Robot tattooist (Image: Piotr Widelka, Johan da Silveira, Pierre Emm)

WOULD you dare to let a 3D printer ink your next tattoo?

During a recent electronics workshop at the ENSCI-Les Ateliers design school in Paris, a group of students decided to swap a MakerBot’s extruder for a pen.

Within a few hours, they had modified the printer to draw simple, short-term doodles on skin. Not satisfied with temporary tattoos, the students added parts from a standard tattoo machine. The result: a printer that can give you permanent tats.


After the invention was tested on simulated skin, volunteers lined up for the honour of being the first to get inked. “A lot of people were excited by the idea of being the first human tattooed by a ‘robot’,” writes team leader Pierre Emm in the instructions they posted online.

The design is created in regular modelling software. So far, the printer can only draw simple outlines like circles. The hardest part is ensuring the skin is kept taut and flat. Human skin is flexible and curved, which makes accurate printing more difficult.

“The idea really isn’t to replace the tattoo artist: you can’t replace their eyes and brain,” says Samuel Bernier, their instructor. “What’s interesting is to open the discussion.”

This article appeared in print under the headline “Permanent tattoos inked by hacked 3D printer”