Traditional Tattooing
Bold outlines. Solid colour fills. Iconic imagery. Traditional tattooing is the foundation everything else was built on and in the hands of a skilled artist it remains one of the most visually powerful styles in tattooing today.
The look is immediately recognisable. Strong black outlines, a limited palette of bold colours, and subject matter drawn from the classic canon of tattoo imagery. Eagles, panthers, roses, anchors, daggers, portraits, ships. The style has a graphic confidence that ages exceptionally well and reads clearly from a distance in a way that more delicate styles can't always match.
Traditional tattooing rewards bold choices. It suits clients who want something with visual weight and permanence, a tattoo that looks like a tattoo, worn with intention.
At Broken Puppet, Rick and Chloe are your artists for traditional work. Rick brings over twenty years of experience to the style with a particular strength in large-scale traditional pieces and the kind of ambitious compositions that lesser artists won't attempt. Chloe is building a strong traditional portfolio as part of her apprenticeship and takes on smaller traditional pieces at a reduced rate, a genuine opportunity to get quality traditional work without the wait or the price tag of a fully booked senior artist.
Neo-Traditional Tattooing
Everything traditional tattooing does well, pushed further. Neo-traditional keeps the bold outlines and confident linework of its predecessor but expands the colour palette, introduces more illustrative detail and allows for a wider range of subject matter. Portraits with depth, botanical work with movement, animals with genuine character.
Where traditional tattooing is deliberately graphic and flat, neo-traditional introduces shading, dimension and a more painterly quality while keeping the structural integrity that makes traditional work last. The result is tattooing that feels both rooted in history and genuinely contemporary.
It is one of the most versatile styles in tattooing, equally at home on a small forearm piece or a full sleeve, equally suited to someone getting their first tattoo or adding to an extensive collection.
Rick and Arty both work in neo-traditional at Broken Puppet. Arty brings a fresh energy to the style with a New Skool lean, bold characterful work that pushes the boundaries of what neo-traditional can be. As an apprentice he offers reduced rates on smaller pieces, making this a great entry point for anyone wanting quality neo-traditional work at an accessible price.
Black and Grey Realism
Tattooing that doesn't look like tattooing, at least not in the way most people think of it. Black and grey realism uses shading, contrast and tonal gradation to create images with genuine three-dimensional depth. Portraits, wildlife, objects, scenes rendered in ink with a photographic quality that still feels like something no photograph could quite achieve.
The style demands exceptional technical skill. Getting skin tones right. Understanding how light falls across a subject. Knowing how ink dilutes and how that dilution translates to a finished piece that will still look extraordinary five, ten, twenty years later. This is not a forgiving style. The margin between extraordinary and mediocre is small and immediately visible.
Rick and Simon are Broken Puppet's realism specialists with a particular strength in large-scale black and grey work. If you have a portrait, a wildlife piece or a scene you want rendered in genuine detail, they are the artistists to talk to.
Ornamental and Mandala Tattooing
Tattooing rooted in the decorative traditions of cultures across the world. Mehndi, henna, geometric folk art, sacred geometry, translated into bold permanent bodywork. Ornamental tattooing uses pattern, symmetry and repeating motifs to create compositions that feel architectural. Mandala work builds radially from a central point, expanding outward in layers of geometric and floral detail that can fill a small placement or cover an entire limb.
The style has a particular relationship with placement. Ornamental and mandala work doesn't just sit on the body, it responds to it. Designs that follow the natural contours of the hand, the foot, the shoulder or the knee. Compositions that treat the limb as a canvas for something genuinely large-scale and considered.
Simon is Broken Puppet's ornamental specialist and one of the most respected artists in this space in the UK. His mandala and mehndi-influenced hand and foot work in particular draws clients from across the country. If you are thinking about ornamental tattooing, whether a single back-of-hand piece or a full foot and ankle composition, Simon is the starting point.
Dotwork and Stipple
Pattern and tone built entirely from dots. Dotwork and stipple tattooing uses the density, size and spacing of individual dots rather than continuous lines or solid fills to create texture, shading and form. The result has a quality entirely its own, organic, almost textured, somewhere between an engraving and a drawing.
The style suits geometric work, mandalas, botanical illustration and abstract compositions particularly well. It also combines naturally with fine line and ornamental work, adding depth and texture to compositions that might otherwise rely purely on linework.
Simon, Sarah and Zoe are Broken Puppet's stipple specialists, bringing their own distinctive graphic sensibility to a style that rewards patience and precision in equal measure.
Cover-Up Tattoos
Not a style in itself but a discipline that draws on all of them. A cover-up tattoo takes an existing piece of ink and transforms it into something new, using design, placement and the specific properties of different styles to conceal what was there before.
Good cover-up work is one of the most technically demanding things a tattoo artist can do. Understanding how existing ink affects new ink. Designing something that works as a piece in its own right while simultaneously doing the structural job of concealing what is underneath. Knowing which styles and colour values give you the most to work with. Not every artist has the experience to do this well and not every piece of existing work can be covered without a proper assessment first.
Rick is Broken Puppet's cover-up specialist with years of experience turning unwanted tattoos into work clients are genuinely proud of. If you have something you want gone or transformed, the first step is sending us a photo for an honest assessment of what is possible.
Pixel and Gaming Tattoos
Tattooing for people who grew up with a controller in their hand. Pixel art tattoos translate the visual language of retro gaming, 8-bit and 16-bit sprites, classic game characters, pixel landscapes and gaming iconography, into permanent ink with a fidelity and charm that fans of the medium immediately recognise and respond to.
Done well, pixel tattooing is technically demanding in a way that isn't immediately obvious. Maintaining clean consistent pixel blocks at tattoo scale, getting the proportions right, choosing placements that suit the geometric nature of the style. These things require an artist who understands the medium as well as the craft.
Zoe is the artist for pixel and gaming work at Broken Puppet. Her portfolio in this space is genuinely unlike anything else available in the local area. If this is the style you are after, she is exactly who you need.
Japanese Tattooing
One of the oldest and most technically demanding traditions in tattooing. Japanese tattooing, known as Irezumi, is built around a specific visual vocabulary developed over centuries. Koi, dragons, tigers, phoenixes, peonies, chrysanthemums, waves, clouds and wind bars, each carrying its own symbolic weight and visual role within a composition.
What sets Japanese tattooing apart is its relationship with the body. Where other styles place a design on the skin, Japanese tattooing works with the body's natural contours. Designs that flow with the muscle, wrap naturally around the limb and feel like they belong to the body rather than sitting on top of it. Large-scale Japanese work, sleeves, back pieces, full legs, is among the most visually ambitious tattooing there is.
The style demands a deep understanding of composition, colour theory and the specific technical skills that large-scale work requires. Done well it is extraordinary. Done poorly it is very difficult to fix.
Rick and Chloe handle Japanese work at Broken Puppet. Chloe's Japanese portfolio is developing strongly through her apprenticeship and she takes on smaller Japanese pieces at reduced rates. If you are considering a large-scale Japanese piece or building towards one, a consultation is the essential starting point.
Still Not Sure?
That is completely fine. Bring us a reference image, describe what you have been thinking about, or just tell us what you don't want and we will help you work out the rest. Our artists between them cover every major style in tattooing and have decades of experience helping clients find exactly what they are looking for.
The best tattoos start with an honest conversation.
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