Inside The Amazing Artistry Of 3D Tattoos

To give you an idea of what we're talking about when we say "3D tattoo," take a peak at some of the reality-shattering work by various artists on Tattoodo, or the hexagram-heavy inking of someone like Jesse Rix from New Hampshire on BoredPanda. (Seriously, prepare to pick your jaw off the floor.) Gone are the days of old-school, sailor-type tattoos (although nothing wrong with those if you dig them), and in are the days of tattoos rivaling the finest photorealistic illustrations sketched on paper, drafted on canvas, digitally painted in Photoshop, and so forth.

So what is a 3D tattoo, exactly? In a general sense, it's a tattoo that "pops" in a 3D way. This means that the illustration itself focuses on the dimensionality of design, features some strong contrasts between foreground and background, and might depict some object pushing forward to the surface of the skin. They require a cosmically deft hand with shading and gradations, and play with space, perception, overlapping patterns, and generally warp your vision like an optical illusion. 

3D tattoos can be seen, in a way, as an offshoot of "realism tattoos" (i.e., "photorealism"). As Chronic Ink Tattoos tells us, realism tattoos seek to emulate, accurately, the forms, colors, shapes, lines, and so on, we see in daily life. This is an excessively difficult skill to master, in contrast to abstract or figurative art, and is the reason why so many tattoos of faces, for example, come out disappointing.