Tattoos In The 20th - 21st Century
With global travel becoming more available and the World Wars bringing many people to other countries and cultures, tattoos of all styles became available in all places. Along with the standardization of the tattoo machine and inks, artists were able to imitate other tattoos from around the world without having to learn all new techniques.
In the early 20th century, red tattoo ink became available around the world. The 60's saw many more primary colors, the most groundbreaking being blue and purple, with green not long after that. 1990 saw the introduction of white and bright yellow inks. Previously, it was impossible to make skin brighter, only darker, now it is possible to actually lighten the skin making highlights now possible. A range of colors made 3D appearing tattoos and hyper-realistic tattoos possible. Previously, it was impossible to do a gradation in anything other then grey.
Modern day ink is still just carbon for black and a heavy metal such as iron, mercury or copper to get various colors, with a carrier such as rubbing alcohol or distilled water. The formula of carrier to pigment varies depending on the use of ink, to help reduce trauma, to decrease healing time, and to kill pathogens. Improvements in ink formulas have also made color last longer. Where previously a colored tattoo would fade after only about 5 years, inks today can stay bright for decades. Grey-scale tattoos remain very common, but today pre-mixed grey can be bought in varies shades, but most artist still make their own by taking normal black tattoo ink and diluting it with alcohol or distilled water. Some inks are made specifically with this purpose and claim to mix with additional carrier easier.
The amount of needles and arrangement on a bar used to be relatively standard, and because the artist used to pierce into the third layer of skin, which is fat tissue, instead of the dermis, the ink would diffuse in the fat tissue and get a blurry look. Now, because of the discovery that it isn't necessary to go that deep, lines can be thinner and finer. A wider range of needle sizes makes different line sizes easier to obtain, to make more realistic and eye-catching pieces of art, along with decreasing healing time. The use of blood lines which is tattooing without ink on the needle to leave behind a line of blood, makes it unnecessary to have any black lines at all, while still retaining the ease of the traditional tattoo process, along with colored inks formulated to use specially as lining.
This has made the traditional tattoos less common, but the reliability of thick lines of traditional American style has made it still common, and the connection to historic stories makes a traditional style Japanese or American tattoo still sought after. Some artists actually fake the thick lines of traditional American by making a thin line and then slowly building it with more passes. This is done to make as smooth a line as possible. The ease of making optical illusion of depth while still having a range of colors has created a style in which the traditional Japanese tattoos are made, but with a wide range of color and gradation to make them appear 3D. Although tattoos are no longer part of large coming of age ceremonies and most people don't get a tattoo as a life-long dedication to a gang, tattoos still retain deeper meaning. The subject of tattoos also remains unchanged since the first tattoos of religious symbols, family symbols, characters and images from popular stories, images of plants and animals, images from myths, and variously complex geometric designs.