Do any of you have any links for any royalty free tattoo flash sites? I don't mind paying as long as they aren't super expensive. I'm trying to find a 'screaming demon' tattoo for the chest of a character. Google is being dumb and I'm not really finding what I'm looking for. Any ideas?

Hmm, I wonder if one of the tattoo packs in the marketplace has what i'm after. I'll search there too.

Tread lightly while looking for royalty free tat flash online. Tat artists don't usually offer their art out royalty free, and if they catch their designs floating out there, they usually have a lawyer in their pocket ready to eat someone alive.

I found a couple sites where you can pay for the flash art (not terribly expensive), I just need to dig deeper for a terms of use and see if I can use them on a texture for a piece of artwork (not going to be selling the texture since I'm modifying one for personal use). I'm also looking at a couple stock art sites. Those don't tend to be very expensive either. I know for a fact if I get it from the stock art site, I'll be able to use it for my purposes. It's just difficult finding what I need. The more resources I have to search through the better.

At least here in Germany some flash is not even available for sale - you can only swap it against your own flash if you are a tattoo artist or flash painter yourself. And the tattoo magazines that show photos of real tattoos are also meant as an inspiration. Even taking an issue of such a magazine to your local tattoo artist and ask him for a copy of the tattoo you have seen on a photo is cosindered as at least unethical as far as the tattoo on the photo is a custom work. Serious tattoo artists will dismiss your request and offer their own design instead. But if you get what you desire, a pure copy, you can run into massive trouble when copying it - not always trouble with the law but personal attacs.

But: Some magazines have painted flash in them that is free to be used for tattoos (those for humans - not for polygons). You may want to drop the one or other supplier of this flash a line and ask for permission to use it on your dolls. If you want to create psd or png I heavily doubt that you will get an okay but when baked into your texture you may find a nice artist who likes the idea.

You may want to read this:
http://au.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20071218021424AABHSvw&show=7

and this

http://www.rankmytattoos.com/mag/articles/a-stolen-tattoo-could-get-you-sued.html

My recommendation is to study typical flash and tattoos to get a feeling for them and then paint your own. Regarding the "feeling": Keep in mind that a "mellow" tattoo is not as bright, colorfull and sharp as it is some hours after it is made. The colors and lines will appear a little bit more washed out because they are covered with fresh and healthy skin after a while. This is an desirable effect because it makes the tattoo a part of the person who owns it and it separates a tattoo from bodypaint or the fun-tattoos you can get with chewinggum  and other sweets.

....and about buyable tattoo flash: Be careful as it is meant for the use in human skin. Using it on a texture may be considered as redistribution instead of use.
A tip: Maybe you can find a tattoo-artist who likes to see his flash on 3d-figures and even wants some cool renders as posters for his studio. Not everything that a tattoo artist draws ends up in a skin, many cool paintings sleep in a map or folder forever. The fact that you can make it appear on a almost human figure may be an argument

Thanks for the links and advice hon! Of course, if I could draw, this would be less of an issue. Maybe I'll hit up some friends who can draw and see if we can conceptualize what I need together. I do know a tattoo artist but he's so hard to get in touch with most of the time.... Hmm. Well, at least I'm not in a huge hurry to get this done. LOL

How about using a photo as a resource for painting? A screaming demon should be able to be created from a stone ornament - those "looks like a relief" tattoos are very en vougue at the moment!!

Hmmm. Now that's an idea. Thanks!

You're welcome!!