The demand for color tattoos is higher than ever right now for several reasons. One of the biggest reasons is that new companies, products, colors, and needle configurations have helped color tattoos come a long way. Consistently high-quality supplies from suppliers such as King Pin and World Wide, who will only sell to fully licensed artists, have allowed artists to do so much more with their supplies and made tattoos a lot more dynamic.
Traditional style tattoos will use very very limited color palettes, typically by dividing the tattoo between 3 "colors", Skin, Black, and Color balancing out the tattoo design and letting it breathe.
Realism tattoos use a wide range of colors to create highly realistic, almost touchable, tattoos. The main reason these tattoos look so good is the wide variety of tools that are now readily available to artists worldwide. When there were very few suppliers around, artists had to hand mix pigments and hand solder needles, which made quality hard to control. Having premade inks and needles readily available makes it easier to find exactly what you are looking for instead of spending hours and hours making them yourself, for them to only turn out the wrong shade or not cool. Being able to buy a color repeatedly that will have the same consistency and tone is very helpful and time-saving, to say the least. More importantly, the ability to match any color that is referenced to a pre-made color without having to do a lot of trial and error also saves you and the artist lots of time.
Brands such as Pistol Pete's favorite, Fusion, Eternal, and Starbright all have different consistencies that make them unique and useful for different reasons. Fusion does a great job of making each color individually pop. Some artists will combine different brands to complete their color palettes, such as Starbright's canary yellow, and Fusion's blues and greens. Pistol Pete also prefers to use long tapered Bugpin needles for lots of color blending or stacking. These needles cause less trauma to the skin because of their extreme sharpness.
Another reason color tattoos are so popular is the ability to stack colors over old tattoos in several layers to complete convincing cover-ups. Concentrated colors such as greens, blues, and purples help create cover-ups without using black alone. The concentrated colors are the darkest possible form of the color and allow for an even more layered approach that is sure to get rid of most unwanted tattoos.
Color tattoos can take a lot more time than black and grey tattoos depending on the subject matter, so it is important to consult with Pistol Pete about what you want to do and exchange ideas to make the tattoo as vibrant as possible. Color tattoos are more invasive than black and grey tattoos if several color blends are involved, so it is important to use the aftercare directions that Pistol Pete provides.