If you’re the kind of person who screenshots tattoo art ideas every time you open Instagram, this one’s for you. These projects are all about building your own flash sheets, trying out different styles, and playing with ink or pencil before committing to skin. Explore different styles and put your own spin on cool ideas!

Flash art

Image: @daeinks

This flash page is classic tattoo territory. You’ve got fish, shells, flowers and a tiny, winged deer all sharing the same sheet – inspired chaos!

Try sketching a whole page of related (or unrelated) flora and fauna that speak to your interests. Keep the linework clean, vary the scale, and leave small gaps of empty space so everything can breathe. Though you’re unlikely to use every design as a tattoo, the exercise helps you find shapes and motifs you are drawn to (literally!).

Mountain drawing

Fitting big ideas into shapes is a great way to make tattoos work together in a sleeve or bigger piece. This design uses a simple frame, repeated lines, and a strong silhouette capture a mountain scene.

Try picking one shape – a diamond, circle or arch – and building a tiny landscape inside it. Keep your lines minimal and let texture build from repeated strokes, like parallel hatching or even spacing. Plus, designs like this one are great practice for steady linework! You can see how we made this one in our tutorial here.

Tattoo flash sheet

Image: @tattedbykarli

This flash sheet is so cutesy – from the soft features of the animals to the food with faces, it all feels very wholesome.

The artist has used stippled shading and simple colour palettes to make sure the artwork translates well on skin. Next time you doodle your fave foods or critters, try restricting your colours to just a couple and stippling them onto your mid tones and shadow areas.

Bird drawing

Image: @nox.tattoos

This gentle bird surrounded by foliage feels like it’s been pulled straight from a storybook, ideal for softer, more romantic, organic tattoo. The leaves echo the curve of the bird’s body and feathers, giving the whole thing a flow that would wrap around the body well.

Try choosing one creature – bird, fox, moth, etc. – and draw some plants to twist around it. Sketch lightly in graphite first, then build up softer shading in the feathers or fur so the silhouette stays clear.

Flower butterfly drawing

Image: @leahmurray.tattoo

This blue-pen page shows just how far you can go with one colour. The shading adds loads of depth and contrast, and it’s easy to imagine these florals and butterflies at home on someone’s back or shoulder.

Try grabbing a fineliner and filling a page with flowers and butterflies in that one colour. Use thicker outlines for the main shapes, then build tone with cross-hatching inside the petals and wings. Limiting yourself to one ink tone is great practice for thinking about contrast, depth and line weight in tattoo-style designs.

Koi drawing

Koi and waves are a classic tattoo combo – traditional, bold, and packed with flowing movement. Here, the fins and curling water give the whole design a wraparound feel that would sit nicely on an arm or calf.

Try stretching your koi out, then draw large, simple wave shapes sweeping behind and around it. When you ink or paint, keep your palette limited, using warm tones for the koi and cool tones for the water.

Continuous line drawing

This one-line figure with a cup is minimal but full of personality. Continuous line drawings make great tattoo references because though they may look effortless, each curve is drawn with intention.

Try taking a quick photo of yourself (or a friend) and using it as loose reference for a one-line sketch. Plan your path lightly in pencil first if you like, then commit to a single ink line without lifting your fineliner. Focus on posture and gesture rather than details. The goal is a subtle, personal design that could stand alone or sit beside text or symbols. See how we made this one here.

Micro drawings

Image: @aikonictattoo

This page of tiny doodles looks like the start of a micro tattoo flash sheet – simple faces, stars and badges that could tuck behind ears, on fingers or around larger pieces.

Try challenging yourself to fill a page with small icons that would all fit on a coin: favourite foods, pets, emojis, symbols and simple shapes. Keep everything bold and graphic with clear outlines and minimal detail so they’d still read at a tiny size. It’s a quick way to build a library of “filler” tattoos you can scatter between bigger designs.

Kingfisher drawing

This stylised bird goes heavy on pattern and linework: layered feathers, repeating designs and colour blocking. It keeps the silhouette strong while still letting you add detail through fine lines.

Try breaking your chosen animal into sections and giving each part its own print or texture – tiny scallops, stripes, dots, or hatch marks. Outline the shape first, then “fill” each area with pattern using pen or marker. You can keep it black and grey for a more traditional tattoo vibe or add colour on top to turn it into a bold flash design. We have a tutorial on our kingfisher available here.

Simple watercolour butterfly

Butterflies are a staple tattoo motif for a reason. They’re small, symbolic, and easy to personalise. This one uses clean watercolour lines and soft orange tones to create a loose, flowy butterfly shape.

Try filling a page with butterfly variations: some realistic, some simplified, some with extra decorative wings. Play with symmetry, markings and little details like dots or stars around them. Later, you can lift your favourite sketches with watercolour as tiny stand-alone tattoos or tuck them into larger floral pieces. We’ve got a video on how we made this simple design here.

Whether you’re dreaming up your first tattoo or building a flash portfolio, use your sketchbook as a testing ground. Explore both colour and black ink, detailed designs and quick studies, taking note of which motifs you keep coming back to. That’s usually where your tattoo style starts to emerge.

Share your tattoo doodles with us by using #montmarteart or tag us @montmarteart on Instagram or Facebook. We’d love to see what you come up with!

If you want to see more art, browse our Inspo collection. You can sign-up to Creative Connection by popping in your email down below to get stacks of free art projects sent straight to you. We’re here to keep you inspired!