Free tattoo idea - 5 sites worth checking out

As a person who chose a tattoo 15 years ago (and still doesn't regret it!), I encourage you to find the right design for your tat before spending over $100 and getting injected with ink. (Sure, you can get a laser removal nowadays, but do you really want to bother with that?)

Here's what to do:

1. Browse designs online and get some ideas, or pick a particular design.
2. Take the ideas to a good tattoo parlor and ask to see similar designs they have available.

or

Pay for and download the electronic version. Take that to the tattoo parlor and ask them to reproduce it as your tattoo. If they're not capable of replicating it exactly, it might be worth consulting with a tattoo artist who can probably render a close copy for you that's tattoo-ready.

Note: I don't know the owners of any of these sites, and have no financial interest in them. I'm just providing this information for interested readers.

TattooJob is another popular site with lots of free tattoo ideas. There were 26 other people visiting the site when I was there last, and they have literally thousands of different designs. The most prevalent design categories include:

• lettering (like Japanese Kanji, Celtic, Sanskrit, etc.)
• demon/devil
• fantasy stuff (dragons, trolls, faeries...think Lord of the Rings and all sorts of affiliated beings!)
• skulls
• cartoons (famous ones like Garfield, South Park's Cartman, and Calvin and Hobbes, but also more obscure cartoons and generic cartoon characters)

If you register on the site (also free), you can lightbox designs you like, leave comments (although the comments section for a lot of designs is full of spam), rate them, and, of course, download them (you can also download them as ZIP files, which is cool).

Avoid the RSS feed - it's full of spam. Focus on the designs that have a lot of views and downloads, and you'll have thousands to choose from.

Search TattooJob.com ->

This UK-based website is cool because it features a couple of interesting options (including a gallery of 2000+ designs, and celebrity designs):

• your name translated into Hindi, Sanskrit, Gujarati, Hebrew, Arabic, Chinese or Japanese. This is not free; they charge about $9. But they make a pretty good point: "Would you trust an online free list to give your name in a foreign language, and then ink your body with it?"

  Apparently, Britney Spears got a tattoo in Japanese which she thought meant "mysterious"; she was later told it meant "strange". She also got a Hebrew word tattooed on her neck that she wanted to say "new era" but it turned out to be gibberish. [article]

• Rate My Tattoo: You can rate uploaded pictures of visitors' tattoos, and see which ones ranked high. These are cool because you can see what designs look like on skin, instead of just on screen or on paper.

Search Tattoos by Design ->

This site has an enormous database of designs. Here are some of the more unusual categories you won't find on other sites:

• biker tattoos
• barbed wire and vine tattoos
• Celtic tattoos
• dagger tattoos
• gay-lesbian (LGBT) tattoos
• memory-banner tattoos (picture of heart or flower, "In memory of..." a lost person)
• torn skin tattoos (makes it look like an animal or design is bursting out of your body)
• yin yang tattoos

If you want a print out that you can take to a tattoo artist, they charge $19.95. Previewing for ideas is free.

Search TattooFinder.com ->

TattooSpot has over 500 designs that have been uploaded and rated by people all over the Web. They have a lot in the following the categories:

• tribal tattoos (about 95 total)
• butterflies
• animal designs
• lower-back tattoos
• angel tattoos

They have about 15 more categories, each with over a dozen different designs, so it's probably worth a perusal if you're not finding what you like elsewhere. You can look at each design close-up, and download it if you'd like to print it out or put it on your phone.

In addition to the type categories, you can also search via the artist's names. So, if you like a certain style, you can see what else the same artist has uploaded.

What's interesting about the site is that they give you some idea about each design's popularity: they'll tell you how many "hits" (views) each design had, and how many people downloaded them. They also even tell you how many people are searching at the same time as you (there were 27 other people when I was there last, in case you were wondering!).

Search TattooSpot ->

This site has lots of great information, including a great guide for first-tattooers. They have ready-to-print stencils for tats, organized into categories like:

• Black & White Tribal, Polynesian and Armband tattoos
• Christian and cross tattoos
• Flower and rose tattoos
• Lower back tattoos
• Animal, dolphin, dragon, butterfly and insect tattoos
• Japanese and zodiac symbol tattoos

You can also choose from among about 50 artists.

You can browse for ideas for free. Printouts for use by your tattoo artist range from about $7 (small, black & white), to about $20 (large, color). With the printout, you get the stencil (which the tattoo artist will use to literally transfer to your skin) and the full version which he/she will use as a guide.