Why TatSeek

Most tattoo sites are a photo wall with a search box on top. TatSeek is built the other way round: first a precise description of every tattoo — 3,700+ real photos, about 5 tags each, credited to 270+ artists in 45+ studios — and then search, guidance and an open API on top of that description. Here is what that gives you.

🔎 TatSeek Smart Search

Type the tattoo the way you would describe it to a friend: “black and grey lion on the forearm in Seattle”. Smart Search does not look for those words in photo titles. It recognises each word as a tag from the TatSeek Ontology — a style, a subject, a placement, a colour, a size, a city, an artist or a studio — and returns the work that carries all of them.

How it works

• Words become tags. “wolves” and “wolf” land on the same subject, “b&g” and “black and grey” on the same colour, “Portland” on a city.
• Typos are fixed — carefully. “realizm” becomes realism and the page says so. A rare real word (“totoro”) is never “corrected” into something else.
• An honest closest match. If no photo has everything you asked for, the least important tag is dropped and the page tells you which one — it never silently shows something else.
• The main element counts more. A rose that fills the piece ranks above a rose tucked into a corner, because the Ontology knows how much of each tattoo every element takes.
• Every result says why. “18 matching tattoos · Rose as the main element in 4” — the reason is on the card, never a payment.

One search box, a different job on each page

Where	What it does
Homepage	Works out what you mean and sends you to the right place: a name opens the profile, “studios with walk-ins” opens studios, “does a rib tattoo hurt” opens the guide section that answers it, everything else opens matching tattoos.
Tattoos	Photos that carry every tag you typed, best match first, with filters to narrow by the axes you have not used yet.
Artists	Artists ranked by how much of their own tagged work matches — with the count, the main-element matches and a price for a medium piece.
Studios	The same, plus studio features: walk-ins, wheelchair access, LGBTQ+ friendly, accepting new clients.
Guides	Questions in your own words; each result links straight to the section that answers it.

Try it: fine line rose thigh · japanese dragon sleeve · realism portrait cape town. The full rules are in the methodology.

🧬 TatSeek Ontology

This is the part you don’t see, and the one everything else stands on. An ontology is an agreed way of describing things: which words exist, what each means, and how they relate. TatSeek describes tattoos with its own — and fills it in by hand-checked scans of real work, photo by photo.

What it records about one tattoo

• Six closed axes. Style, subject, placement, technique, colour and mood (cute, dark, fierce…), plus size in centimetres measured from the body in the photo, with a confidence level. Only codes from the published vocabulary — no free-typed tags, so “Fine Line”, “fineline” and “fine-line” can’t become three things.
• Composition. Each scanned photo is split into the elements it shows — say, a wolf (about 60%), a moon (25%) and pine trees (15%) — each with a confidence level. That is how search knows a wolf is the subject and not a detail.
• Characters and real works. Totoro, Darth Vader, Escher’s Relativity, Albert Einstein — recorded as named entities with the work they come from and, where it exists, a Wikidata link.
• Healed or fresh — only with evidence. A photo is marked healed or fresh only when the source says so or at least two visual signs agree. Otherwise it stays “unknown” instead of guessed.
• Cover-ups. A before/after of the same area, checked by eye — not every photo that shows an older tattoo nearby.
• Where every fact came from. Prices say whether the studio published them or TatSeek estimated them, and when. Ratings, hours and booking rules carry their source.

Why it keeps getting better

Every new studio adds real, credited work described the same way. Every review corrects a tag, and the correction is kept. New codes are added when people search for them or when the same motif keeps appearing — the vocabulary grows from demand, not from a wish list. Codes are language-independent, so the same data will power the Spanish, Portuguese and German versions.

The vocabulary is public: for people and for machines. How tags and shares are decided: methodology.

🤖 TatSeek API for AI agents

More and more people ask an AI assistant instead of scrolling a directory. When they ask “who does fine line roses in Portland, and what does it cost?”, the assistant needs real, attributed, structured data — or it guesses. TatSeek gives it that data in the open.

• The same Smart Search, as an API. Search, tattoos, artists, studios, guides, vocabulary and stats — read-only, no key, no sign-up.
• Two formats. JSON for programs, and the same answers as a plain readable web page for assistants whose browsing tools can’t open JSON.
• Answers that say what they are. Every response states whether the match is exact, closest (and what was dropped) or none — so an assistant doesn’t present a near miss as a match. Prices say who published them; healed status is true, false or unknown, never a silent “no”.
• The Ontology included. Each tattoo comes with its tags, its composition (elements, shares, confidence), named entities and the credit line — the description, not just a picture.
• Easy to find. llms.txt, an OpenAPI description, /.well-known/api-catalog, and complete maps of every studio, artist and guide on one page each.

For AI agents: endpoints, examples, how to cite →

See one answer: as a web page · as JSON.

🧭 TatSeek Journey

Getting a tattoo is a string of small decisions, and each one has its own worry: will it suit me, will it hurt, can I afford it, what do I write to the artist, is this redness normal. TatSeek Journey splits the way from first idea to a healed tattoo into nine steps and keeps you on the next one. 45 guides are placed on it — and it doesn’t stop at the booking button.

1. Idea What do I want?
2. Style What is it called, and does it suit me?
3. Placement & size Where, how big, how painful, how will it age?
4. Can I? Is it safe for me?
5. Choose an artist Who can really do this?
6. Booking What happens after I message them?
7. The session What happens on the day?
8. Healing Is this normal? When can I…?
9. Years later Touch-ups, cover-ups, regrets

What it does at each step

• Every guide knows where it sits. “Step 3 of 9” and a “Next step” card — not a list of random related articles.
• From reading to doing. Under each guide: the artists who actually do that style, the studios that publish their booking rules, or the tool for that moment.
• Tools for the hard moments. Pain map · price calculator · “What to include in your first message” with a copyable template · “Before you book” with the studio’s own deposit and rescheduling rules · is my tattoo healing normally?
• After the booking button. The session, tipping, aftercare day by day, when you can swim or work out, and years later: touch-ups, cover-ups, fading and removal.
• Medical facts with names on them. Health answers quote named dermatologists word for word, with sources — and say plainly that they are not medical advice.

Start the journey →

🧰 Also built in

None of these is unique on its own. Together, and done honestly, they are rare.

A typical tattoo directory — and TatSeek

	Typical directory	TatSeek
Search	Keywords in titles or free hashtags	Every word mapped to a closed vocabulary; honest closest match
A photo is described by	A few tags of equal weight	Elements with shares and confidence, characters, healed/fresh, cover-up
Order of results	Often paid or by popularity	By matching work, with the reason shown; never paid
Prices and hours	Free text, if any	Structured, with source and date
After you pick an artist	A contact button	First-message template, booking rules, session and healing help
AI assistants	Scrape pages and guess	Open API and readable answers with status and provenance

A general picture, not a claim about any particular site.

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