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Inspiration from the Heart
If you ask any tattoo artist, he or she will tell you that the best place to find a design is within your heart. However what is in your heart may not be the most practical design for you. Also it may be difficult to describe what is in your heart to the tattoo artist, who is after all, sitting there with a tattoo needle ready to brand you forever. It is highly recommended that you bring some kind of template or design with you before you visit the tattoo artist, as like a diamond, a tattoo is forever.

Inspiration from Art
The best places to find ideas for designs for tattoos that you can take along with you to the tattoo parlor are the Library or everybody's favorite one-stop resource - the Internet. Actually, don't even bother going to the library. This is only necessary if you don't own a computer or are moved to have a full reproduction done by Delacroix tattooed in fine detail on your back.

However before you begin a search on the Internet you need to decide what period of art appeals to you most. Do your tastes run more to Andy Warhol or Leonardo Da Vinci? Do you like the woodblock etching effect associated with Japanese and Medieval style tattoos or do you prefer the swirls of color identified with Chinese art? Do you like realism or caricature? Anagrams or company logos? These are all questions you need to ask yourself before you type those all-important keywords into your search engines.

Good artistic key words to type into your search engine in order to find examples of art to inspire your tattoo are: "astrological symbols", "expressionism", "flowers", "fantasy art", "gods" "goddesses" "goth art" "native American" "neo-primitivism", "modernism " "photo-realism," planetary symbols" "primitivism" "romantiscm" "surrealism" "symbols", "religious symbols". "tribal art". "woodblock" and of course the key word phrases " tattoos" and "tattoo symbols"

Designing Your Tattoo on the Internet
Typing the word "tattoo" into your search engine will bring up scores of sites inviting you to look at what are called flash or stock tattoos, which you can sometimes have for free, or a small fee. These are the same kinds of images that you often see displayed on the walls of a tattoo parlor. The idea is that you can take these templates directly to a tattoo artist and have them replicate the image on your body. Usually the tattoo artist will also personalize the tattoo slightly for you also, either by adding stripes, rays or bars, initials, vines and flowers, flames or other "fill work" that help make the tattoo uniquely yours. One of the most amazing on-line resources for stock and flash tattoos is www.findatattoo.com which stores about 6,0000 online flash and stock tattoos in its virtual gallery.

There are also computer programs available that can help you design your own tattoo. One of the best is Symnet, which allows you to create your own tribal custom designs with laser precision in a matter of seconds. You can access this program, which is great for creating custom arm bands and anklet designs at http://www.symynet.com/tattoo_designs/tattoo-designs-home.htm

Another fantastic site that will really get your creative juices going is http://www.createatattoo.com. This little known site allows you to create your own custom tribal tattoo in two minutes or less, even if you have absolutely zero artistic ability. You simply choose a design, customize it and then print it out to take to the tattoo artist.

If your design involves lettering then you might have some fun looking at the hundreds of unusual fonts at http://www.fontmagic.com. These fonts allow you to download all sorts of unusual styles, including the Roman and Gothic lettering that can be so hard to find for free.

Read also:
Tattoo aftercare guide
Choosing a tattoo artist

See also our Flash tattoo gallery:
Tattoo flash gallery


courtesy of www.findatattoo.com