The examples above brilliantly detail changes to traditional delivery. Gone are solo head shapes in brief, flat color, instead the art adopts vibrant, bright shaded ink, a variety of supporting patterns, and a wicked array of unique facial detail emphasizing teeth, muzzle, and whiskers.

3. Black and Gray Kistune Tattoos

Kitsune tattoos make for quality explorations into traditional black and gray ink. Their face, tail, shape, and richness of fur encourage different fill options and shadow from light gray scale saturation through to heavy black, wide needle delivery.

Many broader tattoo styles can also be adopted, such as animal realism, dot work, negative space, or even single needle fine line principles, to make effective pieces differing in size and shape.

4. Kitsune Leg Tattoos

These Kitsune leg tattoo examples demonstrate the unique space available. They’re crafted with good flow, and an emphasis on sharp lines and vivid colors.

As the fox is such a sleek choice of animal, leg tattoos provide opportunity to thicken and fatten the full piece with various technical fill colors and patterns.

Again, the Japanese influence is evidenced by clean sections and quality background shading options such as waves, clouds, smoke, and contrasting patterned flower support.

5. Kitsune Linework Tattoos

While most of these Kitsune tattoos will be filled and shaded, the line work is deployed stylishly in their current state. The artists have, for the most part, opted to ink thicker, broader lines.

The ones most likely to remain in line form are more attuned to variety in fine line needle and contrasting technical applications rather than shadow work, with black ink fill used to contrast negative space and scale each piece.

6. Kitsune Half Sleeve Tattoos

Kitsune sleeves inevitably follow the traditional Japanese blue print of surrounding the focal image with flat color, negative space relief and segmented background shading. Some don’t stray from the arm, while others move fluidly on to the chest and shoulder, creating fine body art through clever manipulation of space and scale.