Clown Tattoos

Love them or hate them, clowns have been around a long time. As court jesters in medieval times, to circus performers, theatre actors, street performers, to movie stars, great Cirque Du Soleil acrobats, and children entertainers. Clowns are meant to be a happy, exuberant, silly performer, but lately have been much more active in the horror department. From books and movies like Batman’s “Joker” character, Stephen King’s “It”, Rob Zombie’s “Captain Spaulding” and “31”,and  American Horror Story’s “Twisty, clowns are now pretty terrifying. Some pop culture horror clowns are unfortunately based on real people who were killer clowns, such as John Wayne Gacy. Now, in 2016, North America and parts of Europe are experiencing what the media is calling “killer clown attacks”, where people are dressing up as creepy clowns and chasing, staring at, and harassing people all in the hopes of scaring them, or in some more serious situations, worse.

Whether you think clowns are funny or scary, they make some great tattoos.

Clown tattoos are usually done in American traditional, realism, and black and grey styles. They are either happy, fun clowns, sad, crying clowns (often done as “tramp” clowns), or horror clowns.

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Matching American traditional clowns by Dan Santoro.
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Crying traditional clown by Jonathan Reina in Gran Canaria, Spain.
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Creepy American traditional clown by Kujo at Clipper Ship Tattoo in Atlanta, GA.
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Sad traditional clown by Josh Adams in Canonsburg, PA.
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Outline of a happy looking clown by A. Perry at Gentlemen Tattoos in Youngstown, Ohio.
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All black crying clown by Jason Donahue at Liberty tattoo in Seattle.
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Creepy black and grey realistic horror clown by Ukix Asmirantika at Luxury Ink, Bali.
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Menacing Joker tattoo by Andrey Stepanov in Russia,
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The Killing Joke, Joker by Sophie Adamson at The Projects Tattoo in Plymouth, UK.
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Realistic black and grey Joker by Tom Caine at Holy Mountain Tattoo in the UK.
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Realistic Rob Zombie’s Captain Spaulding by Alex Wright at Grindhouse Tattoo Productions in the UK.
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Realistic Stephen king’s “It” tattoo by Sam Barry in Belfast.
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Realistic American Horror Story’s “Twisty” the clown by Evan Olin at Powerline Tattoo in Cranston, RI.

Do you love them or fear them…?