Thursday, February 23, 2012

Choosing A Tattoo Design That Fits Your Personality

So you want a tattoo - not sure what type of tattoo or design to go for, well below please find some information on the more popular types of tattoo. But please bear in mind before you take this step, that tattoos are permanent and placing one on your body shouldn't be taken lightly, something that seems cool at the time, may not years down the track.
Some of the types of designs you can choose from would be celtic designs, tribal designs, octopus designs or Kanji designs (Japanese), just to name a few and of which I will go into more details in this article.
With Tribal designs you have to be very careful not of offend anyone as tribal tattoos generally are used to identify tribes, clans and families. It was intended to allow someone to find his or her tribe and not any one individual in particular. The great thing about these tattoos is that they come from designs created by the ancient civilisations, first imprinted by accident by playing around with fire and burnt sticks. So these tattoos have a lot of meaning from history and have been around for a very long time. Early tribal tattoos were pictures created to honor their gods i.e. flames to honor the sun god.
Tribal tattoos are the most common tattoo and come in a great range of designs. They depict native cultures of the past to up to date graphic designs.
Today tribal tattoos may not actually identify a specific tribe, but move more towards identifying contemporary tribal groups such as fraternal gangs and organizations. A Maori tattoo is done using chisels and was considered sacred. This process is long and painful and they celebrate important events in life. They represent courage and strength and consist mainly of distinctive curved shapes and spirals.
Octopus designs in some instances symbolise intelligence, wisdom, grace and adaptability. Squids are believed to be mysterious as they can change colour and disappear. Many sea lovers are amazed by the squids beauty. Octopuses under attack can disengage their limbs and can then re-grow them. Octopus designs look better than most tattoo designs and can be wrapped around the arm or leg with ease as these designs are very flexible. Some examples have designs where the head is shaped into a globe, the tentacles are represented by waves and even some have them looking like aliens with scary fangs.
With Kanji designs (Japanese), there has always been a fascination with the Japanese characters - these characters are representative of pictures and not of actual letters etc. So each symbol has a specific meaning and the combining of symbols can mean something different. That is why you have to be very careful when you choose your final design. It is always a good idea to have the symbols written out on paper and then get it translated by an independent person to verify it says what you want it to say. You can find some translation services even on the web.
Although they call them Japanese the symbol originate from ancient China and these symbols are used throughout the Asian world. The characters have the same meaning throughout all the languages that use them, some symbols have been modified to make them simpler and fit into the language, but basically they are the same.
The symbols look very nice when they are represented by the artistic brushstrokes from which they come. Choose carefully, then you can have a beautiful symbol engraved upon your person for a lifetime.
With Celtic Tattoos you have a lot of choices, knots, crosses, tree of life, hearts, celtic claddagh, spiral, maze and animal Celtic designs. The animal designs actually represent various meanings related to the harmony of nature. For example the bull stands for strength, the Dog for loyalty and luck and the Snake for fertility, rebirth and healing.
The knot is the most common Celtic design and can be entwined with various geometric shapes. When two shapes combine it usually makes a trinity knot that symbolises the mind, body and spirit - how cool is that.
Spiral designs can form complicated patterns and continuous lines which generally represent immortality of love. Celtic Claddagh includes hearts that are usually depicted wearing a crown. The Tree of Life is similar to the cross and builds a connection between heaven and earth. The Cross design likewise does the same, the cross is a representation of their faith and love for their creator. Finally the maze represents ones journey throughout the joys and challenges of life.
So with Celtic designs make sure you understand the meaning first and select a design that appeals to you, observe the lines of the pattern and browse through galleries to pick your final design.
Now you know a little more about various designs you can now go ahead and choose a reputable tattoo artist, have a good idea about your design before you go to get it done.
Good luck with your choices and remember it is a lot harder to remove it, so choose wisely.

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