best free tattoo design app

Joe Hindy / Android Authority

Tattoos are a big deal. They're permanent expressions of art and those with tattoos are usually very proud of them. It's not something a phone can give you. However, there are plenty of apps for tattoo fans. You can find tattoo ideas, tattoo artists, and all kinds of other content on the Internet with a few apps and a few taps. There are a bunch of super generic tattoo design apps, but we think we can do a little better. Here are the best tattoo apps for Android!

The best tattoo apps for Android

Adobe Illustrator Draw

Price: Free / Up to $52.99 per month

Adobe Illustrator Draw is one of the best drawing apps for Android. You can use it to draw up all kinds of tattoo designs and ideas. The app features layers, up to 64x zoom for finer details, and a variety of other drawing tools. Of course, many people may seek out existing ideas. However, the artistically inclined may want to use their phone to draw out their own and this is a good start. It has roots in Adobe's Creative Cloud suite that ranges up to $52.99 per month. However, you can use most of the app without it.

Google Maps is one of the best tattoo apps

Google Maps is a bit of an obvious pick, but it still fits the criteria. Google Maps is probably the best way to find tattoo artists in your area along with their phone numbers and hours of operation. You can also find tattoo artists in cities you're unfamiliar with if you decide to travel to see one far away. That's about all Maps is good for, but it's still a powerful and useful app. Simply open it and search for tattoo artists!

Google Search is another fairly obvious pick, but it's one that millions of people turn to for tattoo ideas. You can search for ideas across all of Google's image search. You can also search for nearby tattoo artists, find outlets of communication with other tattoo aficionados, and find other information. For the most part, though, people seem to use the app frequently for tattoo ideas. It's easy to use and you know how all this works already. Why fix what isn't broken?

Inkhunter is one of the better tattoo apps for ideas. It's also one of the most unique. You can search the app for a variety of tattoo ideas. However, the app also lets you use augmented reality to try out the tattoo on your body. Simply point the camera at your body parts and the tattoo will appear over it. You can also add your own images from drawing apps or from Google Search to see how those tats would look as well. This is one of the ones we would recommend first.

LayerPaint HD is one of the best tattoo apps for android

LayerPaint HD is another powerful drawing app. You can use it to draw basically anything, but for this list, we recommend it for tattoo ideas. The app comes with quite a few features, including support for pen pressure, Wacom tablets, and other professional tools. You can also export to Photoshop if you need to. Some of the other features include a metric ton of art tools, layer support, and more. It's a tad expensive, but at least it's a single purchase and not a subscription.

Price: Free / $3.99 per month / $29.99 per year

Reddit can be a terrible place, but it's also a great spot for tattoos, tattoo ideas, tattoo designs, and fellow tattoo fans. There are a few good and popular subreddits, including Tattoo, Tattoos, and Tattoo Designs. Sometimes questions go unanswered for a while, especially if the request is difficult. However, you can find a bunch excellent ideas there. The Reddit app is decent, but there are third-party options if you want to go that route. You can also pick up Reddit Gold and remove ads for the prices listed above.

Tattoodo is one of the more popular tattoo apps for design ideas. It features designs from over 500,000 artists and boasts a user base of over six million people. We're not sure if they're all active, but it adds up to a lot of content to browse through. You can browse through ideas in a variety of categories and even book appointments with tattoo artists in your area. The Google Play reviews suggest that booking through the app is a bit troublesome. Otherwise, it's a must-try for someone wanting a tattoo.

Tattoo Designs

Price: Free

Tattoo Designs is one of the many generic tattoo apps on the Play Store. However, this one seems to be serviceable. You can find a lot of basic designs here, including words, skulls, cards, and other popular tattoo motifs. The app lacks a dedicated search and that's kind of a big deal. However, there are categories and you're basically just surfing through for ideas anyway so it's not a big deal. It's definitely not one that'll replace the better options, but it has some good basic stuff if you want to take a look.

Tattoo Font Designer

Price: Free / $19.99

Joe Hindy / Android Authority

Tattoo Font Designer is exactly what the title implies. This app helps you design fonts for use in tattoos. There is a selection of fonts already in the app to get you started or you can make your own. At its core, this is a calligraphy app but because calligraphy is such a big part of tattoos, the developers kind of combined the two ideas. Even if you have no intention of getting a tattoo, this one is just fun to play with. The free version has a bunch of ads, but it's otherwise quite functional. The pro version is rather expensive but at least it's a single payment.

Tattoo Master is kind of a mix between a coloring book app, a tattoo design app, and a drawing app but it's all presented as a mobile game. We actually like it quite a lot. There are a bunch of designs and such in the app. You can choose one, color it in however you want, and then save it as an idea. It does all this in a game format where you give digital tattoos to fictional characters. Thus, it's not a serious drawing app like Adobe Illustrator or LayerPaint. Still, it's a fun little app if you want to try something a little different.