Sailors to Social Media: Tattoo Flash Traditions Carried Into the Modern World
- Joshua Chatwin
- Feb 5
- 8 min read
When you walk through the doors at Fox & Sparrow Tattoo you’re greeted with walls covered in colorful, ready-to-tattoo designs—AKA tattoo flash. These iconic sheets of artwork have been a staple of tattoo culture for well over a century, offering clients quick, timeless designs while allowing us tattooers to showcase individual styles as well as the plethora of designs made by those who blazed the trail before us, and also those we share the path with now. But where did tattoo flash come from and how has it evolved over time?
Whether you’re a first-time tattoo client or a seasoned collector, understanding the history of tattoo flash not only adds depth to your appreciation of tattooing, but also helps you choose designs that have and will stand the test of time. So, quit pickin’ your nose and let’s pick something off the wall!
The Origins of Tattoo Flash: The Birth of a Tradition
Before tattoo flash existed, tattooing was a highly personalized and often spiritual practice. Indigenous cultures around the world, from Polynesians to Native Americans, used hand-poked, or as the kids say these days, “stick-and-poke,” methods to create intricate designs that held deep cultural significance.
In early Western society, tattooing was largely associated with sailors, who apart from being totally badass explorers, collected tattoos as souvenirs from their travels—they lasted longer than jewelry, couldn’t be stolen, and intimidated their enemies! These early designs were typically done freehand, meaning the artist would draw the rudimentary design directly onto the skin and then make the tattoo with hand-poked methods.
During the 19th century, tattooing in Europe and America became more widespread, due largely to the aforementioned soldiers and sailors galavanting, collecting, and sharing new found cultural influence. As tattoo shops started popping up in major port cities, tattoo artists needed a way to efficiently offer clients large selections of designs. Enter tattoo flash—pre-drawn designs that allowed for quick application and standardized artistry—tattoos made in a flash!
Samuel O’Reilly and the Birth of the Tattoo Machine (1891)
A major turning point in tattoo history was the invention of the electric tattoo machine by Samuel O’Reilly in 1891. Partially adapted from Thomas Edison’s electric engraver, this game-changing war hammer allowed tattoo artists to work faster, with greater precision, and less pain, increasing the demand for tattoos. A bonus auditory effect was born as well----the iconically beautiful electric buzz; an ambient sensory delight to the ears, now nearly lost in some studios to the silence of the newer pen style tattoo machines (sing with me ----- "you don't know what you've got...till it's gone..."). Now, to keep up with the influx of clients, tattoo artists started creating and displaying flash sheets, making it easier for customers to pick a design and get tattooed on the spot—the harmonious bond between the walk-in client and flash snatched right off the wall that still lives on today. These designs were often sold or traded to other tattoo artists, serving to strengthen their utility and furthering their spread.
Early 20th Century: The Golden Age of Tattoo Flash
As tattooing grew in popularity, flash became the standard feature in tattoo parlors. Artists created hand-painted designs using ink and watercolor on thick paper, often displaying them on walls, books, and in store-front windows for customers to browse, pick, and stick.
Several legendary tattoo artists from the early 20th century helped define tattoo flash as we know it today:
- Charlie Wagner (1875–1953): An early tattoo machine innovator known for bold, simple designs.
- Cap Coleman (1884–1973): Introduced elegant, finer-lined, more detailed designs influenced by Asian and European art.
- Bert Grimm (1900–1985): Helped spread his bold traditional tattoo flash across the U.S., leaving a lasting legacy.
And these are just a few of the tattoo artists who made tattoo flash the standard that allowed for fast, repeatable tattoos; crucial in busy locations like military bases and port cities, where sailors and soldiers would line up for ink before shipping out. Some of these port towns were so busy tattooing sailors that the tattoo artist’s borrowed from the likes of Henry Ford, creating an assembly line of tattooing---one artist tattooed the outlines, the next the shading, and the last the color.
Mid-20th Century: The Rise of American Traditional Tattoo Flash
During World War II, the popularity of tattoos skyrocketed as soldiers and sailors sought patriotic designs to symbolize bravery, loyalty, and protection. Tattoo flash from this era featured eagles, anchors, military insignias, and pin-up girls, many of which remain popular today. One of the most influential figures during this time to present day was Norman “Sailor Jerry” Collins (1911–1973). Tattooing on Smith Street in Honolulu's Chinatown, his iconic flash designs incorporated bold black outlines, vibrant colors, and Asian-inspired motifs made uniquely American. Common themes:
- Swallows and anchors for sailors.
- Tigers and panthers symbolizing strength.
- Hula girls and ships representing exotic adventures.
Sailor Jerry’s flash sheets were widely distributed, often stolen and reproduced in lesser quality by less skilled tattooers, but influencing generations of tattoo artists and solidifying American Traditional as a dominant tattoo style worldwide. Today almost every American Traditional tattoo you see is either his design or a variation of it. Not to say Jerry didn't grab designs from pop media, magazines, and publications of the time and adapt them, he just had a way of making bold tattoo designs that read well across the room and are cooler than a polar bear's ass in February. True classics. We have hundreds of prints of his sheets and many books on Sailor Jerry in the Fox & Sparrow library, all available for tattoo!
Commercialization and the Spread of Tattoo Flash
By the mid-20th century, tattoo supply companies like Spaulding & Rogers and Picture Machine began mass-producing flash sheets, usually with just outlines and black shading meant to be displayed as is or hand colored by the artist displaying them. This made tattoo flash widely available to tattoo shops across the country cementing flash as a universal language in tattooing—if you walked into a shop, you’d see familiar designs that any artist could replicate quickly and effectively.
In the 60s, 70s, and 80s, tattooing underwent a steady shift as counterculture movements embraced tattoos as a form of rebellion and self-expression. Lyle Tuttle, Don Nolan, Jack Rudy, and countless other legends across America pushed the boundaries of tattooing and tattoo flash. The classics remained popular and ever evolving with companies like JD Crowe's Official Tattoo Brand emerging out of the late 80s, producing production flash sheets with more intricate designs. This is also a time when more people began seeking custom tattoos that were unique to their personalities. This created a demand for tattoo artists to cultivate new art skills and began pushing tattooing to where it is today-----largely appointment based, custom designs made to be tattooed just once.
An early major player in this transformation was Ed Hardy, who really pushed tattooing into the realm of fine art. Although he painted many sheets of tattoo flash, Hardy was also instrumental in cultivating an art-focused tattoo culture that encouraged artists to create custom, large-scale designs for their clients to be tattooed in a more private, appointment based setting. A graduate of the San Francisco Art Institute, Hardy is an accomplished tattoo artist as well as gallery artist, heavily influenced by the artistic endeavors of Japanese artists and tattoo artists as well as contemporaries in Europe like the Lieu family.
New School and Experimental Flash Art
By the 1990s, tattoo flash had evolved once again, influenced by:
- Graffiti and street art
- Comic book and cartoon aesthetics
-Surrealism and abstract art
Innovators such as Guy Aitchison and his seminal production of the Reinventing the Tattoo publication and large-scale bio mech tattoos pushed tattooing into realms and possibilities never before seen and influenced a whole generation of tattoo artists to experiment with custom art-based work leading directly to, amongst many other stylistic offshoots, the development of color realism and painterly styles pioneered by artists like Joshua Carlton.
Also introduced in this era was New School tattooing. Characterized by cartoonish, exaggerated proportions, vibrant color combinations and a playful aesthetic, often spinning off classically American Traditional subject matter (since evolved into neo-traditional and other styles). Within all this experimentation yet another new variation of the classic traditional production tattoo flash arose in the form of the ubiquitous Cherry Creek Tattoo Flash. Heavy with Native American themes, barbed wire arm bands (Pam Anderson), and Harley Davidson designs, Cherry Creek could be found in any tattoo studio in the 90s and on every drunk uncle at the BBQ. These designs are still adapted to modern tattooing by those with an affinity for 90s culture.
Production Tattoo Flash Isn't Dead
Mr Flash Machine is a collective of tattoo artists making modern production tattoo flash in the vein of Spaulding & Rogers or Picture Machine (with an obvious name nod to boot) that makes killer black and grey flash sheets ready to be displayed and tattooed as-is or hand colored by the artist----like days gone by, a tradition kept alive. Here's just one sheet from our collection:
Although custom tattoos dominate modern tattooing, flash is still widely used for walk-in tattoos, flash days, Get What You Get machines and games, and themed events (shameless plug: we have a flash event coming up, deets below!) Many tattoo artists, including the crew at Fox & Sparrow Tattoo still hand-paint flash sheets as a nod to tradition, while others embrace digital flash for online sales, ease of making prints to sell, or simply speeding up the process of showing a finished design online for clients to book. Apps like Procreate can mimic the look of hand-painted flash if done right, but tend to lack the soul of the real-deal physical painting in this author's humble opinion----to each their own I suppose and a tool is a tool with it's own place in the tik tok march of time.
Keeping the Tradition Alive at F&ST
Here are some recent hand painted tattoo flash sheets by our crew with designs available to add your skin collection!
Left to Right (Top to Bottom on mobile): Joshua Chatwin, Ethan Jester, Erik Tulgetske, Sammie Chatwin
Tattoo flash started as an efficient utility to keep up with the growing demand of tattoos and has grown into a way to showcase personal style and design preferences by tattoo artists who want to keep an important tradition alive. We absolutely fucking love it when you pick off the wall or roll the dice with our Get What You Get Machine. Everything on the walls is picked and curated carefully from either our hands, tattoo history, contemporary heavy--hitters, or our friends at tattoo shops around the world, and they are all meant to be tattooed. Even if it isn’t our personal design, we will always put our spin to it, creating a truly unique blended design in the continuous thread of tattooing history that we all get to take part in!
As ancient as time, as modern as tomorrow.
Valentines Day Flash Event!
February 14th, 1P - 8P
Walk-ins ONLY
1st Come, 1st Served
Larger Designs
Discount Pricing $100-250
Black and Grey or Full Color
Arms and Legs only, text can be changed
Further Reading/Viewing:
Guy Aitchison's Reinvinting the Tattoo
Watch: Ed Hardy - Tattoo the World (2010)
Watch: Hori Smoku - The life of Norman Keith "Sailor Jerry" Collins
Joshua Chatwin, tattooing since 2010, owns Fox & Sparrow Tattoo with his wife and fellow tattooer, Samantha Chatwin. They live in and love Muncie Indiana with their daughter, Olivia, and two Papillon dogs, Honey Bear & Maple Wolf. Give him a good book, a good cigar, and about 30 in the sauna and he's happier than a pig in shit.
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