Tattoo Stencils

Tattoo stencils are the black outlined drawing the tattoo artist places on the skin. After the outline is placed the artist simply traces around the design, leaving the permanent inked outline. Not all tattoos are done with a stencil, many artists will draw the design directly on the skin, this is called freehand. Some tattoo artists will use a stenciled outline that has little detail and will fill in the detail freehand as they work.

Tattoo stencils have been in use for at least since modern tattooing times and almost certainly existed in ancient times. At the turn of the century the tattoo stencil would have to be cut into a piece of plastic and carbon poweder would be rubbed into the grooves. The carbon covered pattern would then be placed on the customers body using an ointment to hold the carbon design stencil on the skin. Toward the mid fifties American tattoo artist began using electric machines used in offices to make there tattoo stencils and very quickly  3M built copiers that replaced the old school plastic stencils.

When looking for a tattoo stencil one must consider the same things they consider when looking for a tattoo design. Basically the stencil is a non-detailed, non-colored version of the finished tattoo. A person working with an artist they are not familiar with would never want to work from a stencil only, as they would not know the particular artist's style.

A rose stencil can be colored with any color or filled in with any pattern for this reason before getting a tattoo done from a stencil one must talk with the tattoo artist and make sure they are both seeing the same vision for the tattoo design.There is nothing worse than finding out,when it's too late,that the tattoo artist you have chosen and yourself have totally different artistic views.

Finding a tattoo design online is not the end of the process it's only the beginning.  Once a tattoo stencil is in hand, now you must find a competent artist who can make your idea come to life. A person should not come to a tattoo design website expecting to find a perfect design. The purpose of a tattoo stencils website is only to provide ideas to people looking for tattoos.

Take the design to your artist and this will give a base to work from which is much easier than starting with no idea what you're looking for in a tattoo design.All the stencils or line drawing on this website were drawn by one artist and all are custom tattoo design  stencils that can only be found here.