It can be hard to come up with tattoo ideas. You can search for a long time without finding anything that is just right.
You might set out to design something for yourself, because you want it to be unique. That is a great idea if you know what you are doing. But the problem is that even if you are very talented at drawing, you may not be able to design something that will work well as a tattoo.
A tattoo needs to look good from close up and far away. Plus, the colors available to the tattooist are limited. There are only certain colors that he can use and your design needs to make the most of them. So it is difficult to design your own tattoo.
The way that most people get a tattoo is very impulsive. Usually they decide that they want to have some area of their body tattooed, without having any idea of the design. They get in line at the local tattoo artist's place and flick through the sheets of drawings that he or she provides, looking for tattoo ideas. Whatever they pick out is probably not what they really wanted but they don't have much time and it seems the best of what is there.
A tattoo is for life. And yet, if you pick it out in the way that I just described, there is a good chance that you will end up with something that:
- your friends don't like
- your partner doesn't like
- you may not even like yourself in a week or a month or a year
And probably a ton of other people in your city will have the exact same tattoo from the same tattooist. As soon as you come out of there it's almost certain that you will start seeing it on other people's arms, shoulders or backs.
Plus, it could turn out to have some special symbolic meaning that you are not comfortable with. It could have religious or political significance. It could identify you as a member of some group that you would never want to belong to. The tattooist didn't tell you ... maybe he didn't even know! It was just some design in a book, after all ...
So be sure to research your tattoo ideas before you get in line. Show up with something you picked out ahead of time and already showed to the important people in your life. Something that probably nobody else has in your town. That way, you will always be proud of your tattoo
