InkCraftArrow Tattoo Ideas, Designs and Meaning
11 original arrow designs drawn for InkCraftBy Uladzimir TumanauUpdated
An arrow is a line with a direction, and nearly everything it means comes from what it points at or passes through. A short bar across the shaft turns it into the Sagittarius glyph, whichever way it flies and whether or not you meant a zodiac sign.
Black and grey stick and poke arrow tattoo design Try it on — Black and grey stick and poke arrow tattoo design
Color trash polka arrow tattoo design: a black arrow piercing through three horizontal red bars Try it on — Color trash polka arrow tattoo design: a black arrow piercing through three horizontal red bars
Black and white minimalist arrow tattoo design, outline stencil Try it on — Black and white minimalist arrow tattoo design, outline stencil
Black and white geometric arrow and star tattoo design, outline stencil Try it on — Black and white geometric arrow and star tattoo design, outline stencil
Black and grey traditional arrow and heart tattoo design: a heart pierced by an arrow Try it on — Black and grey traditional arrow and heart tattoo design: a heart pierced by an arrow
Black and grey traditional arrow and heart tattoo design: a heart pierced by an arrow Try it on — Black and grey traditional arrow and heart tattoo design: a heart pierced by an arrow
Black and white minimalist arrow and sagittarius tattoo design, outline stencil Try it on — Black and white minimalist arrow and sagittarius tattoo design, outline stencil
Color trash polka arrow and sagittarius tattoo design Try it on — Color trash polka arrow and sagittarius tattoo design
Color new school arrow and heart tattoo design: a glossy, layered heart pierced by a colorful arrow Try it on — Color new school arrow and heart tattoo design: a glossy, layered heart pierced by a colorful arrow
Black and white fine line arrow and sagittarius tattoo design, outline stencil Try it on — Black and white fine line arrow and sagittarius tattoo design, outline stencil
Color watercolor arrow and sagittarius tattoo design Try it on — Color watercolor arrow and sagittarius tattoo design
Tap any design to see it on your own skin in the try-on — no signup.
This set of 11 arrow designs, by the numbers
- Styles represented
- trash polka (2), minimalist (2), traditional (2), stick and poke (1), geometric (1), new school (1)
- Black-and-grey vs colour
- 64% black-and-grey, 36% colour
- Most often drawn with
- sagittarius, heart, star, flower
Counted from the 11 designs shown on this page. Every one was drawn for InkCraft — none are scraped or reposted. Free to reference with a link to this page.
What a arrow tattoo means
Direction is the plainest reading. An arrow points somewhere and nowhere else, so it is worn for moving on: a new country, a recovery, a decision not to look back. A popular modern saying adds that an arrow can only be launched by first being pulled backwards, which makes it a tattoo for a hard stretch the wearer hopes will turn out to be a drawing-back rather than a setback. Nobody knows who first said it, but the archery is right.
Love comes from Cupid, and Ovid gives him two kinds of arrow. In the Metamorphoses a sharp golden one kindles love and a blunt one tipped with lead drives it off, and he shoots Apollo with the first and Daphne with the second, which is why the god chases and the nymph runs. A heart with an arrow through it is that golden wound, and three designs here are that pairing.
Being pierced is an older and darker idea. Saint Sebastian, shot with arrows and left for dead, made the arrow a sign of suffering survived, and Saint Augustine is painted holding a heart pierced by one, after a line in his Confessions about a heart wounded by divine love. An arrow through something therefore reads as that thing struck and still standing. The trash-polka arrow driven through red bars here carries that reading, whether it was meant or not.
Plain geometry carries the rest. A straight shaft with a head at one end and feathers at the other is one of the first shapes anyone draws, and it survives almost any style: the dotwork arrow, the single-line one laid flat and the faceted geometric arrow with a compass star on its shaft all read at a glance. That simplicity is why it joins, points at or skewers so many other subjects.
Where the design comes from
The arrow meets the history of tattooing in one body. Ötzi, the man found in the ice of the Ötztal Alps in 1991, carried sixty-one tattoos and a quiver of arrows, and an X-ray in 2001 found a flint arrowhead in his left shoulder, the wound that probably killed him more than five thousand years ago. Much later the British broad arrow, a stylised arrowhead, marked Crown property from cannon to trees reserved for navy masts, and in the nineteenth century convict uniforms in Britain and Australia. The fine-line arrow of the 2010s owes nothing to either.
Choosing yours
- Watch the shaft: a short bar across its middle makes the Sagittarius glyph, and four arrows here were drawn as exactly that. For direction without a zodiac reading, keep the shaft clean, as on the flat minimalist arrow and the dotwork one.
- The fletching is where small arrows fail: chevrons of a few straight strokes hold at 5 cm, soft realistic barbs need twice that. What the arrow meets, a heart, a flower or a slash of red, changes the meaning more than its style.
Size, cost and placement
How big, and what it costs
A plain line arrow of 6 to 12 cm is usually a shop minimum; a coloured heart or a splattered brushstroke can treble the time, and dotwork takes longer than its size suggests.
Where it sits, and how much it hurts
A long thin shape wants a long thin field: inner forearm, finger, spine, collarbone or outer ankle; a heart and arrow suits the outer arm or calf. The spine and ankle bone are sharp; the forearm is gentle.
What to ask your artist
- Whether anything, a bar on the shaft above all, will make it read as Sagittarius.
- Whether the feathers will stay open at your size.
- What the arrow passes through, and whether you want that meaning.
Prices vary widely by city and artist — treat these as session lengths rather than quotes, and expect a shop minimum on anything small. The cost guide turns hours into money by size, placement and style.
Common questions
Which way should an arrow point on an arm?
Forward along the limb reads as moving on; back toward the shoulder, as a return. The angle matters less than a bar across the shaft, which makes any arrow the Sagittarius sign.
Do crossed arrows really mean friendship?
That reading is repeated widely and sourced rarely, usually credited to Native American tradition without naming a nation or a document. Treat a crossed pair as two paths meeting; the arrows on this page are all single, so ask for one.
Where does the heart pierced by an arrow come from?
From Cupid's golden arrow in Ovid, and from Christian art, where Saint Augustine holds a heart pierced by divine love. The drawing is the same either way.
Can an arrow go on a finger?
A plain one can, since a shaft and head are only a few lines, but keep the fletching to two or three chevrons and expect the side of a finger to blur fastest. Anything shaded needs more skin.
See it on your skin before you commit
InkCraft places any of these designs on a photo of you — scaled, wrapped and shaded to the placement you pick.