tattoos are often best created by an artist who specializes in the style.
- Biomechanical. These tattoos often depict machinery intertwined with human flesh. A typical biomechanical tattoo work might depict a human hand, arm, or chest tangled with pieces of machinery such as screws, wheels, or and pulleys. The result is an image of a creature that looks half-robot, half-human. This type of tattoo is inspired by movies such as "Alien."
- Caricatures and cartoons. These tattoos are noted for their bold lines and often humorous references to classic or traditional tattoos.
