Think back to the day you got your first tattoo. Was it successful and beautiful, and do you regret it? Maybe you got it when you were a teenager, when your parents told you not to, or did you have a tattoo with the name of someone you no longer have a relationship with? Well, if you had a bad experience and do not want to spend thousands of dollars on a laser, and you just want to redo it or hide it, Flame Wise Ink will share all the nuances about cover-up tattoos.
Laser removal
If you do want to remove a tattoo with a laser, keep in mind that it’s not only expensive, but also painful. Unfortunately, in some cases, laser removal is necessary. Before covering your old tattoo with a new one, make sure to talk to your artist. For some designs you might need to take a couple of laser sessions to make an old tattoo a bit faded and prepare it for a new design that will go on top. If you’re unsure what to do, you can always contact us and book free consultation.
Choose an artist and style for your cover-up
The choice of artist is really important, since not everyone works with it. Prepare some reference pictures of how you want your cover up tattoo to look like. If you are not sure what you want, take a look at different styles that a tattoo studio can offer to book a consultation to discuss all the details with your artist. If you don’t know which specific style you want, we’ve got you. On our Instagram page you can find examples of different styles such as colour realism, illustrative, linework, dotwork, watercolour, Micro-Realism, floral illustrative, fine lines, Neo-Traditional, finework, Japanese traditional and anime.




Design and Colour
Since you already know what style you want, let’s move on to the next step. The process is almost the same as for the original tattoo. Don’t forget that the size will be slightly larger than your original piece, since the artist needs to cover the entire previous work. Don’t worry, it’s still going to look good.
There are also a couple of rules for a cover up tattoo. The colours will mix even if the initial tattoo pattern is several years old. Cover-up tattoos must typically be made with pretty dark shades (black, brown, navy blue, purple, or dark green). Particular colours may work better than others. Big and complicated designs with many details, rich shading, or colour depth are likely to be the most effective for a dark tattoo cover up.


Partial Coverage
There are some cases when artists can work on the partial coverage. It means that they can add some design to a past tattoo, and this type of work is called reinvention. It won’t work for everyone but for creative and with great imagination people will.
Scars cover-up tattoos
All imperfections are perfect, but if you have some scars you want to hide, Flame Wise Ink will help you with it. A colourful tattoo is a unique approach to “makeup” a scar, however it’s impossible to fully hide it.


Ready to Book your Cover-Up?
Everything can be changed and yes, it’s not too late, so if you’re unsure about the cover-up info, please contact us and Flame Wise Ink would be happy to help.

About the Author
Flame Wise Ink is a progressive tattoo studio located in Toronto that offers a wide variety of styles done by the best tattoo artists with an individual approach.