See the design on the body before the needle.
Tattoo work has two problems a flat printout never settles: does the design sit in proportion to the limb, and does it flow with the contour. The Grid Maker Pro AR app locks your design over the actual arm, leg, or back through the phone camera, scaled to the real surface, so you read the fit on the person before anything is printed. The stencil and the needle still finish the job — AR is the placement check that comes first. And before any of that, the free composition grids in the browser help you balance the design itself: thirds, golden ratio, a clean proportional transfer when you redraw.
Compose it free. Place it in AR.
The browser tool and the AR app do different jobs, and the line between them is deliberate. The 82 composition grids are free forever and run in any browser — that is the open front door for designing and balancing the piece. The AR app is the separate paid product that does what a browser cannot: hold the reference over the real surface so you can judge it on the body. Free for the design; paid for the placement on skin.
The composition grids
Drop a reference, stack the rule of thirds or the golden ratio, and balance the focal element of the piece. Square up a redraw with the proportional transfer grid so the proportions hold. No signup; the image never leaves the device.
The AR placement app
Lock the finished design over the limb in the camera, scale it to the real surface, and walk around to read the flow before you commit to a stencil. Built by Sujith Puthran, a working artist of fifteen years. See the AR app →
Four free overlays that settle the design.
A tattoo lives on the body for life, so the composition earns the time. Before the AR check and long before the needle, these overlays resolve where the focal element sits, how several elements hang together, and how a redraw keeps its proportions. Each is a free overlay you stack and transform over a reference in the browser.
Rule of thirds
Seat the focal element of the piece off-centre — the eye of a snake, the heart of a rose.
Golden ratio
Phi proportion and spiral for sleeves and back pieces where many elements balance.
Armature of the rectangle
The diagonal scaffold for ornament and lettering that has to read across a limb.
Proportional transfer
Square up a redraw cell for cell so a resized design keeps every proportion.
From sheet to skin in four moves.
Compose the design in the browser, place it on the body in AR, then carry it into the established stencil workflow. AR slots in where the old "hold the printout against the arm and squint" step used to be — it just gives you a true read of scale and flow instead of a guess.
Balance the design
Stack a composition overlay over your reference and settle the focal element before scale matters.
Place it on the limb
Lock the design over the body in the camera and scale it true to the wrist or knee.
Check it on the person
Walk around the limb to judge how the design follows the muscle and the joint.
Commit to the stencil
Print the stencil, transfer the linework, and tattoo the way you always have.
Free to try, fair to keep.
The app runs on Android through Google Play, with iOS planned. The free tier gives you three AR traces of your own photo every month plus all 82 composition overlays, on device, with no account to start. Studios that place every piece in AR can lift the limit on a paid plan.
Three AR traces of your own photo each month, plus all 82 composition grids. No account to start.
Unlimited AR traces for a working studio. Cancel any time; nothing stored on a server.
Pay once, keep it. Built by a working artist, not a subscription factory.
What tattoo artists actually use it for.
I compose the design with the thirds overlay so the focal element never lands dead centre, then lock it on the forearm in AR. Seeing it scaled on the actual arm settles the size argument with the client before I print a single stencil.
Ornamental work has to mirror across the limb, so I check the balance against the armature in the browser first. The AR preview then tells me whether the flow follows the bend of the elbow — something a flat printout has never once shown me honestly.
The stencil is still the stencil — nothing replaces a clean thermal transfer. AR just kills the back-and-forth on placement. The client sees it on their own skin, agrees, and we go straight to the needle with no surprises.
The questions tattoo artists ask.
Does the AR app replace the stencil?
No. The stencil and thermal transfer stay the established way to lay clean linework on skin, and nothing here changes that. The AR app is a planning and placement aid: before you print the stencil, you lock the design over the actual limb through your phone camera, scale it to the body, and judge the fit and flow on the real contour. Once the placement reads right, you commit it to a stencil and tattoo the way you always have. Free grids compose the design; AR confirms how it sits on the person; the stencil and the needle finish the job.
How do I scale a design to fit a forearm or a calf?
Open the AR app, lock your design over the limb, and resize it against the real surface until it reads in proportion to the wrist, elbow, or knee. Because the design is anchored to the body in the camera, you see the true scale instead of guessing from a flat printout. For the design itself, the free browser grids help first: square it up with a proportional transfer grid so a redraw keeps its proportions, and check the focal balance with the rule of thirds or golden ratio before you ever take it near skin.
Which free grid should I use to balance a tattoo design?
Start with the rule of thirds to seat the focal element of the piece off-centre, then reach for the golden ratio when several elements have to sit together as one composition — a sleeve panel, a back piece, a chest spread. For lettering and ornament that has to mirror across a limb, the armature of the rectangle shows where the eye lands inside the frame. All of these are free overlays you stack and transform over a reference in the browser, with no signup and the image never leaving your device.
Is the AR app free, and does my photo stay private?
The free tier gives you three AR traces of your own photo every month plus all 82 composition overlays, on device, with no account to start. Paid plans — $29.99 a year, $6.99 a month, or $79 once for lifetime — lift the trace limit for studios that use it daily. The 82 composition grids in the browser are free forever and run entirely on your device: a reference photo of a client never leaves the phone, because there is no server to upload it to. The full feature list lives on the AR app page.
Place the design on the body — then pick up the needle.
Compose and balance the piece free in the browser, then lock it over the limb in AR to read scale and flow before the stencil. Your photo stays on the device.
References
- Bridgman, George B. Constructive Anatomy (1920). Dover reprint, ISBN 0-486-21104-5. On fitting drawn form to the underlying anatomy of the limb.
- Loomis, Andrew. Figure Drawing for All It’s Worth. Viking Press (1943). Proportion and the figure as the ground a design sits on.
- Hale, Robert Beverly. Drawing Lessons from the Great Masters. Watson-Guptill (1964). ISBN 0-8230-1401-5. Constructive line over anatomy.
- Alberti, Leon Battista. On Painting (Della Pittura, 1435). Penguin Classics (1991). ISBN 978-0-14-043331-3. The squared transfer grid — the velo — for carrying a design accurately at scale.
