Artificial intelligence is changing the world - and while we can argue whether that’s for better or worse, this industry has never shied away from a little innovation!

Here’s our considered take on the state of AI in the tattoo industry now; how to use it well, and where it can go wrong!

How to Use AI in Tattoo Design

Probably the most common - and easiest - way to use AI in the tattoo industry is by using AI tools to generate your designs.

Some artists use AI for inspiration or drawing prompts; others might only make the occasional tweak to an AI-generated tattoo, and some artists even get the tool to design their stencils.

Mostly, artists use text prompts to generate a tattoo design from their chosen AI tool, although in some cases you can use images in order to get similar designs, or art in the style of a specific artist.

It’s rare to get exactly what you want on the first try, which is why prompt-writing is such an art, but it’ll usually be made up of a string of words including the main subject, the situation or environment, any action being taken, the desired framing, and finally the style and colouring.

Premium AI tools like Blackink.ai allow you to set the style of tattoo - extending to less-than-typical styles like cyber sigilism and trash polka - as well as the body part, level of complexity, symmetry and, in some settings, line weight and colour. You can further refine the results through remixing.

What AI Can’t Do

AI can design your tattoo and even create a stencil - but tattoos rarely go on flat skin, so it’s up to you to understand the human body well enough to place it correctly. As of now, artists can’t easily access AI tools that do the tattooing for them - while some impressive strides are being made into AI tattoo machines, they’re not quite ready for general use yet. And even if they can suggest the colour inks to use, you’ll probably still need to adjust for skin tone and quality.

Artificial intelligence can’t provide the service that you do in your studio - the human touch and care involved in getting a tattoo is a valuable part of the process for many of your customers. For some people, tattooing is about connection and collaboration.

It also can’t understand cultural contexts, symbols, or operate outside of the data set it’s been given - for that reason, AI images of people tend to skew towards the white, western and conventionally-attractive. It’s not inherently a problem, just something that you should be aware of when using AI for tattoo design.

The Limitations of AI

As with all new technologies, there are a few things to bear in mind!

Firstly, artificial intelligence isn’t intelligent - it doesn’t know trends, it doesn’t have industry knowledge, and it doesn’t know how you’re going to get this tattoo design onto skin. You also can’t rely on AI to create a completed image - there will always be edits and adjustments to do!

Remember that while your client has to agree to the tattoo before you put them on your skin, they are ultimately trusting you to get the design right in the first place. AI is prone to strange spelling mistakes, adding teeth and fingers, or not getting the eyes quite right. Fixing that is an important step in the process.

There are also some potential ethical ramifications, if such things bother you! AI scrapes existing images of tattoos for its learning model, meaning that in a sense you’re stealing other artists’ designs. There are ways to get around this however, such as building your own data set with images you’ve created and taken with permission, but right now it would be hard to legally enforce any accusations of theft.

Using AI for Admin

While each artist has to decide how they feel about using AI to create tattoo designs, most of us agree that there are some jobs we’re happy to farm out to robots!

AI-driven scheduling can help reduce the number of human errors made in taking bookings, making sure you’re never double booked, while AI marketing tools can help you to find and target a new audience online. You can even use chatbots to handle your most frequently asked questions on social media - the possibilities are vast, and we’d love to know how they’re helping you work!

Artificial intelligence in the tattoo industry is fast-growing, and while it’s always wise to be wary of shortcuts, we’re excited to see just how this technology is adopted in the future!