On this page you will find useful tips and resourses for designing a tattoo sleeve
- Free tattoo sleeve template
- Easy step by step process
- Tattoo designs and flash art
- Instant downloads
- SVG files
- Tips and tricks
- Tattoo sleeve ideas
Tattoo Flash Art Sheets contain a collection or series of images that are themed and in the same style. They work great when designing your tattoo sleeve.
Designing a Tattoo Sleeve
How to create a sleeve
When designing your tattoo sleeve there are a few things to take into account.
Below i’ll explain in 5 easy steps how you can design your own tattoo sleeve.
These steps include:
-
Style –
The ‘look’ of your tattoo sleeve
-
Theme –
The type of images
-
Imagery –
Sourcing your art
-
Placement –
Sketch your sleeve
-
Background –
Choose background fillers
One of the most asked questions is, how to make a tattoo sleeve flow?
Lets look at how to make your sleeve flow with placement and image suggestions.
Designing a tattoo sleeve is not as daunting as it seems.
Design your own tattoo sleeve
How to create your own tattoo sleeve
Step 1.
Style
Decide on the style of your tattoo sleeve that you like. Whether you want a bold traditional tattoo or maybe a neo traditional with vibrant colours. there are many styles these days.
See below for more tattoo sleeve style ideas.
Step 2.
Theme
Decide on the theme for your sleeve. for example woodland sleeve, sugar skull sleeve, underwater sleeve, witch sleeve etc. Your theme will help you decide on the different elements to include in your sleeve.
See below for more tattoo sleeve theme ideas.
Step 3.
Imagery
Search for tattoo ideas on the web, there are many amazing artists selling designs and flash art to buy and download to use. Find tattoo designs or tattoo flash sheets with awesome tattoo flash art designs that fits your theme and style. Flash Sheets are great to use for designing a sleeve as they are a collection of themed elements perfect for use when designing a tattoo sleeve.
You may want to add clouds or waves as a background to your images
See below for imagery ideas and available tattoo flash sheets to download.
Step 4.
Placement
Download a sleeve tattoo template from the web. Using your commissioned or purchased tattoo flash art sheets and tattoo designs work out the placement for all your elements. You will want to create a tattoo sleeve layout. You can do this digitally or just by doing a quick sketch.
Placement is very important when designing a tattoo sleeve.
How to make your tattoo flow?
Your sleeve needs to flow and the way you place your imagery will effect the flow of the tattoo.
Some tattoo sleeve placement and layout ideas and tips:
- Use organic shapes, the body does not have straight lines, so using more organic shapes that can wrap around your body will make it flow.
- Use your negative space to create nice shapes and lines.
Step 5.
Background
Once you have arranged your images you may want to add background to give your tattoo sleeve more dimension, movement and depth. Popular background choices are clouds, waves, stars and space and flowers and vines. Organic shapes work best as background filler so the images can be adjust to suit the space
Book your Tattoo
Send your tattoo flash art sheet to your tattoo artist. Make sure to book with a professional tattoo artist who has an available portfolio to view.
A woodland and butterfly themed tattoo sleeve.
Using a Tattoo Sleeve Template
Once you have downloaded a tattoo sleeve template and purchased your flash sheets or designs it is up to you how you want to arrange your selection of images. If you are savy on photoshop you can open the images up on your computer to compose you sleeve. you can also print and cut out your images on paper and play around with the different images using this method.
WITCH SLEEVE FLASH: MOON & CLOUDS (FULL SLEEVE + INDIVIDUAL DESIGNS)
Tattoo Sleeve Template
Decide on placement using the different elements for your sleeve.
Flash Tattoo Sleeve
Design your own tattoo sleeve
This is an example of a tattoo sleeve created using flash art and available tattoo designs.
Let’s look at how to make a tattoo sleeve flow?
In the above example of the tattoo sleeve idea, the images overlap to give the sleeve movement and dimension. The background contains clouds and stars and other small filler symbols. The negative space also helps to create flow throughout the design.
MEDUSA SLEEVE FLASH: SNAKES & FLOWERS (FULL SLEEVE + INDIVIDUAL DESIGNS)
Have a look through my available designs or get in touch about a custom commission
Cat Floral Silhouette Flash Sheet
Tattoo Sleeve Theme and Imagery Ideas:
Tattoo sleeve themes
Floral sleeve ideas
Floral sleeves are beautiful they are generally a feminine tattoo sleeve design, but are not only for women.
Woodland Themed Tattoo Sleeve Ideas
Woodland creatures make amazing subjects to use as elements for your tattoo sleeve. They can be complimented by using flowers and leaves as beautiful filler around the woodland creatures.
Witch Themed Tattoo Sleeve Ideas
Witches and witchcraft themed tattoo sleeves can look amazing. either done in colour or black and white. There are many small symbols that can be used when designing a witch themed tattoo sleeve.
Click here to view my collection of witchy tattoo designs available to download instantly
Space Themed Tattoo Sleeve Ideas
Space tattoo sleeves can look amazing. There are many different elements to choose from when designing a space tattoo sleeve. The sun, moon, planets and spaceships all well placed can look really effective set solid black areas.
Underwater Themed Tattoo Sleeve Ideas
Underwater themed tattoo sleeves are probably one of the funnest themes to design. There are so many elements to choose from all with great organic shapes that be be altered to fit into your design.
Tattoo Flash Sheets
Available to download
Tattoo Designs
Available to download
Some more things to consider:
Black and white or colour?
Depending on whether you are after a black and white tattoo or a colour tattoo will help choose the right design.
Light or Dark?
Some tattoos are very dark, and have a lot of solid black incorporated into their design. They are usually high contrast and done just using black ink. Other tattoos look light, have may have more detail, they are not as heavily shaded and don’t contain as much solid black in the design.
Modern or Traditional Style?
Do you want a traditional tattoo or modern tattoo?
Contact me
Try out my Tattoo Design App to help you design your next tattoo
A fun app to play with when designing your tattoo.
- Choose from some of my Tattoo Flash Art Sheets and drag the images around.
- Experiment with placement before you get a tattoo!
