53 Africa Tattoo Designs for Men
Africa means many things to many people, and as the cradle of humanity it has inspired a richness of cultural reverence that continues to find its way into some of the most beautiful and powerful tattoo art in the world today.
The continent has drawn individuals from near and far for hundreds of years, looking to savor the breathtaking landscape, wildlife, and history.
Recent centuries of war, poverty, and exploitation have endangered the region, making it all the more precious for those who wish to honor and protect it.
Today many people choose to celebrate Africa and its diverse culture through tattoo homages. Perhaps you have deep ancestral ties or wish to commemorate a meaningful experience; you may simply feel a passion for the continent and its people. Regardless of your connection, there are many ways to pay tattoo tribute to Africa.
Popular tattoo choices include simple map outlines of the continent, often with a heart or meaningful symbol etched within, as well as images of Africa’s famous wildlife: zebras, lions, elephants, and giraffes. Another option is to have the stunning savanna backdrop inked across your back or forearm, enhanced by the setting sun. Some may choose to have a portrait of a loved one or personal hero incorporated into their tattoo scenery.
An Africa-inspired tattoo is not just a nod to the continent and the many aspects it contains, but a show of respect and compassion for all of humanity, who began in the very cradle of it.
This a cool wold Africa sleeve. There’s a smart use of fitting animals for great contrast in black and gray shade, and the linking between images with descriptive shadow helps link beautifully, especially the negative space skyline view of the trees.
Realist animal tattoo at its finest. This is a great technical piece that cleverly chooses contrasting animals to focus on. This allows the opportunity to experiment technically to craft fur, bone, and leathery skin.
This is a standout piece of tattoo art. The child’s features and skin tone are beautifully drawn with crystal clear precision. Love how the paint flecks along skin.
The image looks photographic and is executed with great touch.
The continent provides border and barrier to the image within this 3D tattoo. Crafting the tree as shadow amongst the skull’s contours is a brilliant effect, and the facial detail shading spot on. Also like the artist’s alternate fill negative space that separates the small elephant from the background.
This is a fantastic forearm sleeve Africa tattoo. The iconic baobab stands out from vivid orange brightness while animals chill beneath it. The balance between color, shape, and shadow here is done perfectly, especially the tree itself.
Another beautiful black and gray Africa continent tattoo. Crisp outlines support the elegance of hoop earrings and headscarf. They provide highlights to the subtle shades of black and gray deploy elsewhere.
A clever idea mixing compass tattoo with continent. It’s a clever way to symbolize that Africa is home no matter where the subject is. Using white ink highlights on compass star separates it from the background and finishes off the tattoo’s nice depth.
A beautiful continent tattoo that uses vivid colors throughout. Love the child’s serious expression, mother’s joy, and blazing backdrop shaped by the continent outline. It’s a well balanced piece of body art.
Awesome. This bad ass tattoo features flawless technique. The painstaking and intense dot work demonstrates an amazing degree of detail in the pyramid frame. The simpler black shapes of giraffe, elephant, and Baobab tree stand out wonderfully against the precisely graded dots.
Love the way Africa is shaped by the elephant trunk, it works in well to the image. The big unit’s shading is epic, transforming gray to different textured skin throughout. The sky scene too is good. It brightly contrasts the size of the elephant in filling the rest of the boundary.
Nice African band tattoo. The clever solo line below provides ballast for the soft, black line, and shadow effects work from the negative space instead. At the upper edge, dots spread across the edge in a wall drawn way of closing off the artwork.
This is a masterful lower forearm tattoo. The brilliant, watercolor rainbow stands out from the realism of lion and Baobab tree. It’s almost flawless, from the blue splash above, the fierce lion’s Rex Manning mane, down to the shadow effects joining the tree and ground.
This is a great black and gray Africa tattoo. The fat black lines of the lion mix with well directed small shards to define this epic mosaic style piece. The understated shading helps keep it from getting too dark, while the dots help in opposition to the line work.
This amazing new wave tattoo may be the finest example of color shade contrast you in art on skin. Using scarlet against yellow makes the color crackle against shade, while flipping black and gray for face paint and a funky Baobab tree is an inspired shift in technique. The beautiful cascading hair phased through the zebra like pattern works tremendously as well.
The fur effect of this lion is brilliantly etched. Some of it is gold and thick (chin) while going paler at other points (mane) in contrast to make him less shiny than other images working in full color.
This is a great black tattoo demonstrating how incorporating a single idea within a border image can be just as telling as one full of different images. The artist’s ability to put detail into each crack and crevice of the fingerprint shows effortless technique.
This tattoo shows an outstanding use of negative space. Rather than fill or use in shading there’s a number of negative space shapes created with detail throughout – especially the alt line continent and the dove flashing above savanna. The spare nature of these parts shows well against the brilliant detail of the timepiece.
This is a wicked continent tattoo utilizing a unique fill color and geometric patterns to form a nice, crisp Africa image. The chaos of links and hoops make a good contrast to the almost blue of the shadow and crisp black border.