How to Draw Cartoon Tattoos using tribal patterns

Drawing cartoon tattoos: some fun facts before starting sketching!

• Around 16% of American do have at least one tattoo!
• Some people have tattoos on 99% of their skin.
• Tribal and Chinese script tattoos are still among the most popular choices.

Step 1

Designing tattoos should not be really different from drawing a simple cartoon. But when translating a drawing into something that needs to be painted on the body, you need to make sure that what you are drawing on paper will come out right on someone else's skin!

Step 2

Tattoos are fascinating and interesting to design. But you can't make them with all the details you would normally do for a normal drawing. They have to be simple, easy to read and 100% accurate. After all, if someone wants to take one of your drawing and turn it into a tattoo, this person will wear it for life!

Step 3

In this example, we will draw a dragon, starting with a simple line drawn like an "S". Next, draw the head of your dragon. I choose to make it with its mouth open. Next, draw some lines to represent the arms and the legs. 

Then, add some "meat" to your dragon by drawing the body. Add some details like the teeth and the eye. The important is to keep the basic lines and not put too much details on your drawing.

Step 4

Tattoos can represent about anything. It can be a tribal tattoo (1,2), a Chinese script (3) or a simple sentence. Just remember to make it simple and to really work the outline so that it will be clean and easy to read. Happy tattoos!

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