Tattoos in the style of children’s drawings – a new trend that will help you feel like a child again

Ink drawings on the body have long ceased to be considered a manifestation of infantilism and immaturity. Moreover, there have been many studies over the past few years proving that tattoos are beneficial.

First, tattoos lower cortisol levels. During soft tissue injury, the human body adapts to pain and high levels of the stress hormone. Therefore, the more tattoos are filled, the less cortisol is produced and the lower the stress.

Second, tattoos increase self-confidence. And this is proven by a study involving more than two thousand students. Participants with four or more tattoos had significantly higher self-esteem than those with fewer. Scientists believe that this may be the reason why the tattoo gives a person a sense of control over himself and his body.

And while body art is no longer seen as an expression of infantilism, the images themselves have turned in that direction. One of the styles that is especially popular at the moment are tattoos as children’s drawings. They do not always have straight lines, the color often goes beyond the contour, and the images themselves are often similar to “paint-paintings”.

Why have tattoos like children’s drawings become so popular?

Dr. Lee Baron, in his book Tattoo Culture, says that the new tattoo style is directly related to the change of generations. The Zooms, who have replaced millennials, believe that the obsession with symbolism and perfectionism in body art is excessive and unnatural. Tattoo artist Aleksey says the same thing: “Not everyone wants to wear anything about realistic or “accurate” drawings anymore.” And millennials, on the contrary, are convinced that it is pointless to divert attention to negligence and carelessness.

The generation gap is especially evident in TikTok. For example, a tattoo artist named Bijan recently launched the 365 Days Tattoos contest. He tattooed himself while shooting videos on TikTok every day for a year. The session took exactly as many seconds as allowed for a video she. Therefore, you should not talk about the detailed drawing of tattoos and hours of striving for the ideal. It’s not about the buzzers. In an interview with Dazed magazine, the master named “Bad” gets a tattoo on a new train. And now he has 400 mini-drawings on his body made as they say “on the knee”.

True, the trend of “bad” tattoos has not yet fully settled in Russian pop culture. A lot more people still prefer a more aesthetic style, but a little sloppy. The growing popularity of tattoos, such as children’s drawings, can be explained in different ways. For example, tattoo artist Ivan believes that “the style of children’s drawings is simple, but at the same time full of important meaning. It allows you to convey more sensory content, filling the desire to meet your inner child. This style reminds us of how we perceived the world as children. These are bright colours, unusual shapes, illustrations reminiscent of illustrations from books, favorite toys and cartoon characters.”

And tattoo artist Zlata Ziva attributes the popularity of miniature tattoos to the fact that they “are less compelled to take them seriously or make a significant change in their appearance. They are also easier to perceive psychologically and visually due to their size and perhaps lower contrast.

How are these tattoos made?

There are many different techniques and ways to work on tattoos now. Mini tattoos are usually done with a hand poke or a typewriter. But even in such a narrow space, apparently, each master finds his own style of work.

Ivan, tattoo artist

“I work as a tattoo maker and when creating sketches I rely on my inner feelings and try to create an image that is simple and clear.

The drawing itself should not be clear, with smooth lines and dense filling, the task is to bring the image closer to the look, as if drawn by a child’s hand.

Zlata Ziva, tattoo artist

“The technique I’m working with can be called “linework” because it has lines. But most often it is a combination of different styling techniques.

In miniature tattoos, it is important to take into account the small size feature and make their outlines less saturated so that the letters retain their visual legibility and legibility longer.

Tattoo ideas in the style of a child’s drawing