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The tattoos Sailboats have been featured in lavish tattoo pieces since at least the rise of traditional tattoos, as you know, typical of the sailors who made port on distant islands and who recounted their adventures and exploits in their skin.
However, these tattoos They have also undergone an evolution that makes them perfect and highly versatile candidates for your next piece.
What are sailboats?
Sailboat tattoos a priori have a unique protagonist, the sailboat, a type of boat whose definition changes with each culture and country. However, there are many who have a number of things in common. For example, all sailboats are sail-propelled and have at least one mast to support them.
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Although today we can consider that the use of sailboats is limited to recreational boats, For hundreds of thousands of years, sailboats were the quintessential mode of shipping: from the Egyptians, who began to manufacture them at least 5000 years ago, at the end of the XNUMXth century, when they were replaced by steamships.
The meaning of sailboats in tattoos
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Now that we know what a sailboat is, let's see its meaning in a tattoo. Having so many years of history, no wonder sailboats, and boats in general, have a lot of possible meanings.
Among the most common are the artist who needs motivation to get ahead or for his art to evolve, although it is also a common meaning for those who need a guide that does not allow them to stagnate. Likewise, ships are also associated with new beginnings (how many of us have not wanted to join a ship and start over?), With the courage we need to face the challenges we find ourselves with or even a past that we want to leave behind.
How can we reflect all these meanings in a tattoo? Everything depends on content and design, something we will talk about next.
Tattoo content
Boats crossing the ocean
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Of course, one of the sailboat tattoo designs that we are going to come across the most is that of the sailboat that, plain and simple, crosses the ocean. The grace in these tattoos is to reproduce the ship in all its splendor: Whether with one mast, with more than one, in full detail or with a simple style, sailboats are always graceful and very elegant.
Vibrant scenes
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The maritime scenes are another of the contents in which we can be inspired for this tattoo. Whether with Captain Ahab facing Moby Dick, with giant squid or octopuses attacking the ship or with spectacular naval battles between pirates, there are plenty of scenes, in fiction or in reality, that can serve as examples for our next part.
Combination with other elements
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Y If we do not want our ship to go only through the seven seas, we can always combine them with other elements, whether they are maritime (such as mermaids, sea monsters, other ships…) or not (for example, as in the image, a woman with a ship for a hat, a book with a ship on the cover…).
Ocean terror
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Another of the great inspirations for a sailboat tattoo is that of a design that combines the ship with terror. We just have to remember the thousands of legends related to ghost ships (from the most traditional, such as the Flying Dutchman, to the most modern, such as the Pirates of the Caribbean) to see that it is a very fertile land ... and with hundreds of ideas that can be very cool.
Sailboat tattoo styles
The style that we are going to choose for our next tattoo can also give it an original touch or even give its meaning a twist. Now we will see the most impressive.
Traditional
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We couldn't start talking about the style of sailboat tattoos without dwelling on the traditional style. With thick lines and fiery colors, this style draws directly from the origins of these tattoos, and it also looks great.
Paper boats
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A twist on the more traditional tattoos is opting to turn them into paper sailboats. Protagonists of simpler and simpler styles, they refer directly to origami, the Japanese art of folding paper. It is very good alone but also with other elements such as anchors, waves ...
Realistic
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The realistic sailboats are ideal to combine with scenes of maritime life (such as those of sea monsters and pirates that we mentioned before) that need an extra drama. If you also combine it with a black and white design, the end result can be impressive.
With a touch of watercolor
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A touch of watercolor really suits everything, both those simpler designs and the more realistic and complicated. Normally, a blue blur that represents the sea is chosen, although you can also choose other colors that recall the ocean, such as green, turquoise or the white of the waves, which will give the design movement and dynamism.
Places to get a sailboat tattoo
There are many places that we can find for sailboat tattoos, although we can divide them in two:
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For the most realistic and larger tattoos, it is better to opt for places that are equally large, like the back, the arms, the legs, the side ...
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For For the simplest and smallest tattoos, it is better to opt for places where the tattoo is “framed” and not lost or perceived smaller than it is, for example, hands, fingers, wrists, forearm, ankle, neck ...
We hope you liked this article about all the possibilities of sailboat tattoos. Tell us, do you think we forgot to comment on something? Tell us in the comments, we'd love to read you!