Look, we love looking at amazing tattoos. For instance, these delicate tattoos that look like jewelry honestly look like a cross between flipping through a beautiful designer catalog and taking a look at a cool tattoo website. Seeing other people's tattoos can be like going to an art gallery — but one that's living — and it can also give us ideas and inspiration for artwork we'd like to adorn our bodies, too. For anyone out there who is absolutely convinced — deep within her heart of hearts — that she's secretly a mermaid, these tattoos will absolutely speak to the soul. Enjoy taking a look through them, and while it may not be ideal to directly copy a tattoo we find online, it's definitely a good idea to make a Pinterest page of the ones we enjoy to bring to our artist when it's time for designing our own.
While it's so helpful getting inspiration from great tattoos and using them as a sort of mood board for creating one for ourselves, we're also only human, and just adore looking at the worst tattoo fails on the planet. For anybody who's in the mood to experience a little schadenfreude, please enjoy some bad mom tattoos that will make you cringe. Yes, they're terrible. Yes, we're terrible people for loving this. But at least we're not the artists responsible for these horrible fails! OK, back to tattoos we genuinely adore. Sometimes tattoos are so powerful and sweet, we almost tear up. Heartfelt tattoos that make us want to fall in love are absolutely in that category. Tattooing is probably one of the most personal art forms that way, right? And it doesn't have to be January 1 to want to get inspired and make some good changes. Inspiring tattoos for a fresh start in the new year give us a lot of hope and would be a great source of inspiration for a tattoo that can light a little fire under our own butts — which is always a good thing.
This Cool Scale Tattoo
We love the fact that this scale tattoo looks like the person's skin is fading away, revealing what she truly is underneath — clearly, a beautiful mermaid! This feels so cool, like she's finally admitting her true identity.
This Old-School Pin-Up Mermaid
What's the best thing about this classic, pin-up-style tattoo? The mermaid looks like she has her own tattoo (of an anchor, naturally — sticking with the nautical theme — but wouldn't it also be cool if she had her own, tiny mermaid tattoo?).
This Super-Detailed Mermaid Tattoo
This mermaid tattoo is clearly inspired by Art Nouveau, the art movement pioneered by Alphonse Mucha at the turn of the 20th century. The Nouveau-style curls and coils, gigantic coiling hair, and romantic fin, bring this one to life.
This Totally Creative Take on a Mermaid
Who says a mermaid has to have a beautiful face? This version has a traditional mermaid figure — and then has a cool motorcycle helmet cover up her face. A biker mermaid? Why the heck not!
This Mermaid With a Light Scale Face
We love this super gorgeous, very realistic tattoo of a mermaid's face… but how do we know she's a mermaid if we only see her portrait? Because her face has scales on the sides — and we bet she has gills behind the ears, too, even if we can't see them.
This Lonely-Looking Mermaid
For some reason, this beautiful black-and-white mermaid looks so sad and alone to us — hanging out on a rock in the ocean, maybe waiting for a ship to come by. Perhaps she's just feeling peaceful, though — it's all in the interpretation!
This Scale Legs Tattoo
The mermaid scales trend is so creative! It really looks like she is revealing herself to be a true mermaid underneath her fake human skin — what a cool idea, right? This mermaid isn't shy about it, either — these are fully on both her legs!
This Classic Mermaid Tattoo
In terms of style, this feels old-school — almost like a Sailor Jerry original. The only new element: Instead of being fully topless (which is typical for a mermaid) this one opts for a flower crown and matching flower pasties for modesty.
This Sweet Mermaid Tail Tattoo
We love how decorative this sweet mermaid tail is — this could be a great pattern on a set of dessert plates, to be honest, but it's even better as a perfect little tattoo. We like that it's both geometric and organic in design.
This Reverse Mermaid
A mermaid just has to be half woman and half fish, right? Who says that the top half can't be the fish part? We think this old-school style tattoo is absolutely hilarious — not to mention, really well-executed for its style.
This Dramatic Sternum Piece
We can just imagine a real-life mermaid emerging from the sea with this exquisite sternum piece already in place. All of the incredible details make this tattoo what it is, from the sweet seahorses to all of the shells, jewels, and pearls.
This Spot-On Ariel Tattoo
We've seen a lot of Ariel tattoos, but none of them can remotely compete with this one — it looks like it was drawn onto this person's skin by a real Disney animator! Everything from her hair to her expression is exactly what we remember from the movie.
This Beautiful Mermaid Diver Tattoo
A tattoo that tells a story never gets old, and this one is absolutely on the list. The mermaid, who was created by a female tattoo artist — yay! — appears to be diving for treasure into an enormous mollusk. We want to hear the rest of the tale!
This Amazing Sleeve Tattoo
The scale and scope of this one are so impressive, and the work is incredible, too. As one commenter notes, "Omg I'm legit f***ng swooning over the d**n bubbles, the critters look sooooo real!!!!! amazing work"
These On-The-Nose Knuckle Bangers
Sometimes subtlety wins the day, and sometimes we're willing to give that up in favor of being as open and out there as possible. Nobody can question this mermaid's true status with these finger tats, which utilize some great whitework highlighting.
This Cool Black & White Portrait
Another simple mermaid portrait where the artist achieves so much in relatively few lines, from crafting a beautiful, symmetrical face to really making the mermaid's fish-ness believable with some pearls, scales, and a compass.
This Mermaid Skeleton Tattoo
This tattoo is both spooky and scary — and also manages to be amazingly beautiful at the same time. Ideal for a Halloween tattoo, this mermaid is going to be extremely cool year-round. She's not everybody's cup of tea, but we think she's pretty neat.
This Hyperrealistic Portrait
We are frankly just amazed by the arresting beauty and incredible skill it must have taken to develop this phenomenal portrait of a mermaid. We adore her piercings, incredible tiara, and terrifyingly blank eyes — she may be a sea witch and mermaid combined, this one.
This Goth Mermaid
Another pseudo-skeleton, this mermaid is more "cute goth girl" than "terrifying skeleton," and we love that she's holding a skull, like that scene in Shakespeare's Hamlet — "Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio, a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy."
This Amazing Minimalist Mermaid
While we're always wowed by the beauty of super-intricate tattoos that use a million colors and tons of tiny lines, we're just as impressed by tattoos that can create a whole, perfect image in just a few simple lines — and this is one of the best.
