Picking a design for your tattoo. This moment in your life has arrived and you are ready to place a permanent gift of art on your body. Picking the right design can be a very tricky and confusing process. Ideally it supposed to compliment your body shape and say something about your personality. I suggest you never look for design among other tattoos you've seen online or on real people, don't rip off someone else's ideas, you will never enjoy it as much as your own custom tattoo. Popular trends pass and tattoos remain with you irrevocably. (Even if you laser it away it will leave a scar and most people just cover it up with another tattoo. Double pain, double expense, double hassle.) Plus it's unprofessional for a tattoo artist to copy work of a fellow colleague. Look among symbols that mean something to you, paintings or photographs that speak to you, styles you love, colors that make you happy, your favorite movies, music, books, characters etc. With the equipment and supplies that are available nowadays in the market it is possible to make magnificent art, don't cut yourself short. This is your body and you are the artist, own it. Try to narrow down your vision to a particular style you want this tattoo to be done in. Color or black & gray, graphic or illustrative, realistic or abstract, maybe a combination of two or three. Traditional, neo-traditional, new school, watercolor, geometry, black work, dot work, mandala etc. You don't need to have the final design ready, leave some room for artist to create. Once you have gathered some ideas and somewhat know which style you would prefer you can start looking for the right man for the job and that by itself is a separate topic. Photo by Alex Logaiski Marzan tattooing his wife Monica Skalak
