InkCraftPlanet Tattoo Ideas, Symbols and Meaning
9 original planet designs drawn for InkCraftBy Uladzimir TumanauUpdated
A planet on skin is the whole world, a ringed body from the night sky, or the glyph of the planet that rules a sign. The Mars symbol beside Aries doubles as the everyday male sign, and Pluto still rules Scorpio despite its 2006 demotion.
Color patchwork planet and moon tattoo design: a face and blue comet lead this space patchwork Try it on — Color patchwork planet and moon tattoo design: a face and blue comet lead this space patchwork
Black and white fine line planet and aries tattoo design, outline stencil Try it on — Black and white fine line planet and aries tattoo design, outline stencil
Black and white fine line planet and scorpio tattoo design, outline stencil Try it on — Black and white fine line planet and scorpio tattoo design, outline stencil
Black and white linework planet and skeleton tattoo design, outline stencil Try it on — Black and white linework planet and skeleton tattoo design, outline stencil
Black and white fine line planet and pisces tattoo design, outline stencil Try it on — Black and white fine line planet and pisces tattoo design, outline stencil
Black and grey flash planet and sun tattoo design Try it on — Black and grey flash planet and sun tattoo design
Black and grey patchwork planet and panther tattoo design Try it on — Black and grey patchwork planet and panther tattoo design
Black and grey dotwork planet and santa muerte tattoo design Try it on — Black and grey dotwork planet and santa muerte tattoo design
Black and white illustrative planet and santa muerte tattoo design: a grim reaper figure Try it on — Black and white illustrative planet and santa muerte tattoo design: a grim reaper figure
Tap any design to see it on your own skin in the try-on — no signup.
This set of 9 planet designs, by the numbers
- Styles represented
- fine line (3), patchwork (2), linework (1), flash (1), dotwork (1), illustrative (1)
- Black-and-grey vs colour
- 89% black-and-grey, 11% colour
- Most often drawn with
- moon, skeleton, santa muerte, comet
Counted from the 9 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 planet tattoo means
The word is Greek, planētēs, a wanderer: the few lights that moved against the fixed stars. Seven, counting the Sun and the Moon, named the days of the week, and astrology gave each a temperament. Mars is drive and quarrel, Venus love, Jupiter luck and growth, Saturn limits and the long view, and those temperaments are what a planet tattoo usually means before it means anything about space.
The glyphs carry them in a few strokes, and three sit on this page beside their zodiac signs. Mars, a circle with an arrow, is the traditional ruler of Aries; Carl Linnaeus borrowed it, with the circle and cross of Venus, to mark male and female plants in the eighteenth century, which is how it became the everyday male sign. Neptune, found in 1846, is the modern ruler of Pisces, hence its trident. Pluto, found in 1930, rules Scorpio, and astrologers draw it as a circle over a crescent over a cross.
A globe is the other planet, the world as a place you stand on rather than a light you look up at. Under a figure's feet it says dominion, which is why the skeletons on this page stand on one or hold it: death with the whole earth beneath it. On its own a globe is travel, or the view of home the Apollo 17 crew photographed on 7 December 1972, the picture known as The Blue Marble.
Saturn is the planet people ask for by name, and on this page it appears only as one piece of a set: on the celestial flash sheet, in the black patchwork and among the rockets of the colour space set. Saturn takes about twenty-nine and a half years to go round the Sun, so it comes back to where it stood at a birth around the twenty-ninth year; astrology calls that the Saturn return, and some wearers mark it with a ringed planet.
Where the design comes from
Saturn's rings are a telescope discovery. Galileo saw the planet as three bodies side by side in 1610, and Christiaan Huygens worked out in the 1650s that it wears a thin, flat ring touching it nowhere. The glyphs are far older, handed down through late antique and medieval manuscripts. The oldest surviving globe, Martin Behaim's of 1492 in Nuremberg, was finished just before the Americas reached the map.
Choosing yours
- Get the ring right. It usually crosses in front of the ball below and behind it above, so the planet's outline must break where the ring passes in front; drawn as a hoop on top it looks like a hat brim, and edge-on it reads as a crossed-out O.
- Give a glyph space. Pluto's stacks three parts to the two of Mars and needs more height, and a symbol set beside a sign needs a clear gap or the two fuse into one shape.
- A globe on a curved limb distorts, continents first.
Size, cost and placement
How big, and what it costs
A glyph beside a sign is a shop-minimum piece at 2 to 4 cm. A lone ringed planet, 4 to 8 cm, takes under an hour in line and more with shaded or coloured bands. A skeleton on a globe runs 18 to 25 cm and four hours or more.
Where it sits, and how much it hurts
Glyphs suit the wrist, behind the ear or the ankle, all quick if bony. A ringed planet wants a flat, palm-sized patch on the forearm or the back of the shoulder so the ring stays a true ellipse; a figure on a globe needs the outer thigh or the sharper spine.
What to ask your artist
- Whether they will draw the astrological or the astronomical Pluto.
- Where the ring will cross in front of the planet.
- Whether a globe’s continents will survive at your size.
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
Does the Pluto symbol still count after the 2006 demotion?
In astrology, yes: astrologers kept the dwarf planet as the modern ruler of Scorpio, so the glyph here is correct. Astronomers use a different symbol, a P joined to an L for Percival Lowell, whose observatory found it.
Why does the Mars symbol look like the male sign?
It is the same mark, and a lone one doubles as the everyday male sign. Set beside the Aries glyph, as here, it reads as the ruling planet.
What does a skeleton standing on a globe mean?
Death over the whole world, a memento mori scaled up from one person to everyone. Crowned or robed, it borrows from Santa Muerte, who holds one.
Can a ringed planet mark a Saturn return?
Astrologers will read it that way. The return falls around the twenty-ninth or thirtieth birthday, and a small Saturn, sometimes with the year, marks having come through it.
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.