A sleeve tattoo is a large tattoo or a group of smaller tattoos that are located on a person's arm. It is called a sleeve tattoo because it forms like a sleeve as it covers the area that a sleeve of a shirt is supposed to cover.

These tattoo designs can be of different sizes. It can cover the whole part of the sleeve, half of it or just a quarter. When doing a whole sleeve tattoo, it covers the whole arm, when half it covers half the arm and when a quarter it usually covers just the bicep region. If the sleeve tattoo designs are big, there is no need to find a common theme. But if you have started with a small sleeve tattoo and you want to add another one, you have to devote time and money for it and create a theme for these tattoos to blend together.

Getting a tattoo or tattoos on your sleeves is not a walk in the park. You have to preplan it with your artist. Once you finalize the theme and designs, the painful and tedious part starts. Usually large tattoos can not be finished in one seating. But if you opted to have small sleeve tattoos to connect existing small tattoos with one common theme, your visits to your artist may not be as much.

This, though, may not be as well-themed as one that is pre-planned. Pre-planned tattoos require a lot more money and time. It may take a few months or years to finally finish. But then, when it is, results are usually superb.