This article was originally published on VisualChase
The human body is a marvel, and every single one of us is beautiful in our own special ways. Regardless, sometimes, people have scars or birthmarks that they want to beautify even more, and plenty of tattoo artists are more than happy to oblige that. And, we're more than happy to oblige you by compiling some of our favorite examples. So, give these all a look, and see if you get any inspiration!
Watch Out For Fish Bones
When you're eating fish, the last thing you want to find is a bone. But, when this guy looked down at his arm, and realized that the stitches and scars left over from his surgery looked a lot like a fish's ribcage, he knew he had to do something. A few hours at the local tattoo parlor later, and voila! He's now got this cool little skeletal companion to lug around with him, and his scar looks totally sick!
The artist did a great job making the fish a little menacing too. The skull and the long, trailing fins are great touches.
Gustavo The Finger Magician
The person who posted this image originally had nothing but praise for their tattoo artist, who managed to turn a shortened digit into a convincing finger in a snap. The artist's name was Gustavo, and if you're still confused don't worry we were too. Gustavo tattooed a false fingernail and cuticle onto the end of the client's nub so that with a cursory glance, it still looks like the person has their whole finger!
We applaud this tattoo artist for doing such a convincing job, it really looks like this person has all five fingenails!
Strange Encounters Of The Tattoo Kind
Whether you believe in aliens or not, you've got to admit, this is a great tattoo. It looks like this person had wrist surgery, and then afterward didn't know what to do with the caterpillar scar running down their arm. So, they turned that into a tractor beam and added in a UFO and a little abductee to complete the scene. How about that color scheme too, isn't it out there?
What are the odds that this guy actually walked into the tattoo shop and asked the artist to take him to his leader? Probably low, but it would've been funny.
Childhood Burn Turns Into A Phoenix
Even though some scars fade over time, others will follow us through the course of our lives. But, after a number of years, this young man decided he wanted to cover up a painful burn scar from his childhood, and he needed something symbolic to do it. So, naturally, he asked his tattoo artist for a phoenix rising from the ashes! And not only did the tattoo come out great, but the concept fits perfectly too.
We really love the geometric details that went into this tattoo. The artist clearly has a steady, measured hand, and a pretty distinct style.
Beam Us Up Scotty
When an ankle injury sidelined this Star Trek fan, they didn't let it get them down. Instead, during the whole process of surgery prep and all that, they came up with an incredible idea for what to do with their surgery scar. Then, after surgery (and a few months of healing) they went and had the enterprise and one of the crew tattooed on their lower leg. Now that's what we call highly logical!
There are loads of other great examples of Star Trek tattoos out there, so don't be too disappointed if you don't have a big scar to use for yours.
You Can't Even See It Anymore!
This tattoo artist did a heck of a job with a coverup assignment on a man's elbow, so much so that we can't even see the original scar anymore! We're actually pretty sure that this is meant to be a specific album cover from a popular rock album too, but the name is escaping us. Anyway, hats off to this artist for their work, and to the guy for sitting through it. Elbow tattoos can hurt!
There are a few schools of thought about what hurts in tattooing and what doesn't. Some people say it's the fatty parts that hurt, others will tell you ligaments. We say elbows.
Lions Represent Courage And Strength
By looking at the picture on the left, you can already tell that the person in this image has a lot of courage and a whole lot of strength. That scar could only be made by a series of major, incredibly painful back procedures, which probably required years of rehab after the fact. But, they decided to turn this memory of pain into a reminder of their true power, and we can't stop applauding their decision.
On top of representing courage and strength, lions are also noted for a number of other traits that humans try to mimic, like valor and nobility.
What Beautiful Flowers
This scar on this woman's foot was bothering her for a while, but she wasn't sure what to do about it. Then, she had a great idea for a tattoo and went to a local shop to request an appointment. But, she never could've expected how good the tattoo would actually come out. This gorgeous stretch of flowers now gets to go with her everywhere that she goes for the rest of her life!
We probably shouldn't say "the rest of her life," since removal options are out there. But, with a tattoo that gorgeous, who in their right mind would get it removed?
Pretty Little Lilies
The lily is one of the most beautiful and well-loved flowers in the world. And, lucky for us, even with all the horrifying outcomes the changing weather has brought upon our planet, it looks like the lilies aren't going anywhere. This woman could say the same because she's got a little lily tattooed on her calf! She just decided to use her birthmark as a stone, and then added a flower on top!
We're really fond of the shading work this tattoo artist did on the woman's birthmark. By adding some contour, and darker shading to the bottom half of the rock, they completely transformed it.
A No Jokes Back Piece
If you're a tattoo novice, remember this: sitting for back tattoos is excruciating. Still, somehow, this woman managed to sit for a long, long time in order to put this gorgeous cover-up on her back. As you can see in the image on the left, she had a large scar there before, and has now replaced it with this gorgeous piece of art. Great work from the artist, and applause to the woman for enduring the pain!
A tattoo of this grandeur can really give somebody newfound confidence. But, if you're just getting started with tattoos, maybe go for something smaller for your first piece.
Big Scar Becomes Bigger Battleship
It takes dedication to sit for hours at a time and have large parts of your body covered in ink. But, if you've got a good artist, a high pain tolerance, and a whole lot of patience, you might wind up with something sick like this guy's back tattoo. He decided to create this maritime masterpiece to cover up the scar on his left shoulder, and wound up with one of the coolest tattoos we've seen in a while.
One of our favorite parts of this piece is that steampunk-looking compass up on the shoulder. Plus, who doesn't love a good tattoo of a pirate ship?
Don't Harm, Treat Yo Self
The story behind this image is much sadder than you might realize at first glance. The person pictured has suffered from severe self-harm issues and had a number of scars on their body. But, to remind themselves that harm and pain aren't the answer, they decided to tattoo the word love on their chest. If you look closely, you can actually see that the tattoo is covering up a number of scars, too.
If anyone reading this is struggling with depression, anxiety, self-harm, or any other mental health troubles, please know that there are resources out there available for you, you are seen, and your feelings are valid.
Cat's Out Of The Bag
A lot of people wind up with tattoos of their pets over time. It's a great way to keep a fur baby with you after they're gone. However, this guy went for a somewhat different approach. Instead of getting a tattoo of their beloved cat, they got a tattoo of a cartoon cat. Here's the kicker– the cartoon cat is scratching the man's leg, exactly in the spot he has a scar from his real cat!
This is one of those situations where art imitates life. Or is it life imitates art? We're not exactly sure, but we love this idea and this tattoo anyway!
It's The Little Things
A lot of people get spooked when they start thinking about tattoos because they only think about huge sleeves and body-covering pieces. A lot of the time, people have tiny little tattoos that most other people will never even see. Case in point, this woman took a little surgery scar, and then decided to have some fun with it. Using the scar as a spine, she then had her artist make a fish skeleton on her hip!
If the state of those ribs is concerned, this fish must've been delicious. And speaking of that, is this picture making anyone else a little hungry?
Background Still To Come
This person decided to take the series of deep scars running down their forearm and make a really cool Japanese scene out of it. First, they added a mean-looking koi fish, and later they planned to add cherry blossoms and full background. Still though, even with just this first step done, all of his scars are almost completely invisible. It just goes to show how good some tattoo artists are at their jobs!
If you want to get a tattoo done in the Japanese style, we think it's a great idea. But, maybe don't add any text unless you know how to read the language.
Burn Scars Give Way To Bird Song
It can be really tough for a child with major scarring to go about their day-to-day life. Since kids can be brutal, often times they'll be worried that they'll be bullied for their scars. Then, this develops into a complex where the person resents the scar later on. Still, some people are able to take everything in stride, this guy being one of them. He took some serious burn scars and made it into a gorgeous bird scene instead.
You can still see a bit of the burn under the tattoo, but the artist did a very nice job texturing the scene regardless.
Use The Force
We're not exactly sure where this scar came from, but this person has got to be glad for it at this point. Some clever tattoo artist saw that little sliver on the person's ankle and thought, you know what, that's Darth Vader. And lo and behold they actually pulled it off, too! The only thing cooler than this would be if the person had an actual lightsaber, but we all know that's not possible.
Themed tattoos from TV shows and movies are always a big hit, because then you can compare and contrast them with other fans in the fandom.
Scar Polished After Forty Years
After a certain period of time, most people get used to their scars. However, for other people, the time passes and they just get more and more frustrated with their perceptions of themselves. That was the case here, where after forty years, this woman decided it was time to do something about the scar on her stomach. The result? A gorgeous network of cherry blossoms and butterflies for her to marvel at!
You can tell that this tattoo artist paid very careful attention to where they'd be placing each of the cherry blossoms, and how much shading they'd be doing. Well done!
Who Spilled The Wine?
Nobody likes a spilled glass of red wine. It stains everything, from your furniture, to your carpets, and even your skin! Ok, maybe the last part is going a little too far, but if you looked at this person's neck you might believe us. This person had an inventive way of dealing with their birthmark and decided to add a tipped-over glass next to it. We guess that's one way to do bottoms up.
When our parents used to warn us about not getting neck tattoos, do you guys think this is what they meant? Neck tattoos of glasses of wine?
Let's Sew That Right Up
This long string of stitches has healed completely on this person's body, thankfully, but it left a pretty massive scar. Still, undeterred by this, or by the sensitivity of the skin around the tattoo, this person decided to create a piece of art that represents the process of getting healthy again. The needle and thread wind their way across the place the old stitches used to be, and keep the wound sealed up nice and tight!
This is actually some really nice fine line work if you look closely. The needle is a little off-balance, but the details inside the thread are great.
This Vietnamese Tattoo Fits Perfectly
In Vietnamese culture, flowers are incredibly important. So, when this Vietnamese woman had a scar that she decided to cover up, she chose a flower. The problem is, there are so many gorgeous flowers, so how are you supposed to just pick one? Luckily, the woman's name is Cúc, which means chrysanthemum in Vietnamese. Plus, the combination of colors in chrysanthemum petals contains some of this woman's favorites, so it all worked out perfectly in the end.
Half Geometric Half Natural Cover Up
This interesting piece of art was created to cover a big scar on the customer's shoulder. The artist heard that they wanted flowers, and then went with a really interesting hybrid design. You can see that while some of the flower petals look natural, others in the background are more geometric, shadowy, and almost tribal in nature. It's an awesome combination of styles that we're sure this person is going to be proud to wear for many years to come.
It looks like the artist did a really nice job of leaving some of the center of this tattoo transparent, so the heart of the scar can still shine through too.
Line Under Water
We've seen a lot of fishing tattoos in our time, but none that are this cool. This person had the ingenious idea of using a small forearm scar to create a fishing hook. The caveat is the hook has to go through their arm of course. Which, in real life is terrible, but as a tattoo, it probably doesn't hurt that much. Or, it probably only hurt during the part where they used needles to put art on his skin.
If anyone has ever had that happen to them, then you know, it's not a great feeling (so you can bet the fish hate it too)
A Fun Little Horizon
This woman decided she wanted to do an inventive tattoo, and maybe more than one. So, she took the long, straight scar on the side of her foot, and turned it into a little flip book of her dogs going for a run. Don't they look so adorable? We just hope it didn't hurt too much tattooing such a sensitive part of the body– or injuring it for that matter.
We're pretty sure we at least see one labrador and one rottweiler in the bunch of dogs. Also, there's one that kind of looks like a sheep. What do you guys see?
A Simple Rainbow Design
This petite tattoo makes great use of a petite little scar, as well as a bunch of colored ink, and the results are just fabulous. By adding a little color, and shading it out into a rainbow, this tattoo artist efficiently masked any of the scar's distinguishing features, making it virtually unrecognizable. Now, this part of the woman's body looks more like jewelry than anywhere that she would've had a scar.
Putting rainbow color on a tattoo can be a questionable idea if your artist isn't 100% sure their work won't bleed. A lot of times, all the colors wind up melding at the borders.
Scar Turns Into Lost Cat
Everyone deals with stress differently, and after the stress of major knee surgery, this person needed to do something to treat themself. So, they got to thinking about what means the most to them in life, and then remembered their lost cat. All of a sudden, a tattoo idea clicked into place, and a few days later this gorgeous piece of art was born. Isn't that dot work in the background incredible too?
There's a real Picasso-esque quality to this one, especially with those speckles of white on the upper left of the background. It's very multidimensional, picturesque, and yet at the same time unreal.
A Huge, Huge Commitment
When people say that getting a tattoo is a commitment, we're not sure if this is what they mean. But, as long as this person is happy with the artwork they purchased, then that's all that matters! In this case, too, there's a lot of artwork there, so... Anyway, apparently this complicated piece covers a lot of bad history for the wearer, and they're incredibly pleased with the way it came out and healed after the fact!
People don't talk enough about aftercare for tattoos. Unscented lotion and soap for the first two weeks, lots and lots of sunscreens– are you writing this down?
A Little Baby Mouse
A lot of times, after people have tough, traumatic years of self harming they'll want to cover up their scars with reminders of beauty and things that they enjoy. In this case, this person decided that a beautiful little mouse, munching on a nut, and a set of pretty flowers would be more pleasing for them to look at than those reminders of their past. Still, we're not really sure why they chose a mouse.
A squirrel, a groundhog, a hedgehog, nothing? She decided to go with the rodent that people least want as a pet. But hey, to each his own, right?
Seamless Integration of Birthmark and Tattoo
This tattoo almost reminds us of something from Star Wars. It looks like weather systems on a foreign planet, or maybe something out of a video game. Of course it's not, it's just snowflakes integrated seamlessly into this woman's birthmark. But, the birthmark has become almost cloudlike in nature with this pattern, and you can choose whether you see the flakes emanating from, or disintegrating into the splotches of red on her arm.
We really love designs like this that combine both the person's scar or birthmark, and the work of the artist. We understand why people do full cover-ups, but these seem much more creative.
How Do We Feel About This?
So, most of these have been awesome examples of tattoos that cover up or improve birthmarks and scars, and we're all about that. But, do we really think this one hit the mark? Apparently, this girl wanted to cover up her birthmark for a really long time, and then settled on this design when it was all said and done. It's a nice design, just... doesn't it look like the tattoo artist missed the birthmark?
The upper right corner is what we're mostly referring to, but maybe that's just redness from the recent tattooing. Either way, this is a nice, pretty piece that this girl should be happy to wear.
Birthmark Becomes A Paw Print
This one took us a few tries to understand. We just thought there were puppy feet walking up the woman's leg. But, what's actually going on is that her brown birthmark, in the center of the picture, is being used as one of the puppy's little finger pads. The birthmark blends seamlessly with the tattoo, and makes sure that from now on, this dog lover will never be walking alone!
We're trying to think of what else she could've done with that birthmark. Maybe it could've become some type of food, sitting on a plate? Like a baked potato tattoo or something!
Another Pretty Fish
The person in this picture suffered a really nasty burn that permanently scarred their skin. If you look closely, you can tell that it's one of those burns that took off more than a few layers of skin, and it looks like it's still in the painful process of healing. Still, they decided to go ahead and get a classic fish design tattooed around the wound, using the scarred flesh as the fish's scaly belly.
Is this tattoo making anyone else want to go fishing? Of course, we'd never be able to catch anything that beautiful, but it would be fun to try.
Teeny Tiny Birthmark Turned Kitty Cat
A tattoo artist has to have sure, steady hands, and be able to cater to even the finest details inside of a client's requested tattoo. That being said, there are levels to it, and some artists are much better than others. That's why this person deserves a huge amount of credit for taking such a tiny birthmark and turning it into such a beautiful tattoo. That kitty looks so comfortable too!
If we didn't see the picture on the left side, we never would've realized that this was a cover-up tattoo. The shade of the birthmark actually complements the darkness of the ink very well.
Pew Pew Pew
We're not huge fans of guns, in any way, but this fun little blaster might be the sole exception to that rule. This cute little toy looks great on this person's forearm, and its bright red coloring makes sure that it'll be seen and stand out. Plus, they seamlessly integrated their scar into the shock of the blaster. And look how cool those rings look wrapped around the scar too!
Tattooing is one of those incredible two-dimensional mediums where all of a sudden, everything becomes three-dimensional. This flat ray gun painted on a person's flat arm canvas actually has depth when you really take a closer look.
A Beautiful Ribbon For A Job Well Done
Tattoos, as strange as it is to say it, are a kind of reward for some people. It sounds weird that you would reward yourself by sticking thousands of needles into your body, but acupuncture is therapy, right? So, in some ways it makes sense. Anyway, this woman decided to reward herself after completing a tough shoulder surgery, and she wound up with this gorgeous pink ribbon to cover her scar.
The one comment we will make against this tattoo, and maybe this is more against the photographer, but we can't make out what the tattoo actually says. Is that Christie and Feet?
A Gorgeous Peacock Feather
This big scar right below this woman's waistline was bothering her for years until she found a tattoo artist that could handle it as delicately as she wanted. They talked through the process together, and she wound up with a gorgeous trio of peacock feathers covering her scar. And, if you look at the minimal redness around the edges, it looks like this tattoo was really professionally done, so there shouldn't be any scarring.
You can tell a tattoo wasn't done so nicely, and that the person's skin is scarred, if there are raised lines or bumps on the surface of the tattoo.
Where's Pac Man?
Everyone loves fresh fruit, and while this tattoo definitely reminds us of fresh fruit, we feel like it would just make us hungry. This clever combination of ink and birthmark combines this person's little red splotch, and a tattoo artist's fine needle work to create a little stem and leaf, leaving us with this delectable looking drupe. The green shading inside the leaf is also nice and delicately done too, so this is a great piece!
If you look closely, it looks like this tattoo is just healing. Little black flecks of surface ink are peeling off, and the area is still a bit red around.
Not A Fish This Time
A lot of people seem to take skinny scars, and use them to create fish on their bodies. There's nothing wrong with it, we've just seen it more than a handful of times. This is an interesting response to that though, where the wearer uses their scar to create a butterfly instead! This majestic monarch looks happy as could be perched on her new owner's arm, and the owner is probably relieved to finally have something to decorate that scar!
You can tell that the tattoo artist was more gentle with the bottom inside of the butterfly's wings, on account of the scar. Very considerate of them!
To A Healthy Future!
Unfortunately, some scars can't be covered by tattoos. But, over time, as scars fade, and tattoo fashions change, hopefully, this too will change. In this person's case though, they had been self-harming too often for too many years, and their scars were too deeply embedded in their body to be effectively covered with tattoo ink. IF the person decided to do some cover-ups, and maybe some scar treatments, they could cover them. But, this tattoo looks great regardless!
This picture makes us a little sad because it shows that this person was really suffering. However, the fact they decided to get it covered up hopefully means they're feeling healthier now.
Birthmark Turned Landmass
When we were in school, we remember hearing about Pangea and thinking it was probably the most magnificent place, ever. Well, now this guy practically has Pangea tattooed on his arm, and it wasn't even his idea! When this guy was born, he had a big birthmark covering his shoulder that looks like a landmass. So, some years later, his friend decided to tattoo around it and create this awesome-looking piece of work.
It's always cool to be friends with tattoo artists because they'll give you good advice. But, they also may want to use your body to experiment, so be careful which parts you offer up. At the end of the day, tattoos are wildly personal and everyone has their own preferences for what they want their bodies to look like. But, if you're an enthusiast and want to just let your friends do their thing, then have at it! At the end of the day, you can always go back and get the tattoos laser removed if you need.