For anyone who decides to tattoo their entire arm, there comes a time when you have to consider the elbow. Sometimes people do an upper arm piece and then a lower arm piece, and then pick a design for in between. Some design the entire arm from shoulder to wrist. Either way the elbow is an interesting area.
The shape and movement of the elbow offers interesting novel effects when it comes to what design you put there. It's a bony area with lots of nerves and tendons and not a lot of body fat, so it can be a very sensitive area for some people to get tattooed. When the arm is extended the elbow is a flat cylinder, but when the arm is bent the area is triangular and pointy. This can make for some very interesting design possibilities.
Very often the design applied to the elbow takes advantage of the pointed triangular shaped to the arm when bent, utilizing design that are circular or which move from narrow to wide. Spiderwebs, with both a circular shape and long extension lines, have been a popular option on the elbow since the mid-20th century. In Japanese tattooing, you often see a labyrinth shapes on the elbow: flowering peonies capping the arm, active coils of dragons moving along limbs, or even as the spirals and swirls of background shading.In contemporary tattooing stars have been a popular option from the elbow. The design can either be centered over the elbow, with the elbow being in the center of the body of the star, or one point of the star can extend out to the end of the elbow with the main star being rendered on either the upper or lower arm. With tribal designs it's very easy to have a swirl or curl extend around the elbow. And for those that like novelty effects, designs can be laid along the arm that play to the bend in the arm, with moving features like hinges or by mechanical designs lining up with the arm movement.
