Tattoo Styles, Trends and Artists (Series) #1

Want your first tattoo or thinking about new ideas? Before you make up your mind about getting a tattoo

It’s important to check the variety of tattoo styles, as you might be drawn a new and different style than you originally desired.
It is extremely important to check your tattoo artist’s portfolio beforehand, so that it’d match your expectations and the style you desire; Some artists focus on very specific styles and that’s what they’re known for, others are known for their massive-sized tattoos.

You can, but probably shouldn’t force your tattoo style on the tattooer, if it doesn’t fit his portfolio and specialty as that’s 8/10 times going to lead to your disappointment from your permanently inked tattoo.

Do know that it is now possible to remove tattoos with treatments, fully or partly, though the more permanent solutions hurts even more than the original tattooing experience.

Here are some of the most popular tattoo styles out there:
Traditional & Neo Japanese (Irezumi): Here are a few exceptionally talented tattoo artist who specialize in traditional Japanese tattoos – Shige, Chris Odonnell, Horichrio

One of our all-time favorite: Shige

Filip Leu

New & Old School (Traditional) – If you’d like to get a better feel as to Old School (aka Traditional) tattoos, you may want to visit this link, or look at these old school tattoo examples.
Old school has “strict rules”, as much as you can be when drawing a piece of art, as for the color pallet used in these tattoos >>

Chris Marchetto (Redemption Tattoo)

Dan Santoro

Stefan Johnsson California Electric Tattoo

Chad Koeplinger (District of Columbia)

Very different from old school, New School tattoos has a very cartoony-like, extremely colorful in the sense the colors pop, look to them. One of our favorite artists in this very popular style is tattoo artist Jime Litwalk, who specializes in new school tattoos, and while you’re at it – check out one of the entrepreneurs in this field – Jesse Smith (both started on Ink Master); Check out the following examples of new school tattoos by these two artists >>

Jime Litwalk – New School Sketch Book

Jime Litwalk – New School Pinup girl

Jesse Smith – New School tattoo

Jesse Smith – New School tattoo 3

Black & Grey, Blackwork – This extremely popular style is its’ name suggests – a black and grey tattoo.
This style is a classic and never goes out of fashion >>