InkCraftCat Tattoo Ideas, Designs and Meaning
23 original cat designs drawn for InkCraftBy Uladzimir TumanauUpdated
Cats are usually drawn as pets, which makes for weak tattoos, because a likeness has to be right and nobody else can check it. Drawn as a shape instead — the sleeping curl, the silhouette, the stretch — a cat works at any size.
Black and grey biomechanical cat tattoo design: a cat in profile, sitting upright Try it on — Black and grey biomechanical cat tattoo design: a cat in profile, sitting upright
Color neo traditional cat tattoo design Try it on — Color neo traditional cat tattoo design
Color illustrative cat tattoo design: a steampunk cat Try it on — Color illustrative cat tattoo design: a steampunk cat
Black and white linework cat tattoo design, outline stencil: a cat walking with its tail straight up Try it on — Black and white linework cat tattoo design, outline stencil: a cat walking with its tail straight up
Black and grey dotwork cat tattoo design: a tabby cat drinking from water with a clear reflection Try it on — Black and grey dotwork cat tattoo design: a tabby cat drinking from water with a clear reflection
Black and grey illustrative cat tattoo design: a cat in a deep stretching pose Try it on — Black and grey illustrative cat tattoo design: a cat in a deep stretching pose
Black and white illustrative cat tattoo design Try it on — Black and white illustrative cat tattoo design
Black and white blackwork cat tattoo design Try it on — Black and white blackwork cat tattoo design
Color traditional cat tattoo design Try it on — Color traditional cat tattoo design
Black and white linework cat tattoo design, outline stencil Try it on — Black and white linework cat tattoo design, outline stencil
Black and grey sketch cat tattoo design Try it on — Black and grey sketch cat tattoo design
Black and grey stick and poke cat tattoo design: a cat's silhouette, viewed from behind Try it on — Black and grey stick and poke cat tattoo design: a cat's silhouette, viewed from behind
Black and white illustrative cat and semicolon tattoo design: two sleeping cats forming a semicolon Try it on — Black and white illustrative cat and semicolon tattoo design: two sleeping cats forming a semicolon
Black and grey ornamental cat and mandala tattoo design Try it on — Black and grey ornamental cat and mandala tattoo design
Black and white minimalist cat and ghost tattoo design, outline stencil Try it on — Black and white minimalist cat and ghost tattoo design, outline stencil
Color Japanese cat and cherry blossom tattoo design: a playful expression Try it on — Color Japanese cat and cherry blossom tattoo design: a playful expression
Color illustrative cat and cherry blossom tattoo design Try it on — Color illustrative cat and cherry blossom tattoo design
Color neo traditional cat and flower tattoo design: a tabby cat's head Try it on — Color neo traditional cat and flower tattoo design: a tabby cat's head
Color neo traditional cat and peony tattoo design Try it on — Color neo traditional cat and peony tattoo design
Color neo traditional cat and moon tattoo design Try it on — Color neo traditional cat and moon tattoo design
Color illustrative cat and flower tattoo design Try it on — Color illustrative cat and flower tattoo design
Black and grey illustrative cat and panther tattoo design Try it on — Black and grey illustrative cat and panther tattoo design
Black and grey dotwork cat and skull tattoo design: a feline skull Try it on — Black and grey dotwork cat and skull tattoo design: a feline skull
Tap any design to see it on your own skin in the try-on — no signup.
This set of 23 cat designs, by the numbers
- Styles represented
- illustrative (7), neo traditional (4), linework (2), dotwork (2), biomechanical (1), blackwork (1)
- Black-and-grey vs colour
- 61% black-and-grey, 39% colour
- Most often drawn with
- flower, cherry blossom, wave, leaf
Counted from the 23 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 cat tattoo means
The cat has carried opposite meanings for two thousand years and still does. In Egypt it was protective and divine, associated with Bastet and mummified in the millions; in medieval Europe the same animal became the witch's familiar and was killed for it. Very few symbols have been reversed that completely, and both readings are still available to anyone wearing one.
Independence is the modern meaning and it is a real one. A cat is the only domestic animal that arguably domesticated itself, moving into grain stores on its own terms around ten thousand years ago rather than being bred into service. People who choose a cat over a dog usually mean something by the choice.
The black cat splits by geography in a way worth knowing. It is bad luck in most of the United States and much of continental Europe, and good luck in Britain, Ireland and Japan, where the maneki-neko is a straightforward prosperity charm. There is no universal reading to get right.
Nine lives and the sleeping curl point at the quieter version, which is about survival without drama. A cat that has been through a great deal tends to look exactly like a cat that has not, and for a lot of wearers that is the whole appeal.
Where the design comes from
The cat has a long presence in art and a surprisingly short one in tattooing. Egyptian and Japanese traditions gave it enormous visual weight — the bakeneko and the maneki-neko are centuries old, and Kuniyoshi filled prints with cats in the 1840s — but western flash largely ignored it. The old sheets have panthers and tigers, not house cats, because flash was built around symbols of power and a domestic animal did not qualify. The cat arrived in western tattooing properly with the fine-line and minimalist wave of the 2010s, which suited it: a cat is a silhouette problem, and single-needle work is very good at silhouettes.
Choosing yours
- Pick a pose that is a shape. The sleeping curl, the sitting back view and the full-extension leap are all closed readable forms; a cat standing in three-quarter view is the pose everyone asks for and the one that reads as a generic animal.
- If it is a specific cat, do what the dog portraits do and go stylised rather than literal. A solid silhouette with the markings cut out as negative shapes carries a particular animal far better than a small rendered face does.
- Black cats are a modelling problem, not a fill problem. All the form has to come from where light is left out of the black, so a solid-black cat with unfilled eyes and whiskers is a much stronger drawing than one shaded in dark grey.
Size, cost and placement
How big, and what it costs
A fine-line silhouette or sleeping curl is a shop-minimum piece, often under an hour. A rendered black-and-grey portrait wants 10-12 cm and three hours. A solid blackwork cat is quick for its size because it is mostly fill, which makes it the best value version of this subject.
Where it sits, and how much it hurts
Small cats sit well on the inner forearm, the ankle, behind the ear and along the ribs. A curled sleeping shape is one of the few designs that genuinely suits a rounded placement like the shoulder cap, because the form is already a circle. Portraits want a flat field that does not crease.
What to ask your artist
- For a dark cat, whether the form will be built from highlights rather than from grey shading.
- If it is a particular animal, whether a stylised silhouette with the markings cut out would carry it better than a portrait at your size.
- To draw the ear set and the muzzle from your own photographs, since those two things are what distinguish one cat from another.
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
Is a black cat tattoo bad luck?
It depends entirely where you are. Black cats are unlucky across most of the United States and continental Europe and lucky in Britain, Ireland and Japan. There is no consensus to violate, which in practice means you can take whichever reading you prefer.
Can a cat portrait work at a small size?
Rarely. A face below about 8 cm loses the eye tone and the muzzle shape, which is everything that makes it one particular cat. A silhouette or a curled shape at the same size works perfectly and will still be legible in twenty years.
Is there a settled meaning here, or is it personal?
Most commonly independence and self-possession, sometimes protection through the Egyptian association, and sometimes simply one animal that mattered. It is one of the few subjects where the personal reason usually outweighs any inherited symbolism.
What a cat tattoo can mean
The meanings this motif carries on the pages that argue them. Each line is that page's own reason for including it.
- Halloween tattoos
- A superstition with a specific history rather than a general spookiness, and the one motif here people wear for affection as much as for atmosphere. Drawn arched and bristling it is seasonal; drawn sitting, it is a cat.
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.