Most Creative Tattoo Cover Ups

Everyone makes mistakes but some of those mistakes tend to be more permanent than others. Rather than carrying a shameless reminder of your former self around for eternity, some people have dreamed up some truly wicked ways to style it out.

Whether it’s turning your ex’s name or face into a bigger joke than your relationship was, trading in that dated tribal tat or just getting a much needed upgrade, let's explore some of the most creative tattoo cover ups around!

Ex Name Cover Up Tattoo

The first one is a classic: the “I got my ex’s name tattooed in an obvious place on my body because I totally thought it was going to last forever and then it totally didn’t”. I’m not sure what Mary did to get her name inked on the dudes chest forever, but she must’ve done something pretty incredible further down the line to have herself transformed into this instead!

Turning that ‘Y’ into a ‘G’ and adding the cursive ‘E’ does look pretty seamless, but there’s something slightly off putting about that Playboy-esque version of Marge Simpson.

There’s got to be some more creative ways to cover up an ex’s name than simply crossing it out or turning it into something even less appealing. It's unsure if the cover up below fits the "appealing" category, but it’s certainly creative!

Dear ex, you just got VOIDED. Wearing such a bold statement on your skin forever might not be everyone’s idea of fun, but literally stamping out an ex’s name seems to a weirdly popular choice. In some cases, there’s no need to cover up the original ink when it comes to regrettable tattoos.

Just take a look at this savvy solution to erasing an ex girlfriend below. Forget Lauren, it’s all about Ralph Lauren now! It might seem like a clever move at first, but who really wants to walk around with a famous logo plastered on their arm?

Getting someone’s name tattooed on your wrist or arm in cursive writing is one thing, but if you really want to make a bold romantic gesture, why not go all out and get it slapped across your collarbone?

You may think changing your ex girlfriends name into the name of a famous hot sauce by adding a “cha” at the end in non matching font and a bad mock up of the logo is a smart idea but who’s going to tell the guy in the image below that’s not even how you spell Siracha?!

Getting your girlfriends name tatted only to break up later on is a pretty big blunder, but some idiots have taken that a step further by getting their ex’s entire face instead! Either the tattoo below was a terrible tattoo to begin with, or whoever’s ex this is, it was no Marilyn Monroe!

But how did that guy go about rectifying that totally poor portrait once the relationship was over? By getting a massive gorilla slapped on top of it, that’s how! Either that is a massive insult, or he just happened to dump her around the same time the whole Harambe thing was breaking the internet back in 2016!

Getting a tattoo of a living person is always a risky business. A lot can go wrong in the space of a lifetime when it comes to relationships. But what about family members? When Calgary mom Lindsey pierce got a tattoo of her young daughter Ace, she couldn’t foresee any circumstances which would require her to alter it. But all that changed when Ace came out as transgender in 2015.

Thankfully, Lindsay’s husband Steve is also a tattoo artist, so he decided to do a little gender transformation to put things right! What was once a little girl in a pink dress with pigtails now shows Ace in a blue t-shirt and shorts sporting his current hairstyle. Those are some understanding parents!

And our next grimacing visage is a tattoo of a women. It's unlikely that the woman would have been particularly flattered by such a tacky tribute in the first place, but what that dude turned her into after the break up is much, much worse. Just add some horns, a horrifying grin and some red skin and voila, you can now go around claiming “my ex girlfriend is the devil” with the evidence to back it up!

That last tattoo might seem like a real kick in the teeth for whoever’s face is behind it, but she’s not the only unfortunate soul to face such a harsh treatment! Just check out this transition below, from blushing ingenuine to some sort of terrifying grim reaper.

What about this terrifying demon below, that’s concealing the most innocent looking face beneath it. Seriously, what could she have done to deserve that! Is Anyone else slightly creeped out by the idea that those long gone exes are still hidden beneath those layers of extra ink?

We’ve all heard the story of the princess and the frog. You know the drill: she kisses the frog, he turns into a handsome prince and they live happily ever after. But in the case of our next hilarious tattoo cover up, it seems like things might have happened in reverse instead? Damn, it must really suck to know that your ex partner loves frogs more than they ever loved you, Gene!

I have another break up tattoo remodeling to add to the hall of fame of terrible ex girlfriend tattoos. It seems like the original artist had it out for "Kim" the moment they inked that on her then boyfriend’s forearm. Those two must’ve had one hell of a breakup for her to be transformed into the grotesque, snake haired Medusa from Greek mythology! There’s something slightly off putting about those garish colors and weird, frog like eyes, it’s almost ugly enough to turn you to stone!

But of all those terrible ex girlfriend face tattoos we’ve seen so far, the next one has got to be the worst. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if Zabka broke up with the dude because she couldn’t bear to look at the terrible likeness of herself on her boyfriend’s leg anymore. What’s the deal with those beady black eyes and that dark upper lip, is that his way of telling her she has a moustache?

Thankfully, the owner of that offensive body art decided to get it covered up and boy, what an upgrade! I’m sure Zabka would be satisfied with the result, although she may not appreciate the spooky makeup.

Getting your romantic partners name tattooed on you forever is never a good idea. But after going through the trouble of having it covered up or crossed out once, surely you’d have learned your lesson. Which is what makes this arm below, full of regrets, all the more baffling.

That dude has practically turned his failed relationships into a shopping list! You can’t seriously have loved Anna, Rosalie, Jessica, Lina and Laura enough to get all their names tattooed on you.

When someone you’ve been dating turns out to be a total jerk, you’ll probably want to turn to your friends for advice. And one of the most common things pals love to say is the simple instruction to “just block him!”.

But what happens when you’ve got his face and name tatted on your back? According to our next tattoo disaster, the same rules apply: just block him literally! Now, I’m no tattoo connoisseur, but that looks like it must’ve hurt, that’s a lot of ink!

You might be wondering why tattoo’s hurt so much. Well, that’s because the ink has to get deep enough so that it won’t get washed away, but not too deep so that it remains visible. And that sweet spot ends up being right next to your skin’s pain receptors! Plus, most modern tattoo artists use mechanical tools that push a needle into the skin from 80-150 times a second! That woman must really hate her ex to endure all that pain.

We have another ex-girlfriend immortalized in ink! Clearly, it’s time for Kayleigh to go, but I bet you didn’t expect that she’d be turned into this Batman tribute below!

It takes a keen eye to see potential in that bold cursive lettering, but that superhero artwork is certainly a statement that is just as bold. But it turns out Batman is a popular coverup for forgotten exes, just take a look at Jessi below, who has been lost forever in this scene of Batman responding to the bat signal!

And Batman isn’t the only fictional character to take the place of an estranged ex-girlfriend. Feast your eyes on this monumental cover up below!

Sure, they could have just asked for a bigger rose or a cliché skull or something, but no. For that guy, only a life size bust of Darth Vader will do! I have to admit, the end result does look pretty awesome. You can almost hear him saying: “Jenny, I am your replacement!”

The moral of the story in all of that is that no matter how long you think something is gonna last, there are better ways to show your love than getting their name inked on your skin.

Tattoo Regrets Covered-Up

Most people go through that phase during their angsty teenage years when getting a tattoo as soon as possible seems like the most important thing in the world. But if you jump straight in without giving it proper thought, you could end up with something totally dumb like our next tattoo mistake, which looks more like a toddler armed with a sharpie mistook your skin for a sketchpad!

But thankfully, those mistakes don’t have to last forever thanks to talented and trained artists who are able to turn things around!

If you thought that meow tattoo was shoddily done, look at our next guy’s terrible attempt in the image below. He got the ‘Green Lantern’ logo inked on his chest. Besides the fact it looks like it’s been colored in using felt tip, the whole thing looks like it was free handed after one too many beers.

There’s not even a hint of symmetry in that circle. Thankfully, the whole thing went from ‘bad’ to badass with the help of a decent tattoo artist. Forget ‘zero to hero’, this guy had a ‘zero to super hero’ transformation!

Although some tattoos are undeniably questionable to say the least, it really comes down to a matter of personal taste at the end of the day. What do you make of the "party dog" tat below, totally cute, or totally trash? Whoever owned it clearly decided it was the latter when they enlisted a new tattoo artist to make that little pup party even harder! He got a cool new hat, and they even added a bottle of booze.

No matter how much you love a movie, TV show or celebrity, it’s probably worth asking yourself how long that love is gonna last before you go ahead and get it tattooed on your body for life.

Just ask the idiot who got Ace Venture’s face and his famous catch phrase “alrighty then!” slapped on the back of their calf. And what do you do when you fall out of love with your terrible Ace Ventura tat?

Get it covered up with an ever so slightly better and equally as massive tattoo of Chewbacca because that’s the only logical solution! While it might not be a significant improvement, turning Jim Carey’s signature huge mouth into Chewbacca’s is one creative move!

At some point in the recent past, tribal tats were all the rage. The art of the tribal tattoo transcends time, culture and continents. They were used for centuries to identify, protect and empower those who wore them, but nowadays they mostly look like cheap knock offs of the real deal!

But it’s never too late to trade in your old tribal tat for something much cooler like our next guy. Thanks to one seriously skilled artist, that bland, blocked out tattoo into a geometric dream! If you look close enough at the original tattoo, it seems like there might even be an even older floral design beneath it.

But if looking like a souped up Terminator isn’t really your thing, there are other ways to jazz up a tribal travesty. Check out this rusted up raven that got a total upgrade in the image below! What was once a faded attempt to look cool now looks like a real work of art. We can only wonder if someday people will study the way tattoo art style changed throughout the years the same way we study impressionism and surrealism!

We’ve already found out that a meagre ‘meow’ turned into an impressive cheetah, but what happens when a roaring big cat is your starting point? According to one study conducted in 2017, which looked at 20,000 snaps of tattoos posted on social media, animal tattoos were the most popular theme, making up 16.3%!

Isn’t the whole idea of getting tatted to be unique? So, how did our next guy upgrade his tiger? By getting another animal tattoo, but not the kind you might expect!

Fashionable tattoo placements have changed throughout the years, and if you were a woman in the 1990s and early 2000s, one stood out among the rest: the tramp stamp. In case you’re not up to speed on your street slang, the so-called ‘tramp stamp’ is a lower back tattoo that gained a saucy reputation for being paired with low rise jeans and crop tops.

The thing is like most fads, the tramp stamp quickly went out of fashion, leaving many women with embarrassing relics like the one in the image below. It’s hard to think of a classy way to rectify this without covering her entire back, but this elegant peacock design is a pretty nifty fix-up!

The same can be said for this lotus cover up below. The placement may be the same, but at least it’s a whole lot prettier now!

Sometimes, the best thing to do in life is own up to your mistakes. Instead of finding a way to cover up that faded star fish tattoo you got on holiday when you were 18, why not draw more attention to it! That is like a visual representation of the phrase “call a spade a spade” except it’s “call a teenage mistake a teenage mistake” instead.

While animals were found to be the most common theme for a tattoo, roses were the most common singular, specific item tattooed on Instagram in 2017. So, our next tattoo disaster really aimed for un-originality when she got tatted with a massive rose and a tribal armband. Thankfully, she came to her senses and decided to get it covered up.

Instead of covering both original pieces up, that tribal pattern has become a studded headband for a beautiful girl, and the rose has been turned into a fancy headpiece! Now that’s clever.

Got time for another awful tribal tat? After all, there’s plenty of them to go around. Okay, so the next one was a boring tribal tattoo. Thankfully, that guy enlisted the best tattoo artist he could find to turn that outdated tattoo into a cyberpunk baddie!

Even the most simplistic tattoos can end up feeling a lackluster as you get older. Just take our next tattoo, for example. For whatever reason, the owner of that understated tat decided that it was time for a re-vamp. Here’s a photo of the cover up, with a splash of color, that plain old cross has been transformed into a beautiful blossom tree!

Were you taught never to scribble out your mistakes in school, but to strike them through with one clean line instead? Our next guy clearly never paid much attention in class because he went ahead and got this cover up done instead! It did the job, because you totally can’t read whoever’s name was shamelessly plastered beneath it.

Sometimes, the idea behind a tattoo isn’t terrible, but it’s the execution that lets it down. That’s exactly how I feel about the next design. A mermaid emerging from a flower isn’t an awful concept, but the tattoo itself is questionable. But nothing could prepare you for the cover up that followed!

A book reading dinosaur complete with a pipe, a top hat and a monocle. It’s certainly an upgrade, but I can foresee an aging hipster wanting to get that covered up again in the future! The best kind of cover ups are the ones that use the shape of the original tattoo to transform it into something totally new as seamlessly as possible.

You would be impressed to see our next tattoo of some sort of Aztec symbol. It’s nothing you haven’t seen before, but the souped up skull it has been turned into is certainly unique! The original tattoo could easily have become part of the skull, but the patterned winter beanie really is an awesome touch!

Scar And Birthmark Cover Up Tattoos

Teenage regrets and past relationships aren’t the only things a little more ink can improve. Unsightly scars can be hard to cover up in day to day life, so why not enlist the help of a skilled tattoo artist to do something incredible like this following image instead! That has to be the most adorable little Darth Vader ever!

As if that wasn’t clever enough, check out this beautiful rose below, that has been perfectly planned to cover up a strawberry colored birthmark! It is estimated that more than 10 percent of all babies have some sort of birthmark. If you’re among that 10 percent and you don’t like the way your birthmark looks, why not study the shape a little closer and imagine what it could be turned into? The possibilities are endless!

Speaking of scars, our next tattoo person is a shark attack survivor who decided to get a permanent reminder of their ordeal by having a little baby sharp tattooed on their bicep, right in the middle of the space where the fearsome creature sunk its jaws! But it seems like they later decided that the tiny shark wasn’t a good enough representation of the mighty fish they grappled with, so they had this done instead! Check out below:

I hope you were amazed at these creative tattoo cover up ideas! You might also want to read about dangerous tattoos that you should avoid at all costs. Thanks for reading!