Nowadays there are many different tattoo styles to choose from. We will outline a sample of the styles that are most popular and in demand, the styles have no gender, they are suitable for both women and men.
Old school the Old School tattoo style
Inspired by the designs that sailed around the world on the skins of US sailors. This style has evolved very little since the 1920s, and is characterised by thick lines and intense, flat colours.
The iconography of the Old School tattoo usually includes maritime elements such as anchors, swallows, eagles, lighthouses, ships, etc. Other elements from popular culture have also been incorporated, such as pin-ups or icons like poker cards, American fists, knives, daggers or flaming hearts.
New traditional, the New School tattoo style
It is a variety of the Old School tattoos, slightly modifying the most iconic elements of the old school tattoos and adding some gradients, or thinner outlines in the line. It is also often found in stipple-based shading and a wider colour range and what makes it unmistakable is a touch of realism.
The Pin-up
Today, the term pin-up also refers to a particular lifestyle and aesthetic. It originated with the models who posed for photographs and advertising illustrations from the 1940s to the 1960s. During the Second World War, many soldiers began to tattoo female figures in pin-up-like poses, and it soon became a growing trend in the tattoo world. Today, there are several styles that have an interpretation of these tattoos.
Pin-up girls can be found both in Old School tattoos that maintain the original aesthetics and in hyper-realistic tattoos that faithfully represent these photographs. It is also common to find Pin-up girls in the so-called New School aesthetic.
The common pattern that all these forms of depicting pin-up girls have in common is that regardless of the figurative degree of the tattoo, they retain the sensual and innocent attitude that characterises this type of image.
Dotwork or stippling tattoo style with geometric lines
This style has recently become fashionable and its popularity is growing by leaps and bounds. The characteristic element of this style of tattooing is that the tattoos are made using small dots that achieve the effect of shadows and lights by joining or separating them, depending on the needs of the drawing, together with a geometric line that gives the piece a touch of unreality. Black and white tattoos predominate, although colour tattoos can also be seen. It is a style of tattooing with a very organic result as they have a very particular texture and the gradients that this technique allows give a lot of play.
Although any kind of image can be made with stippling, geometric shapes and three-dimensional figures predominate. This style can be applied to large tattoos, but it works equally well with small tattoosThe stippling of the stitches is not necessary, as long as they are large enough to be able to play with the stippling.
Stencil
This style of tattooing adopts the aesthetics of Graffiti and tries to simulate the splashes, sprayed gradients, use of stencils, and other tricks typical of New York underground cars.
Watercolour, a very particular tattoo style
Although it may seem impossible, this style consists of capturing the effect of a medium such as watercolour (in which water is used on the surface to dilute and degrade the colour) on the skin. By using very soft gradients, diluting the outlines and adding the occasional splash, the sensation of having a real watercolour on the skin is achieved, except that if you add water, it doesn't wash off.
New School
It is defined by the use of bright colours and unusual perspectives. Proportions are not maintained. It is one of the tattoo styles The new pigments in the inks and the increasingly more powerful machines allow the development of this type of tattooing by leaps and bounds.
Photocomposition and double exposure
This style comes from the adaptation of a photographic technique that has become very popular in recent years, consisting of an image that contains another image, showing both at the same time (double exposure).
One branch within this style is the photocomposition, which in addition to having or not double exposure or hyperrealistic elements, contains other elements more typical of graphic design on conventional supports, such as masses of flat colour as a background, splashes of colour within black and white tattoos or broken lines surrounding the main piece.
Mandalas
Mandala tattoos, like geometric tattoos, are very laborious tattoos, which require a very refined technique.
They are very elaborate designs that have become fashionable as they signify the representation of spiritualism mainly used within Buddhism and Hinduism. Symbolically it was created to represent the universe and the containment that happens within it. These particular emblems are meant to signify structure and spirituality combined with energy within the human being.
It represents a kind of unification of the universe and perfection due to the spectacularly delimited circular form with various shapes found inside the circle and also on the outside. It is often used for meditation as its figures provide tranquillity and everything related to the peaceful.
Polka Trash
Polka Trash, a tattoo style that defines itself as a mixture of "realism and trash", the natural and the abstract, the past and the future... In short, a mixture of opposing contrasts and at the same time harmony.
This collage is combined with geometric shapes, paint stains, silhouettes or portraits, empty spaces forming figures, brush strokes, unparalleled lines always with Black against red. It is at the same time order and disorder, realism and senseless blurs that make this style so impactful and original.
Photo Realism
Both BN and colour tattoos, trying to reach hyperrealism with impossible details to transmit a very detailed and complex reality. With the recent techniques and new machines, this style has become one of the most demanded and with impeccable works.
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