Light work, exact work
Fine line uses a single needle or a very small grouping. There is little room for error: a line that wobbles cannot hide inside shading. We draw fine pieces at their final size and keep the composition simple enough to stay readable.
A good first tattoo
Most fine line pieces take one short sitting, often under two hours. On the outer forearm or upper arm they are among the least painful tattoos you can get, which is why so many first tattoos in our archive are fine line: a dragonfly, three stars, a chick with a date.
Matching tattoos
Fine line suits pieces shared between two people: one small drawing split across two arms, like the pair of cocktails in our portfolio. Book them in the same sitting so the line weight matches.
Sizes that hold
Ink spreads very slightly under the skin over the years. Lines placed too close together, or letters smaller than about 5 mm tall, slowly blur into each other. We will tell you honestly if a design is too small for its detail, and suggest a size that will still look clean in ten years.
More on healing in our day-by-day aftercare guide.
