Memorial Tattoos: How to Honour Someone You've Lost
Memorial tattoos are some of the most meaningful work we do — and some of the most careful. They are also some of the longest conversations. Most clients who come in for a memorial piece have been thinking about it for months, sometimes years. Our job is not to talk you into anything; it is to help you arrive at a piece you will be at peace with for the rest of your life.
Here is how we approach this work, what we ask before you put down a deposit, and what kind of pieces tend to land well.
Take your time
There is no good reason to rush a memorial tattoo. Grief moves through phases. The piece you wanted three weeks after losing someone is not always the piece you would design six months in.
If you reach out to us in the first weeks after a loss, we will gently suggest we book the consultation — but plan the actual session a few months out. There is no expiry on this kind of work, and the right time is often later than you think.
What kinds of memorial pieces work best
Portraits
Photographic portraits of a person, in black & grey realism, are the most common memorial subject. They work best when:
- The reference photo is high-resolution and well-lit.
- The face is at least 4–5 inches at final size — much smaller and the detail will not hold long-term.
- The placement is somewhere you will see often, but not somewhere it will stretch (avoid hands, knees, sides of the foot).
Pet memorials
Pet portraits work in both black & grey and colour. Colour usually carries pet personality more strongly — eye colour, fur tone — but black & grey can be equally moving with the right reference. See our note on pet portraits for the photo guidance we recommend.
Handwriting and signatures
A handwritten note, a signature, a date — all carry weight that no font can replicate. We can scan and refine handwriting from any source: a card, a recipe, a margin note in a book. The piece is small, simple, and deeply personal.
Symbolic and abstract pieces
Sometimes the most fitting memorial is not a portrait at all. A flower the person loved, a song lyric, a constellation that means something, an animal they identified with. These pieces often surprise clients — a small symbolic tattoo can carry as much weight as a full portrait, and ages more gracefully.
Composite tributes
Some clients want a piece that combines several memorial elements — multiple family members, a date, a symbol, a verse. These work, but the composition needs care so it reads as one piece, not a list. We plan composites over multiple consultation rounds.
Reference photo guidance
For human portraits, the photo matters more than almost any other factor.
What we do not do
We do not invent detail that is not in the source photo. If the eyes are out of focus in the only photo you have, we will tell you — we can render what is visible, and we can stylize the rest, but we cannot pretend to know what was there.
We do not promise that a portrait will look like a photograph of the person from any distance. A great portrait reads at three distances: across the room (composition), arm-length (likeness), and close-up (detail). We aim for all three; we do not promise photo-to-skin perfection.
Pricing and time
Memorial pieces are priced at our standard hourly rate of $180–$250 per hour, HST included. Smaller memorial work (signatures, dates, small symbols) often fits in one 1–2 hour session and is billed at the studio minimum of $135 if it is very small.
Full human portraits in black & grey realism are typically a single 4–6 hour session for a forearm or shoulder placement. Larger composite pieces are split across sessions like any large work.
Bring this to the consultation
- The reference photo (printed and on your phone if possible).
- A few sentences about the person or pet — not for sales, but to help your artist understand what you want the piece to feel like.
- An idea of where on the body. We can suggest alternatives at consultation.
- Your timeline — if there is no rush, say so. We will plan the right pace, not the fastest one.