What is a Biomechanical tattoo?
- Gifford Kasen
- 3 days ago
- 6 min read
I often get asked to describe the style of tattooing that I do. For most of my career I’ve fell into the label of Biomechanical, or Biomech tattooing for short. While I think this generally sums up a lot of what I do, I also feel that the terminology can limit peoples understanding of the style I try to push.
So to try to explain what I do a little better, let’s start with the questions “What is Biomechanical? or biomech for short. In short, it’s a genre of scifi art first popularized by the artist H.R.Giger and his concept art for the Alien movies. It generally melds mechanical and organic elements together, like bones and cables or tubes to create dystopian landscapes or monsters. At least that’s where it started. From there other artists have taken their turns with it, adding in more elements and themes, branching it out from it’s dark monster movie roots into more abstract shapes and images.
Where did biomech tattooing come from?
The genre spent much of the 70’s and 80’s being hashed over by concept artists for various scifi films, or illustrations filling the pages of Heavy Metal magazine and other comic books. By the late 80’s and early 90’s it started creeping it’s way into tattoo culture along side the tattoo renaissance that was happening throughout the western world. Tattoo artists such as Eddie Deutsche, Aaron Cain and Guy Aitchison were taking the imagery of H.r.Giger and his alien design and putting their own variations on the themes. The shapes and design of the work started changing from everything having tubes and vertebrates tearing out of the skin, to more nuanced design that focused more on highlighting the anatomy of the person wearing the tattoo. Guy Aitchison in particular started pushing the genre into a more organic style, creating his own substyle known as Organica.
The genre of Biomech started to become less about subject matter, and more about composition and creating a sense of movement and depth throughout the tattoo. As our modern day technology evolved past the robocop visions of what a future technoscape might look like, biomechanical started to take a more abstract look at what our relationship with technology as organic beings could be.
Modern biomechanical tattoo design is now a wide open field of subject matter, from the classic tubes and mechanical elements tearing out of the skin, to futuristic organic landscapes growing on an distant planet.
SO is Biomech a specific tattoo style and look?
When I show people my work and tell them it’s biomech, I commonly corrected, being told no, it’s more organica, or fantasy, or abstract (reddit tattoo community, I am looking at you!). My response, is yes, it’s often all those things, but the root style and look is biomechanical, in the sense that it looks at least vaguely sci-fi and is designed as an extension of the body. Past that it's somewhat subjective.
My tastes lean towards imagining a future where tech meets body in a organic symbiosis, where the parts themselves look more alien, and less mechanical.
Or perhaps there would be forms created out of extreme genetic engineering, serving some unknown purpose to a hive mind we couldn’t possibly understand individually. The human itself becomes a piece of the larger tech….
And so on and so forth. My personal fascination with the style and themes of biomechanical is because of inability to pin it down. It is an ever evolving style, which can be as strict or abstract as the artist wants. There are design and flow structures that should be studied and referenced in order to make the design a strong tattoo, but the shapes and imagery themselves are wide open for interpretation. Which is what makes it such a dynamic and individual genre in tattooing.
Are Biomechanical tattoos the same as abstract tattoos?
Nowadays when I get approached by my clients, unless they specifically use the term Biomech, I usually refer to my particular style as abstract tattooing, or blackwork, or sci fi illustration based work. It’s a bit easier than breaking down the specifics of what I personally consider to be biomechanical. Specifics like how abstract an idea is, or elements the the client wants like armor, bones, skulls, glowing power sources, or just cool looking rock formations can all be considered biomechanical depending on how it’s put together and how loose you want to be with the terminology. Strangely, my tattoo clients in Milwaukee tend to have slightly different interpretations of biomechanical then my tattoo clients in Chicago. So I’d say a lot of it has to do with what you’re exposed to.
What is the best way to talk to an artist about a biomech tattoo?
Having the right nomenclature to describe a style you want can be helpful, especially when trying to translate that idea to the artist designing it. That’s why there’s so much sub-termenology in the genre. I usually ask potential clients to put together a mood board of sorts that includes examples of tattoos I’ve done that they like, and to point out the elements of the pieces that stand out to them. Then I ask them to include other subject matter that might be inspirational to the design, like say some mechanical elements, or skulls, ect. If they have the language to describe some of the feel or elements they want that helps a lot as well. A brief glossary of some common terms that people ask for might be
Mech - mechanical elements, often time have more metallic textures like chrome or rust
Organica - refers to organic elements like rock formations, seed pods, trees and roots and general nature textures.
Cyber- android esque elements, sleek futuristic robot stuff
Tear outs or skin tears - where it looks like the skin is being ripped away to expose something underneath. In biomech its typically tearing out to expose some sort of robot or machine parts.
Armor - usually futuristic looking armor, plates that fit together and tend to look like some functional robot parts.
Steam-punk - a mix of old and new parts, lots of gears and pistons and straps, like a robot that was made in the 1800’s
Tribal - like the big black designs that were popular in the 90’s, the shapes and flow of tribal designs are often incorporated into biomech in a more complicated manner
Light sources - glowing elements that cast dynamic lighting on the piece, can often be coming from inside the piece so it looks like a power source.
Exo Skeleton - organic armor platting, like a bug or crustacean might have.
Bones - vertebrate and ribs are commonly used to show repeating patterns crawling throughout the piece. Skulls are also pretty common
These are just a handful of elements and terminology that can be used as a jumping off point to help you and your artist brainstorm your piece.
Who gets biomechanical tattoos?
If you’re considering a larger, more committed tattoo, biomech is a style that gives you something truly one‑of‑a‑kind. It isn’t about sticking a premade image on your skin or following the current tattoo trend.—it’s about building a custom, living design that moves with your body and feels like it grew there on purpose. A biomechanical tattoo lets us play in that space between art and imagination: part anatomy, part dream, part alien tech or organic growth. It can be subtle and flowing or loud and otherworldly, but either way it’s tailored specifically to your shape, your movement, and your tolerance for weirdness.. It also happens to be a powerful option for covering or transforming old work, because we can use layers of forms, textures, and even heavier abstract blackwork to break up and bury what’s underneath without the end result looking like a “cover‑up piece.” If you’re drawn to the idea of wearing artwork that can’t really be summed up in a single symbol or trend, and you like the idea of collaborating on something that evolves as we build it, then biomech is probably exactly the right rabbit hole for you to go down.
About Gifford
Gifford has been tattooing and focusing on developing his signature biomechanical tattoo style for over two decades. Currently he splits his time between Chicago, il at Logan Square Tattoo and Milwaukee, Wi at Sanctuary Tattoo Gallery. For booking info please go to his page on our website here.
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