Old School Tattoos

Old school tattoos may be plain, bland green blobs to some but if that is the case, they are sadly mistaken. In truth, many tribes and cultures have been creating full-color tattoos for centuries and if there were tattoo pics from some of the ancient tribes or asian cultures, they would actually be quite impressive even when placed next to and compared with the most colorful tattoo gallery available today. Unfortunately, tattoo pictures are a relatively new concept, as are flash tattoos but that does not mean that there is any cause to dismiss the old school tattoos offhanded, even if some of them were relatively plain by today’s standards.

Now if you have looked at any relatively recent (historically speaking) tattoos pictures … at least sense the introduction of the camera has made this possible, you may think that all of the old school tattoos were nothing more than green ink or what is often referred to these days as “prison ink” for tattoos was about all that the tattoo artists had to work with back then. While this may be the case for some of the world in the twentieth century, fortunately, these “old school” tattoos were limited to pretty much that period in time. The days of the plain green tattoos like the old cross tattoos and star tattoos are pretty much limited to prison anymore unless someone is just really intent on recreating one of these old school tattoos for posterity sake.

The Asian societies and many tribal cultures have used selected dyes from plants and even animal by-products to create very colorful “old school” tattoos that even many of the tattoo artists around today would be proud to have in their tattoo galleries. Perhaps one of the most famous sets of old school tattoos would be the Chinese, Japanese or other Asian Character tattoos which, by contrast, were actually relatively dull by comparison but these generally only told a story about the person bearing the tattoo. The other tribal and Asian tattoos were generally much more intricate and while they did not express it in words, the ideas or symbolism of the tattoos was every bit as important as the color and beauty of these “old school” tattoos that have been around for centuries.

These symbolic old school tattoos were often representative or symbolic of the people, their cultures and their beliefs in ideas and symbols. Tattoos were often used to allow everyone from those within the tribe to their enemies know more about the power and magic possessed by the person … all through the symbolism of tattoos and how they were worn. These were old school tattoos in every sense of the word but they were rarely dull and bland, green splotches of a naked girl that danced when you wiggled your gut or flexed your arm muscles. These old school tattoos were rich in color, symbolism and history and are a great source of inspiration even among tattoo artists today.

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