InkCraftLadybug Tattoo Ideas, Designs and Meaning
22 original ladybug designs drawn for InkCraftBy Uladzimir TumanauUpdated
The one beetle people are glad to have land on them, and across most of Europe it is named for the Virgin Mary. Seen from above, its rounded dome survives small sizes better than almost any insect, provided the black spots are kept well apart.
Color watercolor ladybug tattoo design: a green leafy top and seed marks Try it on — Color watercolor ladybug tattoo design: a green leafy top and seed marks
Color illustrative ladybug tattoo design Try it on — Color illustrative ladybug tattoo design
Black and white fine line ladybug tattoo design, outline stencil Try it on — Black and white fine line ladybug tattoo design, outline stencil
Black and white geometric ladybug tattoo design, outline stencil Try it on — Black and white geometric ladybug tattoo design, outline stencil
Color watercolor ladybug tattoo design Try it on — Color watercolor ladybug tattoo design
Black and grey ornamental ladybug tattoo design Try it on — Black and grey ornamental ladybug tattoo design
Black and white fine line ladybug tattoo design, outline stencil Try it on — Black and white fine line ladybug tattoo design, outline stencil
Black and grey realism ladybug tattoo design Try it on — Black and grey realism ladybug tattoo design
Black and grey stick and poke ladybug tattoo design Try it on — Black and grey stick and poke ladybug tattoo design
Black and grey illustrative ladybug tattoo design Try it on — Black and grey illustrative ladybug tattoo design
Black and white fine line ladybug tattoo design, outline stencil Try it on — Black and white fine line ladybug tattoo design, outline stencil
Black and white blackwork ladybug tattoo design Try it on — Black and white blackwork ladybug tattoo design
Black and grey sketch ladybug tattoo design Try it on — Black and grey sketch ladybug tattoo design
Black and white linework ladybug tattoo design, outline stencil Try it on — Black and white linework ladybug tattoo design, outline stencil
Color traditional ladybug tattoo design Try it on — Color traditional ladybug tattoo design
Color illustrative ladybug tattoo design Try it on — Color illustrative ladybug tattoo design
Black and grey dotwork ladybug tattoo design Try it on — Black and grey dotwork ladybug tattoo design
Color traditional ladybug tattoo design Try it on — Color traditional ladybug tattoo design
Black and white fine line ladybug and leaf tattoo design, outline stencil Try it on — Black and white fine line ladybug and leaf tattoo design, outline stencil
Black and grey dotwork ladybug and leaf tattoo design Try it on — Black and grey dotwork ladybug and leaf tattoo design
Color Japanese ladybug and leaf tattoo design Try it on — Color Japanese ladybug and leaf tattoo design
Color illustrative ladybug and semicolon tattoo design Try it on — Color illustrative ladybug and semicolon tattoo design
Tap any design to see it on your own skin in the try-on — no signup.
This set of 22 ladybug designs, by the numbers
- Styles represented
- illustrative (4), fine line (4), watercolor (2), traditional (2), dotwork (2), geometric (1)
- Black-and-grey vs colour
- 64% black-and-grey, 36% colour
- Most often drawn with
- leaf, semicolon
Counted from the 22 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 ladybug tattoo means
The name is a dedication. The lady is the Virgin Mary: English called the beetle Our Lady's bird, German calls it Marienkäfer, Mary's beetle, Spanish mariquita, and Danish and Norwegian name it Mary's hen. French and Russian give it to God outright, as bête à bon Dieu and the little cow of God. The story usually told for it is that the red wing cases stood for Mary's cloak and the seven spots of the commonest species for her seven sorrows, so for most of its recorded life the insect has been a small holy thing that nobody was meant to harm.
Luck is the reading most wearers mean now, and it comes from folk custom rather than scripture. Across Europe a ladybug that lands on you is not brushed off; you let it walk and wait for it to fly, sometimes making a wish as it goes, and in some versions the direction it takes shows where a sweetheart lives. In Germany it is one of the standard New Year charms, printed on cards beside the four-leaf clover, the horseshoe, the chimney sweep and the pig, and one of the traditional designs here sets it on the clover.
Gardeners add a practical reading. Most species eat aphids, adults and larvae alike, and a few of them will clear the greenfly from a rose bush without anyone reaching for a spray, so the beetle means help that arrives unasked. Its colours carry a warning the cheerfulness hides: red and black tell birds it tastes foul, and a ladybug that is handled roughly bleeds a bitter yellow fluid from its knee joints.
Then there is plain affection. It is harmless, slow and round, the insect children are first allowed to hold, and the Ladybird imprint put it on the covers of the small hardbacks generations of British children learned to read from. That is why it is so often worn for a daughter or for a childhood.
Where the design comes from
Linnaeus named the commonest species Coccinella septempunctata, the seven-spotted, in 1758, and a ladybug gave biological control its first great success. In 1888 Albert Koebele was sent from California to Australia to find an enemy of the cottony cushion scale then killing the state's orange groves; he shipped back the vedalia beetle, and by 1890 the pest was all but gone. The harlequin ladybird of East Asia, released against aphids elsewhere, went the other way: first recorded in Britain in 2004, it now crowds out native species.
Choosing yours
- Choose the species before the pose, because the spots come with it. The classic red shell with seven black spots, three on each wing case and one straddling the join behind the head, is the seven-spot; the two-spot carries one a side, and the 22-spot is yellow. The count is fixed and never grows with age.
- Then decide how the shell is seen. From above, as in the traditional, blackwork and stick-and-poke designs here, it is a rounded dome that survives small sizes better than almost any insect. Lifting off, with veined wings unfolding from under the wing cases, it needs several times the room, because those wings hold only as fine grey line.
Size, cost and placement
How big, and what it costs
A plain ladybug from above is shop-minimum work at 2 to 4 cm, provided the spots are few and bold. On a leaf, a daisy or a stem it runs 6 to 10 cm and an hour or two. The open shell with a garden inside, or the realistic three-quarter view, wants 8 cm or more and two to three hours, because the gloss is built from graded greys.
Where it sits, and how much it hurts
It goes where a larger piece cannot: the side of a finger, behind the ear, the inner wrist, the ankle bone. Finger ink blurs within a few years, so expect touch-ups there. A ladybug climbing a stem suits the inner forearm or the collarbone. The ankle and collarbone are the sharp spots; the wrist and forearm are mild.
What to ask your artist
- How far apart the spots will sit at your size, so they do not run together as the ink settles.
- How their reds have healed on other clients, and whether the red sits inside a black outline or stands alone.
- Whether the wings will be open or closed, since open wings need room the wrist does not have.
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 it a ladybug or a ladybird?
Both: Britain says ladybird, North America says ladybug, and the lady in each is Mary. The insect is strictly a beetle, of the family Coccinellidae, and neither a true bug nor a bird.
Does the number of spots matter?
Only for a particular species or the old story. Seven is the common red ladybug of European gardens and the number folklore tied to Mary's sorrows; most designs here use as many or as few as the drawing needs.
Can a ladybug be done without red ink?
Easily, and most designs on this page are black and grey. Solid black with the spots left as bare skin still reads at a glance. If your skin has reacted to ink before, ask for a patch test, since red pigments cause more allergic reactions than any other colour.
What should a ladybug sit on?
Something that gives it scale. A blade of grass, a leaf, a daisy, a lavender sprig and a strawberry all appear here; a four-leaf clover doubles the luck, and a red maple leaf in the Japanese style makes it autumnal.
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.