These examples are uniformly brilliant – there’s neo-traditional and old school design, simple but crisp line tattoos, tremendously graded black and gray ink, or Chicano classical sugar skull.

2. Skull and Rose Forearm Tattoos

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The forearm remains one of the most popular placements for ink. These examples of beautifully etched skull and roses evidence why. Not only can these choices show the skull and rose in isolation, but each illustration implements brilliant technical application.

The use of shaping patterns, color accents – check out the bad ass watercolor – and clarity in linework help the ink patterns standout as major forearm body art pieces.

3. Skull and Rose Chest Tattoos

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I really dig the variation in tattoo style these full chest pieces exhibit to make bold statement tattoos. The central belief in an Eye of Providence tattoo is that God sees all – the use of the blue eye in this example is well placed against the depiction of life and death.

The Mexican sugar skull, or Calavera, traditionally means representing a dead loved one on the Traditional Dia De Los Muertos. In contemporary tattoo culture they also take on the death of a challenge and the new beginnings. The blazing orange yellow of each rose flower is amazing in opposition to the heavy shadow skull for the other new wave beautiful tattoo. The clock tattoo, unsurprisingly, represents time.

4. Skull and Rose Leg Tattoo Style

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