Hey guys
I’m a 21yo guy and from the UK but recently moved to Perth in WA. I’m toying with the idea of getting a tattoo but I’d want it to be something I was very sure about before I got it.
I’m not interested in bullcrap chinese symbols or whatever shit people usually get, I want something unique and personal to me. The problem is I’m not very artistic so coming up with stuff is hard – especially something that will be with me for the rest of my life.
So my question to you guys is, how do you decide what you want, and what parts of your life do you draw inspiration from? Or maybe you just get something that looks awesome but doesn’t really mean anything in particular? And where would you start looking for ideas on what to get?
Thanks and I appreciate your input 🙂
Sam
When I started getting tattooed I was thinking about all different things, which is obvious by the different styles and images I have. I have tattoos with family members in mind,a half sleeve of my favorite horror movie, and some stuff I thought just looked cool. Inspiration for my tattoos came from all sources, including just flipping through an artist’s portfolio and telling her, “I like that sketch,” and she drew up a tattoo based on it.
It all depends on you and your own interests.
You don’t need to be artistic – you just need to appreciate art.
Spend lots of time looking at tattoo portolios (on-line), and get an idea for the type/style of tattoos that you love and can live with forever. The trick is in finding the right artist, and not assuming that any tattooist can do any tattoo.
Spend lots of time looking at tattoo portolios (on-line), and get an idea for the type/style of tattoos that you love and can live with forever. The trick is in finding the right artist, and not assuming that any tattooist can do any tattoo.
Thanks this is very useful advice. Where do you guys look for tattoo artists? Is there a reviewing section of this site or something similar? I’d like to find some good ones in Perth.
Also where do you look at portfolios. Is there a good site where artists share their work or do you just have to google it?
Again, responses are most appreciated 🙂
Sam
Mostly you just count on the artists’ Facebook or Myspace pages, or the tattoo studios’ own webpages.
There is actually a subcategory here for UK Tattooers and US Tattooers, but one for OZ tattooers, so I would suggest you post a question in General chat and ask the people on here if they know any good tattooers in Perth.
Do you know what style you like, at all?
There is actually a subcategory here for UK Tattooers and US Tattooers, but one for OZ tattooers, so I would suggest you post a question in General chat and ask the people on here if they know any good tattooers in Perth.
Do you know what style you like, at all?
Ok thanks I will do that. As for style, I’m not sure what “styles” there are. I know what I don’t like and that’s most of what I’ve seen. Anything with words is out, cartoony stuff I’m not a fan of either for the most part, especially anything morbid like skulls/blood/zombies/whatever. I’m not sure why those are so popular. I like some of the abstract stuff I’ve seen with clean lines, I will try and find a couple of examples.
The tattoo trade is, if you boil it down, not seriously diverse in styles. so anything you don’t like makes the list that much smaller 😀
My first preference is Black and Gray and Realism.
Do you have a link to photos of some of your tats so I can get an idea?
Ok here is something I sort of liked: http://i51.photobucket.com/albums/f375/albert1016/Misc/IMAG0264.jpg but it’s a bit too much
A lot of the coloured stuff I’ve seen is too loud, brash and pretentious. However pure black is kind of boring. At the moment I’m just looking through the My Ink section of this site trying to get an idea of what styles there are out there.
Nah, I only have one boring tattoo right now, one that I got as a testpiece to see if I could actually handle the pain 😀
The artist I’ll probably going to for my bigger pieces is JP. He’s excellent in the realism department, be it color or B/G:
http://www.icelandtattoo.com/listamenn/jon-pall/
A good thing to do is to get a list of addresses for all of the shops in your area, and visit them all (or their websites) and look at every portfolio you can get your hands on. Look for tattoos that really pop out and look similar to actual paintings. Tattoos can look very stunning, as much as any other medium, so dont settle for less.
For inspiration, i usually look at things i like.. movies, music (i personally have 2 album covers on me, though they dont have the band’s names on them), pictures/paintings, really anything ive had an interest in for a good long while. All of my tattoos are full colour, and most are sci-fi or fantasy related.
For inspiration, i usually look at things i like.. movies, music (i personally have 2 album covers on me, though they dont have the band’s names on them), pictures/paintings, really anything ive had an interest in for a good long while. All of my tattoos are full colour, and most are sci-fi or fantasy related.
Well my favourite artist is M. C. Escher. I really like the themes of flow, infinite loops, chaos vs order, self-reference, tesselation and metamorphosis you can find in his work. I wonder if there is a way of integrating some of those themes into tattoo work.
I think that is a great suggestion Ross, I will look around a whole bunch of shops in Perth and try to get some ideas. Maybe chatting to some artists will give me a better idea of what is possible as well.
Is there a review site for good artists/shops?
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