A more seasoned pro will be along shortly I’m sure, but here’s my take:
I believe with most tattoo artists they mix the colors from a selection of “base” colors, a quick googling shows me that some online stores carry selections of more than 50 different shades(no affiliation with the link). Because they’re pigment they can be mixed so you can get any color that can be made by adding colors together. It would also mean that color matching at a later time would be problematic but not strictly impossible.
Your idea of a dual color tattoo that would show up at different times is interesting but I don’t think it wouldn’t really turn out they way you envision it. I think the artist would have a very difficult time of matching your skin tone exactly and even if they did get your untanned shade right unless you have a very specific shade of tanned you do every year it would at very best be an approximation. It might look invisible but the amount of variables lend me to think that it would be most likely very faint and the difference between the two shades would end up looking like artist error.
All tattoo ink will fade when exposed to sunlight, so any tattoo that you have that’s exposed will eventually change color, usually to a lighter more blurry color.
Many tattoos will be enclosed by lines of black, I’ve heard this helps to delay the colors “bleeding” out. Your body is constantly trying to rid itself of the tattoo ink and the black pigment is a larger, harder to remove, particle. Not sure if this is accepted fact, just what I’ve heard. That is not to say that you can’t get a tattoo without the black lines, I think properly done many border-less tattoos look classy.
If you get a good artist and explain to them EXACTLY what you want. You could have a nice tattoo. Remember it’s going to be there forever, communication with your artist is absolutely critical.
A neat a idea, but I’m not entirely sure it would work. For one thing, if your skin reacts oddly or if the tattoo doesn’t heal entirely correctly, you’re going to end up with a big thing that looks like a puffy scar (since it will be flesh colored).
Well, my original idea was to be tattooed in my base skin colour (and on my back) which is a pretty predictable shade. This way, the tattoo would only show on beach season when I tan (I get a much darker shade). This kinda helped me prevent me and my family getting tired of my tattoo as I would only have it part of the year.
Someone else later suggested the idea of having the second tanned colour. This ellicited all kinds of jokes about the Barbie dolls that change colours when wet and all that. Still I figured it was at least worthy of consideration although I also had that concern about the colour of my tanned skin being less predictable.
I live in Puerto Rico where we have a fairly long beach season (could be year long if you wanted). After a haphazard start, my colour eventually settles in a fairly constant shade with just a minor shift towards red when I overdo it.
I have seen tattoos fade with time and get blurry but that is the ink being dispersed, right? if it the same colour of the skin, that shouldn’t be too much of an issue (and I am not going for a particularly intricate design, anyways)
Will it be too much of a pain for the artist to tattoo in an “invisible” colour? Would I have to go tanned to the session so he can see what he is doing? (after a previous colour matching session untanned)
You could try something like a friend of mine did. She has a fairy tattoed on her back (traditional type fae, not the disneyfied version) but it’s all in outline and the main body is her own skin. It runs about 8 inches or so down her spine and the effect is quite cool.
I’m not that familiar with tatooing, but one of the fading techniques is to do a water wash that lets the skin show through. Thinned ink might help the tatoo color match your base skin color since at least some of the color is your natural pigmentation.
That said, I suspect that it will look like an old burn scar when you get older. Compare your skin with your mother or father’s skin, and remember that the ink will also fade but at a different rate.
There are people who specialize in cosmetic tattoos who use specially formulated colors that are designed to match one’s skin color in order to obscure scars and such. (Some of these same people can also tattoo your lips read so you never have to apply lipstick again.) Matching one’s skin color is tricky because the color of the ink looks different when held up to the skin versus when it’s under the skin. However, I don’t doubt that someone could get close enough that only someone who knew what they were looking for in a well lit room would be able to spot it.
Remember too that the ink doesn’t lay on top of your skin. It’s in your skin, so the most accurate match would be by tattooing some sample colors in an inconspicuous place, letting them heal, and then noting the effect your skin color has on the color of the ink.