77 Deadpool Tattoo Designs for Men
The superhero, Deadpool, has become increasingly popular in the last few years. He is one of the craziest superheroes in the lineup, but a superhero nonetheless, and that is why people love him so much!
Deadpool gets his name from the game of prediction which involves guessing when someone will die.
Deadpool was supposed to die, but didn’t. This game seems barbaric, but to Deadpool, this represents being fearless and facing down a death that won’t come for him. If you’re someone who is fearless or wants to be fearless, Deadpool would look great on you.
Deadpool represents the crazy side of all of us. We are attracted to him because he says the things we are scared to, does the things we are scared to, and getting a tattoo of this amazing character on your body will get you feeling in the mood to let out your crazy and give you determination to face whatever you are intimidated by.
Even though he’s crazy, he, like most of us, still wants to do the right thing. He is at war with himself over his anger and vengeance. While he feels so much anger, there is always the other side of him warring with that, willing him to make the right decision.
Deadpool is like most of us, albeit a little more visibly crazy. But crazy isn’t always a bad thing.
1. Black and Gray Deadpool Tattoos
If you want a risky Deadpool tattoo, go for black and gray application. The iconic red suit doesn’t need color to look dynamic if your artist has mastered shading, solid linework, and crisp alternative fill techniques.
You can see in the first example how proper shading can differentiate between lighter and darker areas of Deadpool’s costume, but you need to be confident in your artist’s ability to create the right kind of piece. The second tattoo is good conceptually however it’s etched with so much black that it creates a muddy perception in places. Areas like the hands, for example, lose fine detail components through this technical choice.
2. Comic Deadpool Tattoos
Deadpool has been in comic books since 1991. Using his history as a template means you can create dynamic narrative tattoos via the comic book panel style that form unique scenes within tattoos. The first example image is super saturated with color from the red of Deadpool’s suit, through to the solid black highlights, and the offset blue background and golden/yellow speech bubbles. This body art is a fine example of a comic panel come to life.
3. Goofy Deadpool Tattoos
A major reason for Deadpool’s success is that he’s a goofy character who mixes action with humor. Even before Ryan Reynolds played him on film, it was a hallmark of the character on the page. While you can focus on that serious side, you can just as easily lean into the goofball part of Deadpool’s personality and use tattoo styles that lend themselves to cleverly depicting this aspect of the character.
New wave creations, like the first example above, exaggerates design elements like dimension and anatomy, while choosing a bold color palette of red, black, brown and grey that gives the whole tattoo an over the top, cartoon quality.
4. Realistic Deadpool Tattoos
Thanks to the film work of Ryan Reynolds, most people now know what Deadpool looks like in ‘real life.‘ Creating a tattoo taking illustrative artwork into the realm of photorealism is that much easier now. You can see in the first tattoo above, that the artist has effectively brought a frame from the movie to life on the skin. The light source and shading provide depth in delineating a realistic three-dimensional person in a mask. There’s visible texture in the leather of the mask and the fingers of his gloves and the proportions fit with artistic expressions of human anatomy which are essential elements for developing a realistic Deadpool tattoo.
5. Vibrant Deadpool Tattoos
A vibrant, rich, and full color Deadpool tattoo is the perfect match for such an over-the-top character. You can choose any style, from Neo Traditional and New Wave, to photorealism and even watercolor, to make a vibrant Deadpool tattoo work as premier body art. There’s a serious New Wave vibe in the first example, it borrows heavily from the comic art and punches in deep red hues with lighter shades to create depth and texture. The outline is solid and dark, yet consistent with a comic art style to create a superb, easy to read image.
6. Small Deadpool Tattoos
For such a larger than life character, fitting a Deadpool design into a small space like an ankle or the back of your hand means being smart in your design choices and choice of technical styles. It also means your artist needs mastery of detailed shading in line work, because the tight space can be unforgiving when errors are made. You can see in this first design how the artist effectively applied a clean comic book style to fill in the small available space, and then let it fade into the fingers with deft placement.
7. Intense Deadpool Tattoos
For all of Deadpool’s silliness, it’s worth remembering the character is a nearly immortal hitman for hire. That means there’s an intense side to him that can be explored heavily in ink. These intense Deadpool tattoos bring that element of menacing intensity to the forefront. The first tattoo uses an exaggerated, illustrative style bordering on hyper realism to display a twisted and deformed character. Negative space and white highlights create a smooth, glossy texture on the mask and give it a surplus of depth shown by all of those wrinkles, which are brought to life by the interplay of light and dark texture.
8. Unique Deadpool Tattoos
Deadpool doesn’t play by the rules. He talks to the audience, he kills people, and he has no fear of death. A unique Deadpool tattoo doesn’t need to follow the accepted rules either. Some employ geometric elements such as the honeycomb pattern in our first example while others may adapt fundamental concepts steeped in American Traditional design techniques. The second tattoo above uses a heavy, deeply saturated red ink with black highlights, and a splash of white to create an image at once familiar, yet totally new and unique.
Love these Deadpool tattoos but looking for more Marvel character inspiration? Check out these galleries:
- Iron Man Tattoo Ideas
- Incredible Hulk Tattoo Ideas
- Captain America Tattoo Inspiration
- Venom Tattoo Ideas