Lightning Tattoo Designs

The thunder and lightning accompanying a storm have generated worry for some, and for others provide a sense of awe and amazement at this powerful experience.

It's no surprise then that those seeking new tattoo design ideas look to lightning in particular for inspiration.

As with all art and ink, you never know what people will choose in any theme or subject matter, and that's no different with lightning tattoos, which took a little bit of a different turn than I thought they would.

When starting to search for my own ideas, my brain was picturing all of these tattoos filled with images of crackling lightning in various scenes.

Instead, I found a different route for most of those deciding on a lightning tattoo, with a more benign and creative look, rather than the thunderous appearance I anticipated.

There were a few of those, but the majority weren't.

There is nothing special about this first lightning bolt tattoo, but I included it because there were actually a lot of people that decided on a tattoo very much like this one as their choice.

One interesting thing that may explain that is I found when researching lightning tattoos both men and women liked them; something that's not too common with tattoo designs. Usually women chose a more streamlined and simple tattoo like the one shown here, while the guys went a little more detailed with them.

This young woman did everything right with her lightning tattoo.

She obviously wanted a cute tattoo she would be able to show off whenever she liked, as well as be able to hide it in inappropriate situations. This tattoo design and placement provides all of that.

When she wants to show it she just has to pull her hair back or wear it in a way that allows the tattoo to be seen. Then when she wants to hide it, all she has to do is put her hair back in place.

This is simple of course, but it's surprising how many people getting ink don't think things like this through carefully, not taking into account the overall picture.

Another surprising thing I discovered about lightning tattoos and my own expectations was there were far more people who decided on color who didn't go with yellow lightning. While real lightning isn't yellow of course, it's the usual color we imagine when thinking about it.

Here's a man that went with four blue lightning bolts on his back. I think the darker color choice is so the lightning can be seen better. Yellow doesn't show quite as clear or good as some other colors.

I find this to be a somewhat bizarre lightning tattoo choice. Not only is the color choice dreadful, but the rounded edges of the lightning take away that wonderful and powerful look associated with it.

Even the clouds are loud, as far as the blue color goes. This is one of the few tattoos in my life I've seen which have nothing positive in any way to find in it.

I'm assuming there's some type of message, or possible scene from a movie with this tattoo, as I can make no sense out of it, although it is creatively interesting.

It's a big balloon, as you can see from the gas power source. What's unique is the cloud is acting as the fabric of the balloon with the red lightning bolts emanating from it.

Did you notice the eye in the middle of the cloud? Strange tattoo.

Here is another lightning tattoo which is somewhat baffling to me, because it's obviously designed with some type of personal statement in mind, as shown by the gas mask worn by the Hello Kitty character.

I'm not sure what the correlation between all that and the lightning is, but as for the tattoo, it would have looked cute and interesting without the gas mask thing going for it.

For those who may not know, whenever you see a lightning bolt shaped like this, it's a reference to the popular Harry Potter, who suffered the injury when attack by an evil wizard when he was an infant. This is the shape of the mark from the attack, which was on his forehead.

Good thing she put it low enough to cover up, as neck tattoos are tricky, and if placed wrong, can make it very difficult to hide when it needs to be.

I like this tattoo of the hand holding a lightning bolt. This was more in line of what I was thinking about when contemplating on lightning tattoo designs.

The shadow on the hand looks great, and the needed appearance that it's strongly grasping the lightning is conveyed very nicely. I'm also glad the decision was made to make the lightning bolt yellow.

This is a very cool lightning tattoo. Placing the desert scene with the big cactus and parched ground looks great; very creative and one of a kind.

What the roman numerals are along the side of it I'm clueless on. It looks like it's the date 8/15/1984, although it only has the 84 part in it. Maybe it's a birth date or something like that. Surprisingly, it doesn't really clash with the rest of the design.

This was sure a disparate bunch of tattoos, ranging from the ghastly to the extraordinary, and just about everything in between.

There are other places where lightning is used in tattoos, usually as part of a scene where it plays it plays more the role of a supporting actor. One of those is ships being tossed on a see during a storm, with lightning crashing around them.

In the end, lightning is just cool, and the shape and imagery provide great material for those seeking interesting ink designs.