Tattoo Styles
at Our London Studio
Six Bullets Tattoo is a custom, appointment-only tattoo studio in London, operating since 2008.
Our resident artists cover the full spectrum of tattoo styles – from photorealistic black and grey to bold traditional colour, blackwork, fine line and hand-poked work – which means you don’t have to choose between the right studio and the right artist. Both are here, under one roof, between Camden Town, King’s Cross and Islington.
Every design at Six Bullets Tattoo is drawn custom for the client who wears it. Nothing off a flash wall, nothing repeated. Use this guide to understand each style we offer, see which of our artists specialises in it, and work out which direction suits your idea, your placement and your skin.
Not sure which style fits your idea? Book a free consultation, and we’ll help you decide – that conversation is exactly what the consultation is for.
Realism & Black and Grey Tattoos
Realism is the discipline of making ink behave like a photograph: true-to-life light, shadow, texture and depth, rendered without outlines. Black and grey realism – portraits, animals, statues, mythological figures – is one of the most requested tattoo styles at our London studio, and one of the least forgiving. Poorly executed realism ages into a grey smudge; well-executed realism holds its contrast for decades.
Our realism work is built around strong value structure – deep blacks, controlled mid-tones and deliberate skin breaks – because that’s what keeps a realistic piece readable at ten years, not just ten days. Larger placements (upper arm, forearm, thigh, back) give realism the room it needs; we’ll always be honest in consultation if your reference won’t survive at the size you have in mind.
Best for: portraits, wildlife, statues, film and mythology pieces, sleeves
Typical placement: upper arm, forearm, thigh, calf, back
Colour Tattoos
Beyond neo-traditional, our artists produce vibrant colour work across illustrative, abstract and contemporary tattoo styles – painterly pieces, bold graphic colour and saturated compositions built to stay bright. Good colour work is a materials-and-technique discipline: pigment quality, saturation depth and colour choices matched to skin tone all determine how a colour piece looks in year five.
Our artists work with industry-leading inks and equipment – the studio’s artists are recognised and sponsored by leading industry suppliers, and we advise honestly on which palettes will hold best on your skin.
Best for: statement pieces, abstract and experimental designs, colour realism
Typical placement: upper arm, thigh, calf, back, hands, neck, head, chest, ribs
Portrait Tattoos
Portrait tattooing is realism applied to a face, a person, a pet, a film still, a religious or historical figure, and it’s the single most demanding thing an artist can do on skin. The human eye is calibrated to spot the smallest error in a face, so a portrait either captures the likeness or it doesn’t; there’s very little middle ground. This is why portrait work should only ever go to an artist with a proven portfolio of finished, healed portraits.
Our portrait work is built in black and grey for maximum longevity, with likeness locked in at the design stage before a single line is placed. We’re honest in consultation about reference quality: a sharp, well-lit source photo is the difference between a portrait that moves people and one that ages into a blur. Bring the best image you have, and we’ll tell you straight whether it will carry the piece.
Best for: memorial portraits, family and pets, cultural and religious figures, film and music icons.
Typical placement: upper arm, forearm, thigh, calf, chest, back
Micro Realism Tattoos
Micro realism compresses photographic detail into small-scale pieces – a portrait on the inner forearm, a detailed animal study behind the elbow. It demands a different technical toolkit from large-scale realism: finer needle groupings, restrained saturation, and design decisions that anticipate how skin softens detail over time.
Because micro realism is trend-driven and technically demanding, artist selection matters more here than in almost any other style. Bring us your reference, and we’ll tell you honestly what will hold at the size you want – and redesign it with you if it won’t.
Best for: small-scale portraits, pets, botanical and object studies
Typical placement: inner forearm, wrist, behind the arm, ankle
Blackwork Tattoos
Blackwork covers everything built primarily from solid black ink – bold graphic pieces, ornamental patterns, dark illustrative imagery and heavy dotwork shading. It’s the style with the best long-term ageing profile of any on this page: black pigment stays black.
Our blackwork ranges from clean geometric and ornamental designs to dense, dark illustrative compositions. If you want a tattoo that reads clearly across a room and still reads clearly in twenty years, blackwork is the strongest candidate.
Best for: ornamental pieces, dark imagery, large graphic statements, cover-up foundations.
Typical placement: almost anywhere – blackwork is the most placement-flexible style we offer
Traditional (American Traditional) Tattoos
American traditional, also called “old school”, is the foundational language of Western tattooing: bold black outlines, a tight palette of red, green, yellow and blue, solid fills and iconic imagery (eagles, roses, daggers, swallows, anchors, pin-ups, hearts). It was designed, over a century ago, to do one job supremely well: look sharp and stay readable for a lifetime. No other style ages as reliably.
That durability isn’t nostalgia – it’s engineering. Thick outlines and high-contrast fills survive the natural spread and softening that every tattoo undergoes with age. Our traditional work respects those rules while keeping each design custom to the client. If you want a tattoo your grandchildren will still be able to read, this is the style built for it.
Best for: iconic imagery, bold statement pieces, first tattoos, designs meant to last decades
Typical placement: forearm, upper arm, chest, calf, hand – traditional style suits almost any placement
Neo-Traditional Tattoos
Neo-traditional takes the rulebook of American traditional — bold outlines, strong silhouettes, limited but saturated palettes — and expands it with richer colour theory, more dimension and more decorative detail. The result is a tattoo with traditional’s legendary durability and far more illustrative range.
Full-colour neo-traditional is a signature style at Six Bullets. It suits animal portraits, floral compositions, lady heads and objects reimagined with ornamental flair – designs that are unmistakably tattoos, in the best sense.
Best for: animals, florals, portraits with decorative framing, colour statement pieces.
Typical placement: upper arm, forearm, thigh, calf
Etching & Engraving Tattoos
A specialised branch of illustrative blackwork, etching and engraving style (including linocut-inspired work) recreates the cross-hatched line shading of old printmaking – think woodcuts, banknote engraving and medieval illustration. It’s a rare specialism, and one of the styles Six Bullets is known for. Mauro Fanini’s lino-style blackwork, weaving mythology and traditional imagery into printmakers’ linework, has built an international following from our London studio.
Etching-style tattoos age exceptionally well because the entire design is built from committed linework rather than soft shading.
Best for: classical and mythological imagery, occult and folk themes, antique aesthetics.
Typical placement: forearm, upper arm, chest, thigh
Traditional Japanese Tattoos
Traditional Japanese tattooing (Irezumi) is one of the oldest and most structured styles in the world – a visual language of bold subjects (koi, dragons, tigers, phoenix, hannya masks, peonies and chrysanthemums) set against flowing backgrounds of wind, water and cloud. Every element carries meaning, and the composition follows body-flow rules refined over centuries. It’s a style best understood at scale: sleeves, back pieces, and bodysuit designs, where the background can breathe, and the design wraps the body as intended.
Because Japanese tattooing is built on established motifs and their meanings, we approach it with genuine respect for the tradition – planning large pieces properly, advising on subject combinations, and executing the bold linework and rich colour or black-and-grey shading that make the style age so well. If you’re starting a large-scale Japanese project, we’ll map the whole composition with you before we begin, so each session builds toward a coherent whole.
Best for: sleeves, back pieces, leg pieces, body suits, symbolic large-scale work.
Typical placement: full and half sleeves, back, chest panels, thigh and full leg
Fine Line Tattoos
Fine line tattooing uses single-needle or tight needle groupings to produce delicate, precise designs – script, small botanicals, minimal symbols and airy compositions. It’s one of London’s most-searched styles, and one where execution quality varies wildly across the city.
The technical risk with fine line is blowout and premature fading; the defence is an artist who understands line weight, skin type and placement. Our fine line work is designed with longevity margins built in – lines placed and weighted so the piece still looks intentional as it settles.
Best for: script, small botanicals, minimal symbols, first tattoos.
Typical placement: wrist, forearm, ribs, collarbone, ankle
Minimalist Tattoos
Minimalist tattooing distils an idea to its fewest possible marks – a single continuous line, a small geometric form, a reduced silhouette. Its simplicity is deceptive: with nowhere to hide, every line has to be perfect.
Minimalism at Six Bullets gets the same custom design process as a full sleeve. Small doesn’t mean generic – your piece is drawn for you, sized for your placement, and executed with the precision a minimal design demands.
Best for: symbols, matching tattoos, discreet first pieces. Typical placement: wrist, ankle, behind the ear, ribs
Hand-Poked Tattoos
Hand-poked (machine-free) tattooing places each dot of ink individually by hand. The result is a distinctive soft texture, a quieter, gentler session, and typically a faster heal. Done professionally with the same hygiene standards and licensed environment as machine work – hand-poke is a legitimate specialism, not a compromise.
Nadine Dhor’s delicate hand-poked work is one of the specialisms our studio is recognised for, ideal for clients who want fine detail with a softer, organic finish.
Best for: delicate detail work, dotwork, ornamental pieces, clients sensitive to machine work.
Typical placement: hands, fingers, forearm, sternum, anywhere requiring a soft touch
Floral & Botanical Tattoos
Floral work spans every technique on this page – fine line sprigs, blackwork peonies, illustrative botanical plates, neo-traditional roses in full colour. Because botanicals flow naturally with the body’s lines, they’re the most versatile subject matter in tattooing: equally at home as a tiny wrist piece or a full sleeve.
We design florals to the body part, not to a flat page – wrapping stems around the forearm’s rotation, letting blooms follow the shoulder’s curve. Bring the flowers that matter to you (birth flowers, memorial blooms, native species), and we’ll build the composition around them.
Best for: memorial pieces, sleeves and half-sleeves, feminine and ornamental compositions.
Typical placement: forearm, upper arm, shoulder, ribs, thigh, spine
Abstract & Experimental Tattoos
For clients who want something outside every category above: brushstroke effects, graphic composition, negative-space design and art-led pieces that treat skin as canvas rather than catalogue. This is where our custom-only, appointment-only model matters most – abstract work is a genuine collaboration between artist and client, developed through consultation rather than picked from a menu.
Our artists work with industry-leading inks and equipment – the studio’s artists are recognised and sponsored by leading industry suppliers, and we advise honestly on which palettes will hold best on your skin.
Best for: one-of-a-kind commissions, art-collector clients, unconventional placements.
Typical placement: anywhere placement is part of the composition
Illustrative Tattoos
Illustrative tattooing sits between traditional and realism: hand-drawn linework and shading that looks like an artwork on paper, translated to skin. It borrows realism’s depth and traditional’s structural honesty – outlines and defined shapes that anchor the design as skin ages.
This is the style to choose when your idea started as a drawing, a book plate, a woodcut or a piece of folk art. Our illustrative artists each bring a recognisable hand – which is precisely the point. You’re commissioning an artist’s interpretation, not a photocopy.
Best for: narrative pieces, mythology and folklore, botanical illustration, book-plate aesthetics
Typical placement: forearm, upper arm, thigh, sternum, back
Blackout Tattoos
Blackout tattooing saturates a section of skin in solid black ink – a bold, graphic, high-commitment style used as a statement in its own right, as a frame for negative-space or white-over-black design, or as a powerful way to reclaim heavily scarred or previously over-tattooed skin. Done well, the result is a clean, even field of true black with striking edges. Done badly, it’s patchy and near-impossible to correct, which is exactly why it demands a technically excellent artist and honest planning.
Blackout is a serious commitment: large areas of solid black are difficult and slow to remove or lighten later, so the decision needs to be made with full information. We walk clients through healing, longevity, the realities of touch-ups, and what blackout can and can’t cover before anything is booked. When it’s the right call, few styles are more dramatic.
Best for: bold statement pieces, negative-space and white-on-black design, cover-ups of dense old work.
Typical placement: forearm, upper arm, full sleeve, shoulder, thigh, band placements
Cover-Up Tattoos
A cover-up isn’t a style so much as a specialism – the craft of designing a new tattoo that absorbs and hides an old, faded or unwanted one. It’s one of the most technically constrained things a tattoo artist does: the existing ink dictates what’s possible, and a good cover-up artist works with those limits rather than pretending they don’t exist. The result should look like a tattoo you chose, not a patch over one you regret.
Some old tattoos cover cleanly with a new design; others need one or two laser lightening sessions first, or suit a blackwork or blackout approach that overpowers the original. We assess every cover-up honestly in consultation, including telling you when laser fading first will get a far better outcome. Bring a clear photo of what you have, and we’ll tell you realistically what your options are before you commit.
Best for: old, faded, blown-out or regretted tattoos; name cover-ups; reworking dated pieces.
Typical placement: wherever the existing tattoo is – placement is dictated by the original
How to Choose Your Tattoo Style?
1. How do you want it to age?
Blackwork, traditional-derived styles and etching age most predictably. Fine line and micro realism demand the most artist skill to age well.
2. What size and placement are you working with?
Realism needs room. Fine line and minimalism thrive small. Florals adapt to anything.
3. Whose portfolio stops you scrolling?
Style guides inform; portfolios decide. Browse our resident artists and match the hand to the idea.
Still undecided? That’s normal – and it’s what our free consultations are for. Six Bullets has been matching Londoners to the right artist and style since 2008. Get in touch, and we’ll help you get it right the first time.
Why Get Tattooed at Six Bullets?
• Plenty of styles under one roof – resident specialists across realism, blackwork, neo-traditional, fine line, hand-poke, etching and more, plus regular guest spots from internationally recognised artists.
• Custom only, since 2008 – every design is drawn once, for one client. Nearly two decades of tattooing.
• Appointment only, by design – no walk-in queue pressure means artists take the time your piece deserves.
• Rated ★5.0 by clients on Google.
• Central North London location – 394 Camden Road, N7, minutes from Camden Town, King’s Cross, Islington, Archway and Finsbury Park (Caledonian Road & Barnsbury / Camden Road Overground).
Tattoo Styles Related Frequently Asked Questions
This section answers some of the most common tattoo-style-related questions asked by our Customers.
What tattoo styles does Six Bullets Tattoo offer?
Six Bullets Tattoo in Camden, London offers realism and black & grey, micro realism, blackwork, illustrative, etching/engraving style, neo-traditional, fine line, minimalist, hand-poked, floral, colour, and abstract/experimental tattoos. All designs are custom and drawn individually for each client.
Which tattoo style lasts the longest?
Blackwork and bold-line styles (traditional, neo-traditional, etching) age most predictably because solid black pigment and strong outlines hold their structure as skin changes. Fine line and micro realism can also age well, but depend heavily on the artist’s technique and correct sizing.
What’s the best tattoo style for a first tattoo?
There’s no single answer – it depends on your idea, pain tolerance and placement. Fine line and minimalist pieces are popular first tattoos because they’re quick and discreet, but a well-planned blackwork or illustrative piece is just as valid. A free consultation is the fastest way to a confident decision.
Do I choose the style first or the artist first?
Ideally together. Decide the general direction (e.g. “black and grey realism” vs “colour neo-traditional”), then choose the artist whose portfolio in that style resonates most. At Six Bullets, every resident artist specialises, so you can browse by artist once you know your direction.
Can any tattoo be covered up?
Most tattoos can be covered, but not all in a single session. The existing tattoo’s darkness, size and saturation determine what’s possible. Some cover cleanly with a new design; others need one or two laser lightening sessions first, or suit a blackwork or blackout approach. A free consultation with a clear photo is the reliable way to know your options.
Do I need laser removal before a cover-up?
Not always. Lighter or older tattoos can often be covered directly. Darker, denser or more recent work usually gives a far better final result after one or two laser lightening sessions. We’ll advise honestly at consultation which route suits your specific tattoo.
Does Six Bullets Tattoo take walk-ins?
No – the studio is appointment-only and custom tattoos only. This is deliberate: it gives artists the time to design one-of-a-kind pieces without walk-in pressure. Consultations are free and can be arranged through the contact page.
Where is Six Bullets Tattoo located?
Six Bullets Tattoo is at 394 Camden Road, Unit 3, London N7 0SJ – in North London between Camden Town, King’s Cross, Islington, Archway and Finsbury Park. The nearest stations are Caledonian Road & Barnsbury and Camden Road (Overground).
How much does a tattoo cost in London?
Pricing depends on size, detail, placement and the artist. Custom studios in London typically price by the piece or by session. Six Bullets provides a quote after a free consultation, once the design scope is clear, so you know the cost before anything is booked.
What product/cream do you use during the tattooing process?
We exclusively use the Hustle Butter Deluxe. It’s the most natural product out there with natural ingredients only.
Still curious about something or want to make an enquiry?
Get in touch, and a member of our team will be happy to help.
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