33 Exciting Knee Tattoos for Men in 2024
The knee is a challenging spot to get tattooed, yet it offers excellent opportunities for killer body art. The top of the knee has some of the body’s thickest skin (and little flesh), so the ink has to be packed deeper and more intensely to make it hold. If you can deal with the pain, there are fantastic knee tattoos for men in many breathtaking styles!
But before you go and get your knee tattoo, let us help guide you in choosing the perfect piece of ink. Below we’ll show you the most daring, interesting, and exciting knee tattoos in 2024. You’ll surely be inspired with the perfect idea of which tattoo style to get, as well as the size, and exact placement on your body.
With that said, let’s begin.
The Best Knee Tattoos for Men - Circle of Arms Tattoo Around Man’s Knee
I’ve never seen a circle of arms tattoo before! I love the concept and application surrounding the kneecap with line art limbs in various positions. I also like how left and right arms are in there, some flopping loose and arms clasping other arms.
IG: tattooer_intat
Neo-Traditional Animal Knee Tattoo
This neo-traditional knee tattoo is epic. It looks out of whack in the picture because of the significant swelling in tattoos on the kneecap (it calms down). The design mixes excellent flat colors with thick black ink in repeating patterns to contrast the animal inspiration. The final animal resembles a combination of goat, fish, and monkey – it has gills, horns, sharp teeth, a broad nose, and a wooly coat.
Blackwork Ornamental Gothic Knee Tattoo
This knee tattoo is etched with a specialist style developed by the artist known as ornamental gothic. It features heavy black ink line art resembling spikes of barbed wire arranged into patterns. This design flows outward from the client’s kneecap in splendid spiky waves.
IG: cala.biafra
Neo-Traditional ‘Rose Glitch’ Tattoo on Man’s Knee
The artist describes This exciting piece as a rose glitch. The glitch uses thick lines in black, aqua, and pink colors to create an in-triplicate version of the central, busted-up original rose outline. This design makes an enjoyable abstract contemporary tattoo.
Black and Gray Realistic Dragon Tattoo
This ominous dragon knee tattoo features numerous characteristics that are so real that they are unsettling. The creature’s eyes and mouth possess a ‘sticky/wet’ look that is fascinating (and gross). The bubbly, pebble-like scales and sharp, slavering teeth are other unique effects contributing to this masterful dark fantasy creature.
IG: yair_mtz
Brightly Colored Mandala Men’s Knee Tattoo
I love this complex, brightly colored mandala tattoo on the client’s left knee. The design is ‘normal’ enough. Where the piece stands out is in the riotous mix of colors. It uses warm colors for the main parts of the design but utilizes excellent purple, blue, and clever touches of white ink to create borders at regular intervals. I also like that black ink is used sparingly in linework and shading – primarily along the tattoo’s edge.
IG: kiwa_jip
Bold Black Traditional Tiger Knee Tattoo
This is a fantastic bold tiger tattoo. It mixes elements of traditional tiger ink with newer, more contemporary components, such as the shape of the beast’s mouth and eyebrows. Given the out-of-place spiderweb bordering the central image, I’m guessing this tiger is a cover-up of a previous kneecap piece.
Neo-Traditional Pug Tattoo on Man’s Knee
This is a brilliant neo-traditional knee tattoo of a pug that combines old-school fundamentals with contemporary ideas. The thick line work flows smoothly in black ink, providing an exceptional frame to pack in contrasting shades of gray, orange, and brown ink. The dog’s red tongue and the touch of blue around its mouth add a bright highlight designed to draw the eye.
IG: yubtattoo
Men’s Smoke Tattoo Around Knee
This grayscale knee tattoo encircles the client’s kneecap with a pattern of smoke. I like the simplicity of the design – the artist uses curved lines to form a series of dark rings, then shades lightly to create the illusion of a smoke ring while avoiding the painful kneecap area.
IG: busraposhor
American Traditional Animal Knee Tattoos for Men
These animal faces – a bat and a tiger – are nearly flawless depictions of traditional tattooing. The kneecaps are difficult to pack in ink, so creating vibrant, vivid colors matched by clean linework takes technical skill and attention to detail. I like how they’re placed on his knees – when he bends his legs, it will look like their mouths are opening.
IG: morstattoo
Stipple-Shaded Mandala Knee Tattoo
This crisp mandala knee tattoo utilizes excellent artistic and technical skills. To create geometric floral patterns, the design offsets crisp, thick black lines against heavily stipple-shaded gray ink and negative space internal borders.
American Traditional Mandala Knee Tattoo
I like this mandala knee tattoo’s unique style. The Old School design has a central ‘button,’ then radiates outward with metallic and floral geometric patterns. I like the use of black ink-packed circles to contrast the more colorful parts of the tattoo.
Thorn Tattoo Design on Man’s Knee
This knee tattoo design features a ring of intertwined vines studded with sharp thorns. The clean, heavily detailed linework provides excellent depth and gives you the impression of razor sharpness. The jagged thorns look like they would draw blood instantly if you touched them.
IG: doill_blk
Sketch-Style Men’s Devil Tattoo
This is an intense sketch-style devil tattoo. The design offers fantastic whip-shading techniques around clever line art, giving the beast’s features a disturbing hand-drawn effect that stands out from other designs. I love the way the artist creates unique horns by having them under the devil’s skin.
IG: tessa.von
Neo-Traditional Yin Yang Tattoo on Kneecap
Another brightly colored neo-contemporary knee tattoo set around a black ink and negative space yin yang. The vivid flame colors set this tattoo apart, and I love the firewall border around the yin and yang and the collection of hearts caught up in the web. My only quibble: where is the spider?
IG: giuseppe.messina
AI-Created Artistic Knee Tattoo
This blaster knee tattoo is unique because the tattooer created it using AI from their art samples. This is a design method set to increase as AI becomes more popular. The result is an exciting mix of blackwork circles and intersecting lines backed by grayscale scribbles.
IG: delicatesquash
Black Pattern Men’s Knee Tattoo
I love this quirky knee tattoo built around pockets of negative space that help the black ink pattern stand out. The cell-style application is open on the outside edges, implying that the jelly bean shapes can continue forever.
Heavy Black Pentagram Knee Tattoo
Most pentagram tattoos tend toward simplicity – I like the technical extras that give this knee tattoo more depth. The thick black ink adds filigree flourishes, trailing lines, and splashes to the downward-pointing star, while I also like the subtle use of wispy white ink highlights over the top of the darkness.
IG: longtermblvck
Freehand Script Tattoo on Man’s Knee
I like the uniqueness of this blackwork script tattoo, which was inked freehand by the artist. While not easy to decipher, the black ink graffiti lettering is applied well around the circumference of the kneecap. I like the trailing line effects and using dots as added filler.
IG: lm.lettersbcn
Men’s Realistic Knee Tattoo
This realistic tattoo design works over the kneecap’s top, connecting the upper and lower leg. The creature’s scales are inked to look like polished metal. White ink creates clean patterns in the scales, with burnished negative space plates on the underneath side.
IG: koonoblk
Blackwork Twin Tile Knee Tattoos
An enjoyable pair of matching kneecap mandala tattoos. The artist uses excellent fill-shading to create depth and flow in the flower designs, and I like how they edged each part with negative space contrast. The central ‘button’ is a good application shape for the kneecap.
IG: blk_chung
Wind and Clouds Men’s Knee Tattoo
This roughly circular knee tattoo melds two elements popular with Japanese-style tattooing. The black ink represents wind, and the gray ink describes clouds. Integrating the concepts this way makes an excellent design idea that flows over the client’s knee.
IG: __1.0__
Neo-Traditional Peony Knee Tattoo
I love this neo-traditional peony tattoo, especially the relationship between bright yellow and aqua ink. Yellow ink dominates; it’s packed in and vibrant on the client’s knee, matching up well with the olive leaves and black line art. Surprisingly, the aqua hue is a complementary color used sparingly in the stamen and within the silvery highlights.
IG: dohi_tattoo
Thick Line Black Ink Knee Tattoo
This thick-line floral knee tattoo is etched with crisply applied heavy black ink. I like how many lines and patterns are created without crowding the image. It’s also set up well for the client should they wish to add color to the design later and give it more intensity.
American Traditional Rose Tattoo Above the Knee
This American traditional rose inked above the knee could have come straight out of Sailor Jerry’s studio in the 1970s! The design works in classic American Traditional style: a limited color palette of red, green, yellow, and black ink, primarily flat application, and shading only where necessary. I also like how this kneecap design is part of a collection of pieces in the same style.
IG: badmanazzz
Freehand Spider Web Knee Cap Tattoo
This freehand spider web script tattoo uses the novel Charlotte’s Web for inspiration. I like the deliberately rough-hewn etching of each letter and the web’s line art, and it matches the book while adding another personality-driven idea to the client’s group of leg tattoos.
IG: georgia.porkchop
Traditional Black and Gray Leaf Tattoo
This is an excellent black and gray sketch-style knee tattoo of an olive branch. I like how the design curves up the inner part of the client’s leg, avoiding the painful kneecap area. The design combines gradient shading interspersed with pockets of negative space to add depth and detail to the branch’s characteristics.
IG: dewclaw_tattoo
Neo-Traditional Rose and Dagger Knee Tattoo for Men
This excellent neo-traditional knee tattoo pairs a rose and dagger. The rose means love and positivity, and the dagger represents betrayal, cunning, and deception. When paired together in a tattoo such as this, the whole meaning is duality – a popular concept for tattoo lovers.
IG: levente.tarr
Angry Frog Tattoo on Man’s Knee
I love this angry frog tattoo design, which is made to create the animal’s signature puffed-out chest when the client’s knee is bent. I like how most of the tattoo rings the kneecap, which allows the contrast between black and yellow to stand out.
American Traditional Floral Knee Tattoo
I like this mandala knee tattoo’s unique style. The American Traditional design has a central spiral, then radiates outward with floral, geometric patterns. I like the use of black ink contrasting the more colorful parts of the tattoo to add detail.
IG: shannontattooer
Black and Gray Eye Tattoos for Men
These eye tattoos are vastly different despite being classic black and gray techniques. I like each tattoo’s individuality, yet you can quickly tell they are a pair. Both pieces utilize suitable sketch-style applications. However, I prefer the right knee tattoo for the tearful eye and the attractive secondary border.
Psychedelic Tiger Knee Tattoo
This is a wild combination of bold black tiger and psychedelic tattoo concepts. The tiger’s jaws are split in two, with the intervening section of skin filled with long black ropes of black ink. The line art and shading in the big cat’s features are exceptional.
IG: domwileyart
