Hildbrandt Lexicon: Tattoo Terms & Slang

Aftercare: Proper treatment after a new tattoo or piercing to aid healing and prevent infection

Airbrushing - when the ink sprays all over your pants

Apprenticeships:To become a tattoo artist a person must first have a passion for art and for drawing and also be able to draw. Then the next step is to gain an apprenticeship from a person that is already skilled in the art of tattooing.

Arabic: Designs that derive from the Middle East

Autoclave: A machine that uses high pressure and hot water to sterilize equipment used for tattooing before and after each session.

Biomech: A surrealistic style of art that combines elements of machines with organics. Rendered with distinct realism, biomechanical art expresses an internal fantasy world, most typically represented with human or animal anatomy where bones and joints are replaced with metal pistons and gears, but infused with muscles and tendons.

Black-and-gray: A style of tattooing that uses only black ink in varying shades.

Blowouts: These are areas in a tattoo that have a muddy, blurred look to them. This comes from going too deep and pushing the ink into the subcutaneous layer of the skin.

Borneo Traditional Tattooing: A hand tapping style of tattooing with two sticks, developed by some of the ancient tribes of Borneo.

Cadaver: A customer who doesn't talk to the tattoo artist while getting inked

Carving: Another name for tattooing.

Celtic Style Tattoo: Based on traditional designs or Celtic origin and influence. Celtic art has used a variety of styles; knotwork, spirals, key patterns, lettering, zoomorphics, plant forms and human figures.

Chinese character tattoos: Or kanji tattoos, are tattoos consisting of Chinese characters

Clean: Refers to how well a tattoo is done. This entails how crisp the lines are, how solid the color is, and how smooth the shading is.

Color Bomb: Super high color designs, almost to the point of overkill but stopping at just the right point. Associated with New School design.

Contrast: The amount of difference in shading and/or color between two or more points in a design.

Cover up: The use of new tattoo art to cover an older one up.

Dealers: Customers who try to bid down the price of their tattoo, like they are at an auction.

Dermis:, the layer of dermal tissue underlying the epidermis

Flash: Legally reproduced sheets of artwork that hang on the walls of most tattoo shops and studio’s.

Flat needle: Generally used for shading and coloring.  Its basic formation makes it great for covering symmetrical designs or areas that require precision.

http://www.tattoomachineequipment.com/tattoo-supplies-supply/flats-5f.html

Getting Inked: getting a tattoo 

Goo: The cool, healing ointment tattoo artists apply to a new tattoo

Gun: term for tattoo machine

http://www.tattoomachineequipment.com/category/tattooing-equipment/tattoo-machine-gun

Ink: term for tattoo

Ink: tattoo pigment

http://www.tattoomachineequipment.com/category/tattoo-ink

Irons: term of endearment for tattoo machines used by artists

Irezumi: A Japanese word that refers to the insertion of ink under the skin to leave a permanent, usually decorative mark; a form of tattooing.

Knotwork: Involved in most of the popular Celtic designs. Intertwining lengths of rope or twine that are meant to give the viewer something to concentrate on for a variety of different purposes.

Liner: a needle or group of needles used to create the outline of a tattoo, usually shaped in a circular pattern, also known as a round.

http://www.tattoomachineequipment.com/category/tattoo-needles/round-liner-needle

Magnum: a group of needles used for filling in and shading a tattoo after the outline has been done.

http://www.tattoomachineequipment.com/category/tattoo-needles/single-stack-magnums-needle

Meat: locals who hang around the tattoo shop all the time and always have a fresh tattoo.

Needle: a group of several small needles called sharps attached to a needle bar.

http://www.tattoomachineequipment.com/category/tattoo-needles

New School:a tattoo style that is bold, bright and in-your-face. It includes contemporary and fantastical designs.

Old English: One of the most popular lettering font for tattoos

Old School or Traditional: Western or traditional Americana tattoo style featuring bold, blue-black outlines, usually filled with solid red and green with rare additions of blue, yellow, brown and purple; and embellished with little or no shading.

Permanent makeup: A cosmetic technique which employs tattoos (permanent pigmentation of the dermis) as a means of producing designs that resemble makeup.

http://www.tattoomachineequipment.com/category/perm-make-up

Pounding Skin: doing a tattoo 

Round: a needle or group of needles used to create the outline of a tattoo, usually shaped in a circular pattern, hence called round.

http://www.tattoomachineequipment.com/category/tattoo-needles/round-liner-needle

Shader: a group of needles used for filling in and shading a tattoo, also known as magnum

http://www.tattoomachineequipment.com/category/tattoo-needles/single-stack-magnums-needle

Show Your Ink: To show off your tattoos 

Showcase: A customer who wears a lot of one particular artist’s work.

Sleeve: is a large tattoo, or a collection of smaller tattoos, usually themed in similar manner, that covers most or all of a person's arm, usually from shoulder to wrist.

Slinging Ink: doing a tattoo

Swallow tattoo: was a symbol used historically by sailors to show off their sailing experience

Tac: term for tattoo, as in tac it on.

Tat - short for tattoo

Tattoo kit: An ensemble of tattoo equipment such as: tattoo machines, needles, power supply, necessary supplies for beginners to professionals. 

http://www.tattoomachineequipment.com/category/tattooing-equipment/tattoo-kits

tattoo machine: A hand-held device generally used to create a tattoo, a permanent marking of the skin with indelible ink.

http://www.tattoomachineequipment.com/category/tattooing-equipment/tattoo-machine-gun

Tebori: Japanese, describes the technique of tattooing by hand. Many artists praise it for its ability to create subtle gradations of tone that are difficult to achieve with a machine.

Tenderfoot: Body art newbies

Tramp stamp: A tattoo done on the lower back of women.

Transfer Paper: used to create temporary tattoos or to provide a guide for permanent tattooing

http://www.tattoomachineequipment.com/tattoo-supplies-supply/spirit-stencil-transfer-paper.html

Tribal: patterns of lines and curves put together to create and abstract form of art typically in solid black.

Viking: Tattoos that pay homage to the Nordic culture.

Works - needles and tubes

http://www.tattoomachineequipment.com/category/tattoo-tubes-grips-tip

Wrastler: This is a person who, after fainting in the tattoo chair, still decides to finish what he started.