Animal tattoos have always been popular to get for both males and females. One of the biggest and strongest animals is the elephant. Elephants can weigh up to 8 tonnes and are generally considered the most dominant animal. Yet at the same time elephants remain the be very graceful and even tempered. They are not aggressive unless provoked. They are also incredibly loyal when it comes to family and are considered very sacred amongst many cultures.

So why is everyone rushing off to get elephant tattoos? Well they are also beautiful looking creatures. Their calfs are incredibly cute and the adults are grand and powerful with strikingly unique features that really make us curious about these seemingly ancient beasts. We have compiled 30 of our favorite powerful elephant tattoo designs for you to look at.

99 Powerful Elephant Tattoo Designs

In many cultures it is considered good luck when the elephant has its trunk facing upwards like the above photo. Elephants are also particularly popular tattoos for people of hindu or buddhist beliefs as the elephant holds strong significance in their religions.

There isn’t a much cuter animal than that of a baby elephant when it has not quite formed its tusks yet. Here is a great example of how a normally huge and powerful looking creature can look tiny and cute when drawn right.

Elephants are also incredibly intelligent creatures and whilst it is frowned upon these days, they use to be the main attraction at the circus, often performing incredible stunts such as standing on their hind legs like you can see in the tattoo design above.

Elephants are also common place in children’s stories and cartoons making us really fond of the creatures from a young age. Often people will get nostalgic cartoon characters tattooed to remind them of their youth.

A popular tattoo nowadays is the finger tattoo. What was once considered a ‘faux pas’ as you would unlikely not get a job with a finger tattoo, is now common place amongst both young males and females a like. I guess you could say its a shot at the rules and conforming to old fashioned standards. Either way this is a great elephant design on the finger which you could easily hide with a ring if need be.

Getting tattoos in matching spots is very popular amongst friends, they don’t necessarily need to be the same design but if you get them in the same spot it will become more symbolic and each time you look at the tattoo it can remind you of each other.

This abstract elephant tattoo is actually a design by infamous surrealist painter Salvador Dali who most notably did the painting with the melted clocks. His designs are very popular amongst tattoo fans because of their unique and surreal look (not to mention that not many can afford one of his actual paintings any more).

Another example of an abstract style elephant tattoo, this time made up entirely of brush strokes. The other thing that is interesting about this design is that they have chosen what is probably considered the least interesting side of the elephant (the behind) and used that as the basis for their design, yet for some reason it just really works well.

This is more a hindu style elephant design. Traditionally elephants were painted for ceremonial purposes often with very intricate designs such as the design above.

Getting a tattoo behind the ear is particularly common place amongst females these days and was some what popularized by singer Rihanna who has tattoos in the same spot. It is also a favored choice for a lot of females because they can easily hide it behind their long hair.

This design reminds us of the popular children’s story and cartoon Dumbo which was about an elephant. Cartoon elephants can look very cute as tattoo designs and are quite popular with females.

Elephants are considered very loyal creatures, particularly because the male will stay chaste for 2 years whilst the female partner is pregnant which is unusual in the animal world. They are very loyal to their young calfs as well and will generally stick together as you can see in the above design.

This is another great example of the elephant with its trunk up to represent good luck. The elephant also looks very happy in this design and we love the use of a lot of geometric patterns and shapes to make up the elephant.

You may not see it at first glance but this incredible back tattoo design is actually made up of two elephants facing outwards that are joined together with an amazing floral style pattern. This is one of the most beautiful and unique tattoos that we have seen.

Here you can see the homage to elephants working in old circus shows with these interesting elephant knee tattoo designs. One with a female on the right kneed and one with a male on the left knee. Definitely not the kind of tattoo to get if you fall over and scrape your knees a lot, but none the less an incredible design!

Simple yet poignant little elephant design above someones ankle. We particularly love the blue flower on the ear.

It doesn’t get much more epic than this back piece of a life like elephant. It looks like a shot straight out of a David Attenborough documentary on elephants in Africa. We love the line work that makes the elephant look old, weathered and of course very noble.

If you’re a lover of both butterflies and elephants than why not merge the two together and create an incredibly unique and pretty tattoo like the design above? This design is also a great example of how you do not necessarily need color to create a realistic looking elephant design since they grey in color anyway.

It’s not often that you will see people use orange colored ink for anything other than flame tattoos but here you can see how well it works on the elephant design mixed with the green. The daisy flower coming out of the elephants trunk really tops this design off nicely.

To some people they will decide to get an old and weathered looking elephant tattooed on them because it will remind them of someone old in their lives that may have passed away recently and want to remember them with a wise old animal.

Another great example of a full back piece of a grand looking elephant. The shading and black line work on this one really make it pop out. No doubt this one would have taken several sessions and cost a bit to get but the result is well worth it!

If you’re wanting to get an elephant tattoo on your shoulder but think that it might not work with the curved shape of your shoulder here is a great example of how you can incorporate something like a wreath to work to the shape of your shoulder better.

An adult elephant leading its young. There isn’t much more of a prettier scene than this and it can also be a great tattoo to get if you have recently had a child yourself.

Clever and incredibly funny this is the kind of tattoo that is a great ice breaker when meeting people, we love how they have made their finger the trunk for the elephant.

A family of three elephants. This might be symbolic of having 3 family members, also note that the trunks are facing up at the end for good luck. Of course if you have another family member you can always add to this kind of design later on!

The wrist is one of the most popular spots for tattoos these days and here is a great yet simple design of an elephant. When working with a smaller space such as your wrist – generally simpler works best!

A family of five beautiful elephants lining the bottom of someones foot. Simple outlines of elephants like this work really well here and whats interesting about this design in particular is that it’s in reverse order from normal. Usually the adult and biggest elephant would be leading the herd of elephants but in this case it’s the smallest one, very clever.

The elephant is a very versatile tattoo design. Because it has such a unique and recognisable shape you can get it colored in completely like the above design and still recognise it easily as an elephant.

A great design incorporating flowers and the elephant on the side of someones ribs. In particular we really like how they have managed to merge the two designs in to one tattoo and that the elephants ear kind of becomes the flower, very cool indeed!

We love this modern and abstract design. We’re not sure exactly what it means, but that can often be one of the cool things about tattoo designs is that they’re symbolic to the owner of them and to everyone else they are an interesting talking point.

Another great hindu style decorated elephant tattoo, this time on someones thigh – which is a very popular spot to get tattooed because of the large canvas area and easy ability to cover it up as needed.

Another example of how versatile the elephant is as a design. You can get it side on walking and it looks great and you can also get it inked on straight on with just its face, trunk and ears and it still looks like a great design. We particularly like the vector style of this one where the tattoo remains bold and will not fade like some smaller more intricate designs.

This is one of our favorite and most beautiful elephant tattoo designs we have seen. As you can see it’s very unique and is made up entirely of flowers. What makes it even cooler is the color choice. We love the teal and love how the elephants trunk works its way up the body and the overall shape of the elephant works with the persons curves.

So there you have it, 99 of our favorite elephant tattoo designs, all unique and beautiful in their own way. If you’re thinking of getting an elephant tattoo but not sure what kind of style or design you’re after hopefully this has given you some inspiration!