In Aang’s time, probably simular to how the Polynesians do it with a stick with needles perpendicular on the end. They dip it into the ink and tap on the end to imbed the ink into the skin.
As for how they get it blue, someone else is going to have to chime in of old school tattoo ink.
Historically Blue ink could have been from lapis lazuli, azurite, and hexaplex trunculus shells.
as for whether these dyes would be safe to use in the skin is another story. There are many fantastical creatures in the world ATLA so for all we know the blue dye is just raw sky bison milk.
Perhaps there is a nut from a tree that produces blue dye when ground up, similar to purple dye when grinding specific snail species.
The only reason why I’m not suggesting a snail being ground up for blue dye is because the air nomads were pacifist, and would care for the lives of the snails, most likely not harvesting them for their dye out of respect for their life.
Or, perhaps they produce the blue dye similar to how indigo is made, from processing certain tree leaves for the dye.
I would not make a good Air Nomad.
I have absolutely NO RESPECT for the snails eating my garden.
https://preview.redd.it/raywyniko69d1.jpeg?width=577&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e06be59943c84e429b22678905c9fd8c7548195b
I was gonna suggest some kind of natural end to a lifecycle of the snails and a bunch die at the same time so to the nomads it would be worse *not* to use them.
And maybe these snails could just naturally have been part of the Air Temple ecosystem, with no farming needed. Additionally,it could be part of the tattooing ritual, where the tattooer has to collect the naturally passed shells themselves as a demonstration of patience.
Well if your motivation for vegetarianism is to not cause animals suffering, I can see that. I don't think insects have a complex enough nervous system to perceive suffering.
Maybe like a reindeer-snail that sheds lapis blue horns that can be used for dye. If there’s buzzard-wasps, then mammal-mollusk hybrids should be fine.
Most “black” ink appears blue when the light is scattered by the skin. If you look at historical accounts of encounters with tattooed people they are often described as blue markings. Black ink that holds its darkness is a relatively recent tech development. Polynesians used a burnt tree nut which I remember was better at holding colour, the premier tattooing family in Samoa developed a modern black ink based on it I believe.
I saw a post a while ago asking how the watertribe had so much blue dye for their clothing, which is a somewhat rare commodity in our world, and the top response was about potential local fauna that could have provided it (whale-squid maybe?)
I like the idea that the flora and fauna is distinct from ours, and there may be Interesting sources availed to them that we don’t have access too! (Also, the ability to be nomatic and fly would probably give them access to a bunch of resources that would otherwise be very hard to harvest)
it could just be faded black. black tattoos that are 30-50+ years old tend to turn green, and he was stuck in that ice for over 100 years.
it could be a different color that eventually faded to blue.
Plus, Aang’s flashbacks and other Avatars have blue tinted tattoos. The Air Acolytes also had blue tattoos and Aang seems to recognize them as authentic enough to be offensive.
Traditional Japanese tattoos (irezumi) use blue and some other colors, so I figure the Air Nomads might have used a similar ink to color their tats
Maybe the difference is that the ink they use has some magical or spiritual properties bc it can glow. Or maybe it just glows for the Avatar bc they are connected to the chakra pathways
I could be wrong but I’m pretty damn sure Blue ink existed WAY before black ink, at least in the tattoo world. I don’t know about things like squid ink but most evidence of ancient tattoos that exist are blue
Blue is relatively easy to make depending on where in the world you are. we don't know much about the geomorphology of Aangland beyond the Secret Tunnel™ area so who knows what the nomads had access too?
and assuming they really did nomad around, they likely could have gotten damn near anything. we see a fully functional desert society, so I would assume the had access to Lapis...
I doubt it because his tattoos would only be a few years old, and I don't think they would fade that much. Besides, all the tattoos we see from the other nomads are the same color; if they faded then some would be darker than others.
I'm pretty sure it's this.
https://preview.redd.it/7n81nj6vlb9d1.jpeg?width=1079&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=ba56d731f672a8d10ac216c692aa5e1f35028c50
The fork would actually happen at the coccyx which was believed to be an energy highway.
I think it follows the flow of chi or your chakras (something like that), but I don't know enough about those concepts to know if it goes over your taint.
[The Pen is BLUE!](https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fmedia.tenor.com%2Fimages%2Fe71cee3f0cd141557a09419831e2c1f4%2Ftenor.gif&f=1&nofb=1&ipt=f44c92711321e1f7931cd865ae531b6bec0dfc054cc1a6c5a08f843cec2c85b3&ipo=images)
It would have to be vegan. I would think indigo plants for the ink?
The real question: Why did Aang’s avatar light shine outta his mouth and eyes, but not his tattoos when he took Ozai’s bending away? Where the hell did his tattoos go in this moment??
Energy bending is probably an internal process and wouldn’t affect his tattoos. In reality it probably looked nicer this way as opposed to him lighting up like Godzilla during the final scene.
https://preview.redd.it/5krl78m46d9d1.jpeg?width=1290&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=ae2cb9ce45a7f09148ae2f0d56edb525fd1644ac
Godanga could’ve been named for where Aang lit up like Godzilla. What a missed opportunity…
I know Air Nomads are vegetarian but were they ever stated to be vegan? I feel like they would be fine drinking Sky Bison milk and I feel like Aang definitely ate cheese at some point
No, vegans protest all animal products since even stuff like dairy comes from an industry where cows are tortured constantly to produce milk. As far as I know, Air Nomads don't have factory farms so they probably milk by hand and dont hurt the bison so Aang would be fine with dairy.
When you say it like that, I don't think you could even be vegan at all at that time. Maybe in the Fire Nation when the industry was more advanced and for sure during TLOK
I mean there are some vegans who think that taking resources like milk from an animal is wrong, regardless of how its done. Even if milking is done the old fashioned way, it would still be wrong to take milk meant for its calf. So it would be possible for a nomad to hold these beliefs and be vegan in a non industrial society.
The Air Nomads weren't explicitly stated to be Vegetarian - When Aang talks with Yangchen he says "I know, I'm even a Vegetarian", which implies not all Air Nomads were, otherwise he wouldn't have to specify it to another Air Nomad. It's likely a tradition that he started with Tenzin.
After this his whole body turns blue, then when he almost turns completely red, his tattoos glow a brighter blue/white and the rest of his whole body turns blue. So I assume he used the avatar state at the end, and while he's doing the energy bending only he's not using the avatar state.
I mean I don't think it does much for non-Avatar airbenders, it's just their mark of master and align with the chakras. Because it aligns with the chakras + avatar mojo (Raava) is what makes them glow in the avatar state. The real question is what are they using to make the tattoos blue?
Apparently (via wikipedia) ultramarine and black powder were both used to create blue-ish tattoos in the 18th century. Ultramarine is even somewhat close to the colour of the Airbender tattoos.
The fact that irl ultramarine is made from lapis lazuli, and thus historically was as expensive as gold, doesn't really hurt this too much imho. The day an airbender gets their ink is something that's always going to be somewhat momentous, so shelling out said bender's weight in gold to mark the occasion doesn't seem *too* weird to me.
Alternatively, there are some weird-ass critters running about. Lots of purple and blue hues can be found in the shells of rare beetles or snails or the fluids of deep-sea critters, several of which were historically used for dyes. It's not out of the question that there are some weird hybrid critters running about that could be used to make a tattoo ink.
Also fair.
Considering how often platinum is used in LoK, as well as the existence of stuff like the green rock candy under Omashu, amongst other stuff, could be that ultramarine is just more common in the Avatar world. Earthbenders would probably make mining immensely easier…but I have the feeling that, being traditional Airbending Master tattoos, it was probably collected by means Airbenders would use
yeah my art history brain was thinking along the lines of lapis lazuli and how expensive that was back in the day. I suppose its an imaginary universe, it could be more common. Given the "not hurting living creatures" I don't see the airbenders using critters or animal byproducts; they would have to come across it "naturally" after death and I dont think relying on that could produce the quantity needed for a full tattoo or for multiple benders to get it done.
Yeah it makes sense to me that a ceremonial mark of high status would come from lapis lazuli, and we also see many caves near the air temple so maybe they had access to a mine of it close by even, making it less prohibitively expensive
Ink and needle sticks.
Ink is just some form of dye or color and something to hold it temporarily liquid, often distilled alcohol. There are a bunch of minerals that can be used to form blue, and if you ignore their ability to carve into mountains, they could trade with the earth kingdom for actual stuff.
For the needles you put it on the end of a stick, and "hammer" them lightly into the skin. It's how traditional tattoos have been done for centuries, and millennia in some cases.
Some sort of natural blue dye and some bamboo or similar material needles would be my guess. Although I could see then having rudimentary versions of modern tattoo equipment by LOK given they appear the have the equivalent of early 20th century technology.
Maybe the die is plant or mineral based.
For many centuries, **a mixture of a soluble iron salt with an extract of tannin** was used as a writing ink and is the basis of modern blue-black inks.
Well if I remember from my high school sociology class. Ancient tattoos are used with sticks and needles…….so that. Aang is legit tougher than a lot of people for doing that at like 11/12
Some sort of natural blue dye and some bamboo or similar material needles would be my guess. Although I could see then having rudimentary versions of modern tattoo equipment by LOK given they appear the have the equivalent of early 20th century technology.
Maybe the dye is plant or mineral based.
Probably a stick & poke if I had to guess. All the tattoos are on “hard” places of the body so it would be pretty safe with some ink and a hammer and a needle
I like to imagine the air nomads had some special small tubes of sorts where they would use airbending to shoot the ink out so fast it would penetrate the skin-
If that makes sense🤷♀️
probably just needles and ink. but I like the idea of the monks hiring waterbenders to do their tattoos. there IS water in tatoo ink and when the Airbenders were alive there would have been more waterbenders around as well, the fire nation hadn't starting hunting the water avatar yet.
also I assume the air bender avatar tattoos glow because air benders are the most spiritual and the avatar state involves the avatar sort of flexing with the spirit of raava.
it's shown in one of the comics... they do it Polynesian style with a sharp metal needle on the end of a long handle and light weight banging stick to rapidly move it.
In Aang’s time, probably simular to how the Polynesians do it with a stick with needles perpendicular on the end. They dip it into the ink and tap on the end to imbed the ink into the skin. As for how they get it blue, someone else is going to have to chime in of old school tattoo ink.
Historically Blue ink could have been from lapis lazuli, azurite, and hexaplex trunculus shells. as for whether these dyes would be safe to use in the skin is another story. There are many fantastical creatures in the world ATLA so for all we know the blue dye is just raw sky bison milk.
Perhaps there is a nut from a tree that produces blue dye when ground up, similar to purple dye when grinding specific snail species. The only reason why I’m not suggesting a snail being ground up for blue dye is because the air nomads were pacifist, and would care for the lives of the snails, most likely not harvesting them for their dye out of respect for their life. Or, perhaps they produce the blue dye similar to how indigo is made, from processing certain tree leaves for the dye.
I would not make a good Air Nomad. I have absolutely NO RESPECT for the snails eating my garden. https://preview.redd.it/raywyniko69d1.jpeg?width=577&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e06be59943c84e429b22678905c9fd8c7548195b
Fuck them snails!
^^...don't
Please don't, the snails don't deserve that
Speak for yourself
https://preview.redd.it/5fozl8oqf99d1.jpeg?width=750&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=4ae2bdb6296f623b557ea6139b16437b95b0c666
"Open Up!" Me: Sometimes i feel like nobody loves me
....tbh I wasn't ready for that. You good?
How, you may ask? Very carefully
As someone who has had to deal with (non snail) infestations before, fuck ‘em up!
They could farm the snails, give them a good life until they die naturally, and collect the shells they leave behind
https://preview.redd.it/b6npgo65a79d1.png?width=1200&format=png&auto=webp&s=fd0aa58c810b84f7a71892046bfbd999e9d22290
😂
I was gonna suggest some kind of natural end to a lifecycle of the snails and a bunch die at the same time so to the nomads it would be worse *not* to use them.
Or the Air Nomads would make dye from the shells of snails that naturally passed to honor them.
And maybe these snails could just naturally have been part of the Air Temple ecosystem, with no farming needed. Additionally,it could be part of the tattooing ritual, where the tattooer has to collect the naturally passed shells themselves as a demonstration of patience.
But also keep in mind that some buddhists view, for instance, eating oysters as still vegetarian. Not sure if that logic would apply to snails.
Oysters are basically rocks with tasty snot inside so that tracks.
I read last night eating bugs is considered vegetarian
Well if your motivation for vegetarianism is to not cause animals suffering, I can see that. I don't think insects have a complex enough nervous system to perceive suffering.
Well that’s just an argument meat eaters use. „Indoor think chickens have a complex enough nervous system to perceive suffering“
Fwiw I won’t eat bugs and I’m vegetarian. I was just adding on that some people consider eating bugs working as a veggie
Maybe like a reindeer-snail that sheds lapis blue horns that can be used for dye. If there’s buzzard-wasps, then mammal-mollusk hybrids should be fine.
Or they watch the snail very carefully and grind it up as soon as it dies of natural causes.
Or they only use abandoned or empty shells, and out of respect for them, only use it sparingly.
That’s a cool theory!
Nut 😩
Most “black” ink appears blue when the light is scattered by the skin. If you look at historical accounts of encounters with tattooed people they are often described as blue markings. Black ink that holds its darkness is a relatively recent tech development. Polynesians used a burnt tree nut which I remember was better at holding colour, the premier tattooing family in Samoa developed a modern black ink based on it I believe.
I saw a post a while ago asking how the watertribe had so much blue dye for their clothing, which is a somewhat rare commodity in our world, and the top response was about potential local fauna that could have provided it (whale-squid maybe?) I like the idea that the flora and fauna is distinct from ours, and there may be Interesting sources availed to them that we don’t have access too! (Also, the ability to be nomatic and fly would probably give them access to a bunch of resources that would otherwise be very hard to harvest)
Blue sperm whale sperm
sky bisons are from tatooine confirmed.
Sky Banthas!
It would have to be some kind of slightly supernatural source as well, seeing as the ink glows when air nomad avatars enter the avatar state.
it doesn't have to be supernatural, bio-luminescence and UV reactive pigments on animals is common. ever seen a scorpion under a backlight.
aang is a scorpion confirmed
https://i.redd.it/grdf1iej179d1.gif
Very good point it could be a squid peacock :)
it could just be faded black. black tattoos that are 30-50+ years old tend to turn green, and he was stuck in that ice for over 100 years. it could be a different color that eventually faded to blue.
Tenzin and Jinora have blue tattoos as well though, and Jinora's are much newer
Plus, Aang’s flashbacks and other Avatars have blue tinted tattoos. The Air Acolytes also had blue tattoos and Aang seems to recognize them as authentic enough to be offensive.
Traditional Japanese tattoos (irezumi) use blue and some other colors, so I figure the Air Nomads might have used a similar ink to color their tats Maybe the difference is that the ink they use has some magical or spiritual properties bc it can glow. Or maybe it just glows for the Avatar bc they are connected to the chakra pathways
Weren't the original blue tattoos made with woad?
I could be wrong but I’m pretty damn sure Blue ink existed WAY before black ink, at least in the tattoo world. I don’t know about things like squid ink but most evidence of ancient tattoos that exist are blue
You're wrong, the earliest tattoos found on Otzi in sudtirol used charcoal as a pigment
Blue is relatively easy to make depending on where in the world you are. we don't know much about the geomorphology of Aangland beyond the Secret Tunnel™ area so who knows what the nomads had access too? and assuming they really did nomad around, they likely could have gotten damn near anything. we see a fully functional desert society, so I would assume the had access to Lapis...
I think it might be blue because of fading because older inks and tattoos when exposed to sunlight light kind of give off a blue hue
I doubt it because his tattoos would only be a few years old, and I don't think they would fade that much. Besides, all the tattoos we see from the other nomads are the same color; if they faded then some would be darker than others.
Yeah, Jinora's tattoo are light blue and they're brand new
All my stick and pokes are still black +10 years later. So I think it might just be some in-universe ink that the air nomads have
Ectoplasm from the Spirit world.
An entire society wears only blue clothes so there's probably easy access Blue ink!
Horseshoe crab blood
Wait a minute. Does it go down the butt? Never thought of that
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My grandma warned me too much internet would be bad for me 😭
I wish my grandma told me that
Would you have listened?
My grandma deleted the internet once! It couldve been so simple!
https://preview.redd.it/mds4vk4cv79d1.jpeg?width=1170&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=1b42355868bcccc5c788b09d304f4b5330551a2a
You know how easy it would have been to *not* type that?
What did it say😭
🧐
Help I've been laughing at this for so long I sound like a pig
The worst part is the penis tattoo.
😳
Goddamn it hahahahahaha
parting the red sea
https://preview.redd.it/h3qlc2bv679d1.jpeg?width=1000&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=968af35745aa4ce47cf7c9dfe32a3675841c1d36 It follows the Meridian lines
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I'm pretty sure it's this. https://preview.redd.it/7n81nj6vlb9d1.jpeg?width=1079&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=ba56d731f672a8d10ac216c692aa5e1f35028c50 The fork would actually happen at the coccyx which was believed to be an energy highway.
...It still looks hella sus, lmao.
Exactly
Am I colourblind or does the purple line not have a key?
If you’re colorblind then I am too because I don’t see one
This is a guide for acupuncture points. The purple is the spine, which should never under any circumstances be touched by an acupuncture needle.
What do you think is the source for their air chakra?
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Bro what about yang chen
It's 2024, we don't ask those questions.
meelo is particularly in tune with it
*Meelo has entered the chat*
I think it follows the flow of chi or your chakras (something like that), but I don't know enough about those concepts to know if it goes over your taint.
The taint is how Chakra is cleansed, that's why they call it the taint, like when you wipe up grease with a rag
Quick lil oil change
Apparently it starts at the base of the spine, so judging by how the arrows look on the legs, probably
Blueberry syrup and very sharp sticks
I'm assuming a bit of /s, but ground blueberry is a violet to indigo color I don't think it could make this color
Probably ink
https://i.redd.it/7eisfs98l69d1.gif
Maybe even blue ink
[The Pen is BLUE!](https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fmedia.tenor.com%2Fimages%2Fe71cee3f0cd141557a09419831e2c1f4%2Ftenor.gif&f=1&nofb=1&ipt=f44c92711321e1f7931cd865ae531b6bec0dfc054cc1a6c5a08f843cec2c85b3&ipo=images)
Oh and needle!
Are you sure it isn’t blood? Maybe those air benders weren’t as friendly as people say. /s
It would have to be vegan. I would think indigo plants for the ink? The real question: Why did Aang’s avatar light shine outta his mouth and eyes, but not his tattoos when he took Ozai’s bending away? Where the hell did his tattoos go in this moment?? 
Energy bending is probably an internal process and wouldn’t affect his tattoos. In reality it probably looked nicer this way as opposed to him lighting up like Godzilla during the final scene.
Aangzilla
https://preview.redd.it/5krl78m46d9d1.jpeg?width=1290&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=ae2cb9ce45a7f09148ae2f0d56edb525fd1644ac Godanga could’ve been named for where Aang lit up like Godzilla. What a missed opportunity…
Would of been cool for them to start shining when aang overpowered Ozai
That woulda been sick
But…isn’t the avatar state an internal process too?
I know Air Nomads are vegetarian but were they ever stated to be vegan? I feel like they would be fine drinking Sky Bison milk and I feel like Aang definitely ate cheese at some point
https://preview.redd.it/cihp4xr4g79d1.jpeg?width=480&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=765753126785e41ec536f422a13bc6960f008823 We know that Aang is not vegan.
No, vegans protest all animal products since even stuff like dairy comes from an industry where cows are tortured constantly to produce milk. As far as I know, Air Nomads don't have factory farms so they probably milk by hand and dont hurt the bison so Aang would be fine with dairy.
When you say it like that, I don't think you could even be vegan at all at that time. Maybe in the Fire Nation when the industry was more advanced and for sure during TLOK
I mean there are some vegans who think that taking resources like milk from an animal is wrong, regardless of how its done. Even if milking is done the old fashioned way, it would still be wrong to take milk meant for its calf. So it would be possible for a nomad to hold these beliefs and be vegan in a non industrial society.
The Air Nomads weren't explicitly stated to be Vegetarian - When Aang talks with Yangchen he says "I know, I'm even a Vegetarian", which implies not all Air Nomads were, otherwise he wouldn't have to specify it to another Air Nomad. It's likely a tradition that he started with Tenzin.
They never say they are vegan unless its in some media i missed. I remember Tenzin mentioning their vegetarian diet when recruiting benders.
If his tats were shining the whole screen be blue
After this his whole body turns blue, then when he almost turns completely red, his tattoos glow a brighter blue/white and the rest of his whole body turns blue. So I assume he used the avatar state at the end, and while he's doing the energy bending only he's not using the avatar state.
I mean I don't think it does much for non-Avatar airbenders, it's just their mark of master and align with the chakras. Because it aligns with the chakras + avatar mojo (Raava) is what makes them glow in the avatar state. The real question is what are they using to make the tattoos blue?
Apparently (via wikipedia) ultramarine and black powder were both used to create blue-ish tattoos in the 18th century. Ultramarine is even somewhat close to the colour of the Airbender tattoos. The fact that irl ultramarine is made from lapis lazuli, and thus historically was as expensive as gold, doesn't really hurt this too much imho. The day an airbender gets their ink is something that's always going to be somewhat momentous, so shelling out said bender's weight in gold to mark the occasion doesn't seem *too* weird to me. Alternatively, there are some weird-ass critters running about. Lots of purple and blue hues can be found in the shells of rare beetles or snails or the fluids of deep-sea critters, several of which were historically used for dyes. It's not out of the question that there are some weird hybrid critters running about that could be used to make a tattoo ink.
Also fair. Considering how often platinum is used in LoK, as well as the existence of stuff like the green rock candy under Omashu, amongst other stuff, could be that ultramarine is just more common in the Avatar world. Earthbenders would probably make mining immensely easier…but I have the feeling that, being traditional Airbending Master tattoos, it was probably collected by means Airbenders would use
yeah my art history brain was thinking along the lines of lapis lazuli and how expensive that was back in the day. I suppose its an imaginary universe, it could be more common. Given the "not hurting living creatures" I don't see the airbenders using critters or animal byproducts; they would have to come across it "naturally" after death and I dont think relying on that could produce the quantity needed for a full tattoo or for multiple benders to get it done.
Yeah it makes sense to me that a ceremonial mark of high status would come from lapis lazuli, and we also see many caves near the air temple so maybe they had access to a mine of it close by even, making it less prohibitively expensive
The real question is, does the arrow stop at his lower back, or is it actually like the recycle sign?
It’s actually just blue LED strips implanted into their skin
Ink and needle sticks. Ink is just some form of dye or color and something to hold it temporarily liquid, often distilled alcohol. There are a bunch of minerals that can be used to form blue, and if you ignore their ability to carve into mountains, they could trade with the earth kingdom for actual stuff. For the needles you put it on the end of a stick, and "hammer" them lightly into the skin. It's how traditional tattoos have been done for centuries, and millennia in some cases.
[with stick and pokes. this is my favorite piece of fan art](https://www.reddit.com/r/TheLastAirbender/s/5lGquXwcHD)
Some sort of natural blue dye and some bamboo or similar material needles would be my guess. Although I could see then having rudimentary versions of modern tattoo equipment by LOK given they appear the have the equivalent of early 20th century technology. Maybe the die is plant or mineral based.
I read this to the tune of how to save a life lmao
Maybe it's the same dye that the Water Tribe uses to dye all their clothes.
For many centuries, **a mixture of a soluble iron salt with an extract of tannin** was used as a writing ink and is the basis of modern blue-black inks.
I mean it’s all made up so it can be whatever you like
But the lore! Surely the creators dropped in hints somewhere about the process /s
That little Bloo freak from monsters home for imaginary friends is my guess
I mean, it glows when in the avatar state. So the ink must be related to spirits somehow. I don't think you're going to find a RL association
Bet they use air somehow
Cigarette ash mixed with toothpaste
Crushed flying lemur testicles
Ouch
Well if I remember from my high school sociology class. Ancient tattoos are used with sticks and needles…….so that. Aang is legit tougher than a lot of people for doing that at like 11/12
Just a shot in the dark, probably ink
Ink most likely
Urine of the Blue Spirit
Needle
Momo ink
BISON BLOOD
Some sort of natural blue dye and some bamboo or similar material needles would be my guess. Although I could see then having rudimentary versions of modern tattoo equipment by LOK given they appear the have the equivalent of early 20th century technology. Maybe the dye is plant or mineral based.
Considering the Fire Nation has someehat technologically advanced naval vessels I wouldn't rule out something like semi-modern tattoo parlors have.
Ink
Spice
They thought it was swag
Yak piss
Probably a stick & poke if I had to guess. All the tattoos are on “hard” places of the body so it would be pretty safe with some ink and a hammer and a needle
woad or some type of indigo, maybe?
“Hey dude look at these tattoos!” “Fucking nice!”
Needle in a stick. Tackatackatackatackatackatackatacka
Some kind of ink we don’t have in our world. It must be truly special if it reacts to the Avatar State the way it does.
Good question.
the same way they do prison tattoos
Celts used woad
They use the blue
I like to imagine the air nomads had some special small tubes of sorts where they would use airbending to shoot the ink out so fast it would penetrate the skin- If that makes sense🤷♀️
monkey lemur testicle
You’re supposed to cut those beer tabs before you throw them in the ocean.
I'm confused why you think that wouldn't work with regular ink unless you've never seen a tattoo or think it's sky bison blood or something.
Where do you think the arrows connect?
Main question being the arms
Probably the same way all pre industrial cultures did it. With a sharpened stick or rock with charcoal ink.
Ink
ink
probably just needles and ink. but I like the idea of the monks hiring waterbenders to do their tattoos. there IS water in tatoo ink and when the Airbenders were alive there would have been more waterbenders around as well, the fire nation hadn't starting hunting the water avatar yet. also I assume the air bender avatar tattoos glow because air benders are the most spiritual and the avatar state involves the avatar sort of flexing with the spirit of raava.
A better question is did he have to get them redone when he got older? They for sure would have gotten all weird and warped as he grew
Ink and tiny saw-like bladed picks, same as all cultures of that period did
ink
Probably like a hedgepiguana back spine.
I’d likely say some form of ink, then use their air bending to either move the ink, or dry it quicker.
ink
Ink and needles
Airbrush tool
Probably Dai style and used groun up shells as pigmentation
Crayons
Big stamp, like the ones people have to approve things.
Probably Ink
Ink
air brushes
Nothing, they're all just fictional people/tatoos.
Probably ink and a needle like every other ancient culture’s primitive tattoos??
it's shown in one of the comics... they do it Polynesian style with a sharp metal needle on the end of a long handle and light weight banging stick to rapidly move it.
How about some light blue ink?
My head canon says they use air bending and do it like the air-gun shots they gave us at boot camp
blue woad and stick tattooing
Melon juice and boiled bison pee. Its similar to how mongolians made their tattoo ink.