Absolutely Awesome Cat Tattoos and the Stories Behind Them

Some people love their cats so much they want them on their skin for good, and judging by the posts in Reddit’s tattoo communities, a lot of people have decided that’s a great way to show their cats some love.

I went through dozens of tattoo posts in tattoo and cat communities on Reddit and rounded up 20 of my favorites. Some are hilarious, some are sweet, and some are tributes to cats who have died, and many of the posts included a photo of the actual cat who inspired the tattoo, which I’ve included when they shared one. Some people got more creative than a portrait, too, like the person who got their cat’s favorite toy, the people who got the stripes on top of their cat’s head, and the person who got their cat chomping on a finger. Every photo is credited to the person who posted it on Reddit, and I noted the tattoo artist and shop whenever they named them, so you can go look at more of their work if you’re thinking about getting something similar.

I have exactly one tattoo myself, and I don’t think I’ll get another, but if I were ever up for it, I’d definitely consider some sort of homage to Thelma and Louis, either with their letters or little hand-drawn outlines of their faces.

Not every cat tattoo is a portrait

The most popular post I found, with more than 30,000 upvotes, is a cartoon version of a cat’s favorite toy, a little orange fish. I love that in the first photo you can see the fuzzy, chewed-up toy right next to the new tattoo. When people asked if it was a new toy, the owner answered, “nope, same one since he got adopted about 2 years ago.” They explained that the fish was attached to a bigger toy they got him when they adopted him, and he ripped it off, so they don’t even know where they’d get another one. The second photo is the tabby himself, lying on the bed with his fish.

Somebody else got the stripes from the top of their cat’s head tattooed on their arm, and the second photo is the top of the cat’s head so you can see how well they match. “Whenever I told friends I was getting a tattoo of my cat’s forehead they thought I was getting her face tattooed on my forehead,” they wrote. They’d seen someone else with a similar tattoo and decided to get one too, and they said each one will be different because every cat’s markings are different.

Another person went bigger with the same idea and got the markings on their cat’s head tattooed across the back of their neck and shoulders. “most tend to get a paw print tattoo or something similar to remember their beloved pets, I took it a bit further heh,” they wrote in the post. “Before anyone asks, he is still with us, its just that he isn’t getting any younger, and I wanted to do this when he is still in my life.” The photo shows just the line work, and they said it would be filled in with solid black at a later appointment.

And one is a whole scene, with an open door, a light switch, a plant in a pot and a tiny black cat stepping through the doorway, all done in fine black lines on a thigh. It’s inspired by a moment the person who got it saw a lot growing up, in their childhood and teenage years. “I came to the artist with a very rough sketch, basically a rectangle and a stick figure cat, just to convey the idea,” they said. They kept it simple on purpose so it stays open to interpretation.

The funny ones

This cat loaf diagram is genius. A cat tucking their paws and tail underneath their body and sitting there like a loaf of bread is one of the funniest things cats do, and this forearm tattoo breaks it down into three steps. It’s labeled fig. 1, fig. 2 and fig. 3: the first is a gray tabby cat sitting in a loaf, fig. 2 is the same cat’s face on a loaf of bread, and fig. 3 is just a loaf of bread with a slice missing. Clearly I’m not the only one who thought it was hilarious, because the post got more than 10,000 upvotes.

Then there’s Max, a black and white cat with big yellow eyes, chomping on somebody’s finger, which is pretty darn funny. The tattooed Max looks just like the real Max, who’s curled up on a bed in the second photo. The artist had posted that he had a free day, so Max’s owner decided on an impulse tattoo. “I just showed him Maxie and he came up with this idea!” they wrote, and later, “Decided on an impulse tattoo, accidentally found a genius!”

“My cat killing an astronaut” is how the next one was titled. In black and gray, the tattoo shows a cat floating in space with a pair of scissors, cutting an astronaut’s air hose. As for why, the person who got it explained, “I just wanted to have my cat in there and I like space / astronauts and tried to have fun with it.” And when commenters picked at the details, they replied, “in the end it’s a cat in space with scissors. Doesn’t matter if it makes sense, it’s there to spread a little fun.”

A gray tabby cat climbing up a tall rock, inside a little rectangle, got the same kind of comments. When people said that cats don’t climb like that, the answer was, “yeah I know cats don’t climb like this, they usually have some quickdraws on them and a cat belayer on the ground.” (For those who don’t climb, quickdraws are the clips climbers use, and the belayer is the person on the ground holding the rope.) The second photo is the drawing they took to the artist. They said it looked more like a panther or some other big cat, so they told the artist they wanted their own cat in there instead.

One black cat’s owner first had a royal portrait made of him, the kind where your cat is painted as a king in fancy clothes, and then decided it would make a good tattoo. In the tattoo he’s standing on two legs in a long red and orange cape, with a sword and a medal. They asked the artist to use the movie The Cat Returns as inspiration for the rest, including the way he stands.

And Rusty and Snuggles are riding a tandem bike, in black and gray on their owner’s lower leg. Rusty is “the orange and very active one,” and Snuggles, “the chubby lazy boy,” rides along in the back.

The portraits

London, a black cat, is inside a very ornate gold frame on his owner’s thigh. They picked this artist specifically because black cats are hard to tattoo well, saying, “He’s the only one I know of who can tattoo blacks with such depth – black cat needs an artist who can do that.” They also pointed out how accurate it is: “London even has a little line through his eye in the photo and ITS THERE. He has some little white hairs since he’s getting older – also there.”

Bones was “Born without a tail and rescued from a barn as the runt,” according to his owner, who posted a photo of him after people asked to see him. In the tattoo, the black and white cat is sitting back on his bottom with his back legs stretched out in front of him, the way you’d plop down on a couch. It’s a little smaller than the owner’s palm, and it’s on their thigh.

On the small end, this portrait of a calico and an orange tabby sitting side by side is only about 2 inches tall, and they’re both wearing collars with little bells. The tattoo shop posted it with the cats’ photo in the corner for comparison, and it’s amazingly accurate, right down to the calico’s patches and the bells.

Two cats floating in space in bright rainbow colors, with planets, stars and clouds around them, came with photos of the real cats and this description of the pair: “the boy is a huge troublemaker and the girl is a diva.” My favorite part of the post is what their owner said when someone asked how the cats reacted to the new tattoo: “My short-haired boy looked at it briefly then went back to grooming himself. Not sure if that means much from him but I’ll take what I can get.”

Memorial cat tattoos

Instead of their cat’s face, one person got the pattern of stripes from the top of their cat’s head and back, done in solid black on their side as a memorial. The first photo in the post is the cat from above, so you can see where the pattern came from. I think it’s such a cool way to remember a cat. They said they got the idea from TikTok, and the artist drew the design on an iPad.

A black and white cat with peonies all through the design wraps around another person’s forearm just enough that they said, “If I cradle my arms it’s kinda like I’m holding her, I love it.” They thought about adding color at one point but they’re glad they kept it black and white, and they said of their cat, “she was the sweetest.”

The last memorial is a cat sitting under a tall red spider lily, and the person who got it explained the flower: “Spider lilies described in the Buddhist lotus sutra as ominous flowers that grow in the afterlife and guide the dead into the next reincarnation. I hope I meet my little one again.”

They also said they’d love to have real spider lilies, but they’re toxic to both cats and dogs. The bulbs of red spider lilies contain a toxic alkaloid called lycorine, according to NC State Extension. And true lilies, like Easter lilies, are so toxic to cats that licking pollen off their faces or drinking water from a vase that held lilies can be deadly, according to the ASPCA.

Matching cat tattoos

Two people got the same sketchy, watercolor-style cat face with streaks of purple, teal and green on their forearms, and they held their arms side by side for the photo so the cats line up. When commenters assumed they were a couple, the person who posted it replied, “We’re not a couple :)”

I love the matching tattoos on the insides of this person’s wrists, because when they put their wrists together, the cats face each other. “The one on the left is my cat Misty, and the colours represent my love for painting… The cat on the right is my black cat Simon, and the design represents my love for astronomy,” they explained. Misty is in rainbow colors, and Simon is purple and blue with stars. When a commenter noticed the M on Misty’s forehead, they said, “my cat Misty has an M on her head. So yes she is basically speed racer.”

The third is a fine line Siamese cat, which the person got to match their mom’s tattoo. They found a base image on Instagram and let the artist add her own touch, and the cat’s long tail curls up into a delicate branch with pink blossoms. They also said, “I suffer with restless leg syndrome so the fact she was able to do it at all is a miracle.”