Pro Tip: Tattoo Cover Ups

Pro Tip for covering up an old tattoo: Go for what you really want rather than settling for less than something that will rock your world. The last thing you want to do is trade in one tattoo you feel lukewarm about for another tattoo you feel lukewarm about, right? Exactly. So, my first question to someone interested in a tattoo cover up is, “If you were getting a brand new, fresh custom tattoo… and the sky is the limit… what would your tattoo be?” People are usually surprised by this question because the general perception seems to be that successfully covering up a tattoo is an almost impossible task. And as it turns out, it’s absolutely possible. And successful. Fun even. In fact… cover ups are one of my favorite things to do!
 
 In my book, there are a couple of hard and fast rules for cover ups. First, we’ll need to go a little larger with the new tattoo in order to fully encompass the old tattoo within the new tattoo while having a little room to spare. Does this mean you’ll have to get an enormous back piece just to get a cover up? No. (Well, unless you’re covering an enormous tattoo, then probably.) But if you’re covering an average to small sized tattoo like the gecko in this series of photos, you won’t even need to go as big as Ashley did. (She liked the design so much that when we stenciled it on she decided to go bigger, so we enlarged it another 30%! As the old tattoo saying goes, “Go big or go home!”)
 
 Secondly, flexibility with color and shading is key since that’s how we’ll go about camouflaging the old tattoo within the new tattoo for a seamless cover up. Using color and shading to in essence “camouflage” the old tattoo adds depth, contrast, and even texture to the new tattoo design – all of which make the new tattoo “pop” and the old tattoo fall away into the past.
 
 When taking these two things into account, we can now think outside of the box in terms of design and create something distinctive that represents you now, rather than the you from back then. There’s no reason to be stuck with a *meh* tattoo when you could have a beautiful, custom tattoo that you feel awesome wearing!
 
 Check out more cover ups here!
 

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