InkCraftOcean Tattoo Ideas, Designs and Meaning
22 original ocean designs drawn for InkCraftBy Uladzimir TumanauUpdated
A wave is one moment of the sea; this page is the rest of it: the horizon, the view under the surface and what swims there. The plainest design here is the hardest to tattoo, because a straight horizon shows every wobble and bends on a curved limb.
Black and grey dotwork ocean tattoo design Try it on — Black and grey dotwork ocean tattoo design
Black and grey sketch ocean tattoo design Try it on — Black and grey sketch ocean tattoo design
Black and white fine line ocean tattoo design, outline stencil Try it on — Black and white fine line ocean tattoo design, outline stencil
Black and white fine line ocean and wave tattoo design, outline stencil Try it on — Black and white fine line ocean and wave tattoo design, outline stencil
Black and grey illustrative ocean and mermaid tattoo design Try it on — Black and grey illustrative ocean and mermaid tattoo design
Black and white blackwork ocean and ship tattoo design Try it on — Black and white blackwork ocean and ship tattoo design
Color watercolor ocean and turtle tattoo design Try it on — Color watercolor ocean and turtle tattoo design
Black and white minimalist ocean and sun tattoo design, outline stencil Try it on — Black and white minimalist ocean and sun tattoo design, outline stencil
Black and grey illustrative ocean and anchor tattoo design Try it on — Black and grey illustrative ocean and anchor tattoo design
Black and white fine line ocean and moon tattoo design, outline stencil Try it on — Black and white fine line ocean and moon tattoo design, outline stencil
Black and grey dotwork ocean and wave tattoo design Try it on — Black and grey dotwork ocean and wave tattoo design
Black and white minimalist ocean and bird tattoo design, outline stencil Try it on — Black and white minimalist ocean and bird tattoo design, outline stencil
Color watercolor ocean and jellyfish tattoo design Try it on — Color watercolor ocean and jellyfish tattoo design
Color traditional ocean and lighthouse tattoo design: a cream lantern room and black cap Try it on — Color traditional ocean and lighthouse tattoo design: a cream lantern room and black cap
Black and grey surreal ocean and wave tattoo design Try it on — Black and grey surreal ocean and wave tattoo design
Black and grey realism ocean and whale tattoo design Try it on — Black and grey realism ocean and whale tattoo design
Color neo traditional ocean and octopus tattoo design Try it on — Color neo traditional ocean and octopus tattoo design
Color neo traditional ocean and fish tattoo design Try it on — Color neo traditional ocean and fish tattoo design
Black and grey illustrative ocean and whale tattoo design Try it on — Black and grey illustrative ocean and whale tattoo design
Color neo traditional ocean and wave tattoo design Try it on — Color neo traditional ocean and wave tattoo design
Color Japanese ocean and wave tattoo design: a small snow-capped Mount Fuji beyond Try it on — Color Japanese ocean and wave tattoo design: a small snow-capped Mount Fuji beyond
Black and grey stick and poke ocean and wave tattoo design Try it on — Black and grey stick and poke ocean and wave tattoo design
Tap any design to see it on your own skin in the try-on — no signup.
This set of 22 ocean designs, by the numbers
- Styles represented
- fine line (3), illustrative (3), neo traditional (3), dotwork (2), watercolor (2), minimalist (2)
- Black-and-grey vs colour
- 68% black-and-grey, 32% colour
- Most often drawn with
- wave, sun, whale, mermaid
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 ocean tattoo means
The ocean and the wave share water and answer different questions. A wave is one event, the few seconds in which the sea breaks, and it is usually worn for something survived. The ocean is a place. People who ask for it are marking where they come from, where they have worked or whom they lost there, which is why the designs on this page are horizons, bottles, a lighthouse and animals under the surface, with the breaking curl as one element among many rather than the point.
The commonest reason is a coast. Someone who grew up within sight of the sea and now lives far from it tends to want the horizon rather than the drama: a flat line with a sun going down into it, or a moon laying a broken path across calm water. It is homesickness drawn as a landscape, and it asks very little of the skin, a few straight lines and one round shape.
The second is work. Sailors, fishermen, divers, lifeguards and surfers wear the sea the way other trades wear their tools, and the objects say which trade: a three-masted ship in a heavy swell, a brass diving helmet on the sea floor, a surfer crouched on the face of a wave. For these wearers the tattoo is closer to a job title than to a symbol, and they tend to be fussy about whether the rigging or the board is right.
The third reading is quieter. When ashes are scattered at sea, or someone was buried there or lost to it, there is no grave to visit, and a tattoo can become the marker the water cannot hold. A whale's fluke lifting as it dives, a sun half set into the horizon and a corked bottle with a rolled letter inside all carry that meaning without announcing it to strangers.
Underneath all three runs scale. The sea covers most of the planet and most of it is never seen by anyone, so the designs that look below the surface, the manta ray, the drifting jellyfish, the turtle in falling light, are about what happens out of sight: calm under a rough surface, or a life going on that nobody around you notices.
Where the design comes from
The English word for tattooing came back from the Pacific on a ship: James Cook's journal of the 1769 visit to Tahiti records the local practice as "tattow". Sailors, some of whom were already pricking marks into their skin, took up the word and the habit together and made it a record of where they had been, so the ocean motifs of the old port shops were earned rather than chosen. In naval lore a fully rigged ship meant a man had rounded Cape Horn, and a turtle meant he had crossed the equator and become a shellback. The lighthouse and the ship in a swell were drawn for the same customers in port towns from Portsmouth to Honolulu. Surf culture in Hawaii and California added a second, civilian strand in the 1960s, and Hokusai's great wave, long out of copyright and printed on everything, became the shorthand that now stands in for the whole sea.
Choosing yours
- Decide whether you want the horizon, the surface or the depth. A horizon is a landscape and sits best wide and low; an underwater animal is effectively a portrait and wants height; a ship or a lighthouse stands on the line between them and needs sky above and water below. Putting all three into one small design is how an ocean tattoo turns into a postcard.
- The plainest design here is also the hardest to tattoo well. A straight horizon line shows every wobble of the needle, and on a curved limb it bends: across the forearm it tilts as the wrist turns, and around the calf it sags into a smile. Run it along the length of the limb or put it somewhere flat, such as the collarbone or between the shoulder blades, and check the stencil standing naturally in front of a mirror.
- Blue is the obvious colour and the one to plan for. Pale blues and turquoise fade in sunlight faster than black does, and a sea painted in soft washes with only a light line under it loses its edges first. If you want colour, ask for a firm black structure beneath it, as the traditional lighthouse and the neo-traditional octopus here have, or keep the water in black and grey and let one warm colour carry the sun.
Size, cost and placement
How big, and what it costs
A minimalist horizon with a half sun or two gulls is shop-minimum work at 4 to 7 cm and well under an hour. A lighthouse on its rock, a ship in a swell or an octopus rising from the surf is a 12 to 18 cm drawing and three or four hours, more in full colour. The breaching humpback is the dearest design here for its size, because the ridged throat and the falling spray are built in grey tone rather than drawn in line.
Where it sits, and how much it hurts
Horizons belong where a line can lie flat: along the inner forearm lengthways, across the collarbone, or across the upper back between the shoulder blades. Tall pieces, a jellyfish trailing its tentacles or a turtle swimming down through light, follow the long axis of the forearm, the calf or the side of the ribs. The collarbone and ribs are among the sorer spots; the outer forearm and calf are among the easiest.
What to ask your artist
- Whether a straight horizon will stay level where you want it, judged with the stencil on while you stand naturally.
- For colour, how their pale blues have healed on past clients, and whether the colour will sit on a black structure.
- For a memorial, whether coordinates or a date can go beneath the horizon at a size that will still be legible in ten years.
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 an ocean tattoo the same as a wave tattoo?
They share water and not much else. A wave is one breaking moment, usually worn for something survived; an ocean design is a place, a horizon or a coast or the life under the surface, and is more often worn for where you are from, the work you did there, or someone whose ashes went into it. The breaking curls have their own page, and this one holds everything around them.
What does a message in a bottle tattoo mean?
Hope sent without an address: words for someone who may never read them, which is why it is so often a memorial for a person who can no longer be reached. Real ones do sometimes arrive. The oldest yet confirmed washed up in Western Australia in 2018, thrown overboard from the German ship Paula in 1886 as part of a study of ocean currents.
Can an ocean tattoo be a memorial?
It is one of the better memorials for someone whose ashes were scattered at sea, because there is no headstone to visit and the water itself cannot be marked. The coordinates of the spot beneath a plain horizon, a date written along the water line, or a fluke going under all carry it without explaining it to anyone.
How do I stop a horizon line looking crooked?
Lay it along the length of the limb or on a flat area, never straight across a forearm or around a calf, where the curve bends it. Have the stencil checked while you stand relaxed rather than with your arm held out, and consider breaking the line with a sun, a moon or two birds, since an unbroken straight line is the least forgiving thing a tattooer draws.
Which ocean designs hold up best over the years?
The ones built on black. The blackwork ship, the dotwork manta ray and the illustrative whale's tail will look much as they do now in twenty years. The pale watercolour turtle and jellyfish will soften first, because their blues and turquoise fade sooner than black and their outlines are light.
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.