AI-generated tattoos? Yep, they’re a thing. Count us in!

Tattoos are almost an American right of passage. Nearly everyone has one – some love theirs and others regret theirs. Typically, you have your heart set on an idea and you work with an artist to make it a reality. Or you have a spare 80 bucks and want to get Bart Simpson’s face on your chest because you like him. It doesn’t matter if your reason is sentimental or just for the hell of it. Tattoos are not uncommon and our reasons for getting them can be endless. What is uncommon though is having a computer pick your tattoos…or at the very least design them. Tattoosai is a new AI-generated tool that creates tattoo designs for you.

After you sign up, it takes you immediately to the design page. The tool asks you to briefly describe the design, pick the style you want, and if you want color or not, then BAM! It gives you a page full of design ideas. Everything from a bird on a guitar to skulls and roses to whatever you can dream up.

That sounds like a fun and cheeky way to test out ideas for new tattoos, right? But will the tool become more of a determinant for an actual tattoo artist?

Tattoo artists are creative people who like to put their art on someone’s body. They are never too keen on mimicking anyone else’s work just for the sake of a paycheck. 

As someone who has a ton of tattoos myself of both premade images in the shop and artist-designed ones, I’ve seen the difference. Artists see it as just another day when you pick out a design from their premade books, but their eyes really light up when you come up with an idea and they draw it up for you. AI has the possibility of making that light brighter or snuffing it out.

Just like any creative person, a tattoo artist can suffer times when they can’t think of what to draw. I can see Tattoosai coming in handy and helping them through that blockage so they can get ideas, or maybe it will help them to hone their artistic skills over time by helping them explore new styles.

However, I can also see people coming in with these AI-generated designs that don’t broker any room for imagination for the artist. In other words, taking over half of their job and them just solely becoming the pen to paper – or in this case needle to skin – but lacking the creativity a lot of them go into the field for.

Now I know what your thinking, that’s a pretty big leap to assume everyone and their mom is going to use this AI tool. AI can’t be that big of a thing right now, right? But it is, in fact. We have talked before about whether AI-generating art will hurt standard artists as well when we took a look at MidJourney. Not to mention the several A/GLives we have had regarding the hot topic and its ever-changing, ever-growing use.

AI is on the rise in almost every sector out there. Do I expect everyone to be bringing these AI-generated tattoo sheets to their nearby shops within the next year? No, but all businesses play the long game and if AI gets more popular over time, it could slowly weed its way into the industry as a staple…and then who knows what would happen from there.

It’s similar to the days when no one thought robots and big machines could replace jobs like screwing caps onto toothpaste and cutting sheet metal, but they have. Machinery and robots have taken over several jobs.

What’s to say AI isn’t the next big thing?