Tattoos from Your PC

Like the look of tattoos but don’t like their permanence or the risk of tattoo infection? You’re not alone. Temporary tattoos are a great solution, but they can be almost as expensive as the real thing.

To get a great looking temporary tattoo, you’ll need something a bit more involved than drawing on yourself with Sharpies or watercolor crayons. All you really need is a computer, some creativity and the willingness to learn how to make temporary tattoos that look like professional ones.

The paper is simple enough to find online or in specialty stationery stores. You can turn any image that you can print into a temporary tattoo, but keep in mind that professional tattoos aren’t photo-realistic. They look like a cross between stained glass and airbrushing, so keep that in mind as you’re choosing a design.

For a professional look, start with a black and white image that has solid, thick black lines. The pros almost always start by drawing the image in black. From there, you may want to use Photoshop or MSPaint to add color. Choose a few colors, and remember that they’ll be affected by your skin tone. Bright reds and deep blues hold up well, yellows and greens can be tricky. Fill in your design with the colors you’ve chosen; this is the part that’s like stained glass.

When it comes to shading, think about airbrushing. You’re layering colors on top of each other, so you can’t use translucent effects to create halftones. You’ll need to choose a color or two that’s 50% brighter or darker than your base color for highlighting effects.