What is the best tattoo ink to use on dark skin?

Question

Dark African american male that is looking to get more tattoos... that you can actually see and NO I will not regret it

Answer 1

light bright colors, yellows greens reds, etc. the tattoo artist will be the best to advise you. just choose the piece well , you will be wearing it forever. I'm 67 , still getting new ink ,all my children have one or more tattoos

Answer 2

I have always had a thing about 'readability' of tattoos - tatoos that will look good from a distance, and over time even when they become slightly less defined. This is obviously all the more important the darker your skin tone, because the contrast between the ink and your skin isn't so clear as it would be in someone with very light skin.

The way I always test this in tattoo designs before getting them done is to draw them out and then look at them with my eyes slightly unfocused, so they go a bit fuzzy. If they still look good, then the tattoo is going to look good. If they look like a fuzzy blob, then there's a risk the tattoo will look the same.

I'd suggest you try this yourself, using paper that's close to your skin tone, and colouring your ideas with watercolour paints or with translucent ink that'll allow the colour beneath to show through in the way your skin will on the finished tattoo. That way you can get an objective idea of what works.

But I think it comes down not so much to ink, as to design. I think for a tattoo to look really readable you'll need to go for something bold, and probably with large-ish areas of black ink. Subtle shading just isn't going to show clearly, but that doesn't mean you can't have really great tattoos; you can. Work with your tattoo artist, and your ideas from the 'squinting experiment' described above, and I bet you'll get something great.

Best of luck, and I hope your next tattoo turns out fantastic!

Answer 3

check out http://www.myspace.com/MIYABAILEY and http://www.exodusnews.com/NATIONAL/National011.htm. Exodusnew has an article called Dark Skin Art.
and since you already have tats, you should know that black and blue ink show up best on dark skin. and red ink too.

Answer 4

None! you ought to think this over, really. one day, when you're old (assuming you ever grow old) your skin will be extreemely different than it is right now. It'll have lost its elasticity, and what once was a ferocious tiger will be an undistinguishable diseased four-legged mammal. Also, it costs TONS of money to get a tattoo removed by lazer surgery if you decide that you don't like it, or that you don't like the way it's starting to look, or if you have children and you don't want to influence them in that way.