A photo or a drawing in · Clean transfer linework out · Seconds, not an evening of tracing
Tattoo Stencil Maker
A stencil is a photograph with everything removed except what a needle can follow. Drop in an image and get flat black linework on white — no gradients, no grey, nothing that will not transfer.
Tattoo Stencil Maker
A real edit made with this tool — drag your own photo in on the left, the prompt is already written, then press Generate.
A photographed rose, then the linework
Our own run on this site's engines. Drag the divider and watch what survives: an outline per petal edge, veins on the leaves, hatching only in the deepest shadow, and not one grey pixel anywhere. Every output is AI-generated; line weight is still a decision for whoever tattoos it.
Drag to compare before and after
What a tattoo stencil actually is
It is the outline drawing that gets transferred onto skin before any ink goes in: flat black lines on white, no colour, no photographic tone, showing only what the artist will follow.
This is the one page in the tattoo cluster that is used by both sides of the chair. Artists convert reference into line to save an hour of tracing per piece. Clients convert their own photo — a pet, a portrait, a plant from the garden — because they want to hand over something an artist can work from instead of a saved image and a hopeful description. The output serves both: it is a drawing, and a drawing is a shared language.
The demo is our own run: a photograph of a red rose, and the same rose as a transfer sheet. What makes it a stencil rather than a filter is what got discarded. The colour is gone, obviously, but so is every soft gradient across the petals — replaced by an outline for each petal edge and hatching only where the shadow was deepest.
An edge-detect filter would have kept the noise and produced a hundred broken hairline fragments; a needle cannot follow those.
One realistic caution. A generated stencil is a starting draft, not a finished transfer. Line weight still needs an artist's judgement at the size you are actually tattooing, small internal detail usually has to be thinned or dropped, and anything that will close up as the ink spreads has to be opened out by hand.
Take the draft to the person doing the work — and if you have not settled on the design yet, generate the artwork first.
Creative engine
How the conversion runs
Upload the photo or drawing, ask for a stencil, print the result on transfer paper.
Works from a photo
Your own dog, your grandmother's handwriting, a leaf off the balcony — anything photographable becomes line.
No tracing evening
The tedious part of turning reference into line is the part this removes; the judgement calls stay with the artist.
Three steps from photo to transfer
A clean, high-contrast source produces a clean stencil. There is no way around that.
Pick a source with clear edges
Even light, a plain background, the subject filling the frame. Busy backgrounds get interpreted as part of the design, and a dim photo produces mush wherever the model cannot tell an edge from a shadow.
Ask for line, and say how much
"Clean transfer stencil, black outlines on white, no grey, hatching only in the deepest shadows" is the whole brief. Add "bold" or "fine" depending on the size — a piece going on a finger needs fewer lines than one going on a thigh.
Print it and check it at size
Print at the actual dimensions before you fall in love with it. Detail that reads beautifully on a screen frequently turns into a solid blob at four centimetres, and that is easier to see on paper than to argue about.
Who needs linework, and why
Two sides of the chair and one person practising at home.
The artist with a full week
Six clients, six references, six evenings of tracing. Converting them to line first leaves the judgement — weight, spacing, what to drop — where it belongs, and removes the mechanical part.
The client with a photo
You want your own dog, not a dog from a flash sheet. Bringing a clean line version of the photo makes the first consultation about placement and size rather than about whether the idea is workable at all.
The apprentice on fake skin
Practice needs a stack of stencils, not one precious drawing. Generate a dozen, run them through the thermal printer, and spend the time on the needle — then preview the finished piece on an arm to check the placement reads.
Stencil FAQ
Asked by both sides of the machine.
Yes — that is what the output is shaped for. Black on plain white with no half-tones is exactly what a thermal printer needs; photographic greys are what make transfers come out patchy. Print at the size you intend to tattoo, not scaled to fill the sheet.
Portraits are the weakest case here and it is worth saying plainly. Realism is built from tone rather than line, so reducing a face to outlines throws away the information the tattoo is actually made of. Line-based styles — botanical, fine-line, traditional, lettering, geometric — convert well; a realistic portrait needs an artist working from the photograph directly.
Yes, and it is one of the better uses. Photograph the writing flat under even light with no shadow across the page. The output cleans up paper texture and pen wobble while keeping the shapes of the letters, which is the part that carries the meaning.
Ask for them explicitly — "bold heavy outlines" or "delicate fine linework" — and rerun. Weight is the single most consequential variable at small sizes, so it is worth generating both and comparing them printed rather than deciding on screen.
Treat it as a draft. Interior detail that will close up as ink spreads has to be opened out, line weight has to be set for the final size, and anything ambiguous needs a decision an image model does not make. Every output is AI-generated, and the artist edits before it goes on skin.
It keeps the subject and layout of what you upload. If you want the design cropped, mirrored, or arranged differently on the sheet, do that to the source image first — asking for it during the conversion tends to cost you line quality.
Kavel pricing — pay only for what you generate
One credit pool covers Nano Banana images and Seedance and Veo video. The cost shows before every run, and failed jobs are not charged. Use a subscription for ongoing work, or a one-time pack when you just need to top up.
Starter
What's included
- 33,500 credits per year
- Works with Nano Banana images and Seedance and Veo video
- Cost preview before you generate
- Generation history
Secure checkout by Stripe. Card details never touch our servers.
Creator
What's included
- 89,700 credits per year
- Access to Seedance 2.0, Fast, and Mini
- Nano Banana 2 generation and editing
- Priority credit top-ups
Secure checkout by Stripe. Card details never touch our servers.
Studio
What's included
- 166,800 credits per year
- Built for high-volume Kavel generation
- Plenty of room for 4K rendering
- Available across the supported models
Secure checkout by Stripe. Card details never touch our servers.
Credit packs
One-time top-ups — buy extra credits any time you run low.
Credit Pack 1500
What's included
- 1,500 credits
- No ongoing subscription
- Available across the supported models
Secure checkout by Stripe. Card details never touch our servers.
Credit Pack 3600
What's included
- 3,600 credits
- No ongoing subscription
- Available across the supported models
- Use for both video and image generation
Secure checkout by Stripe. Card details never touch our servers.
Credit Pack 9000
What's included
- 9,000 credits
- No ongoing subscription
- Handy for Seedance 2.0 final renders
- Valid for 365 days
Secure checkout by Stripe. Card details never touch our servers.
Charges appear as “KAVEL AI” on your card statement. You can cancel any time from Settings → Billing; cancellation takes effect at the end of the period you already paid for.
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One credit balance for every Kavel image and video model
Use one balance across the supported image and video models (Nano Banana 2 / Nano Banana Pro / Seedance 2 / Veo 3.1), and check the credit cost before each request.
Video models
Image models
Model credit guide
What each model costs in credits
You're only charged for successful generations. The exact estimate in the generator varies by model, length, resolution, audio, and number of images.
| Type | Model | Credit cost |
|---|---|---|
| Video | Seedance 2.0 | 5s 720p image-to-video ≈ 188 credits; text-to-video ≈ 308 credits. Scales with resolution and length. |
| Video | Seedance 2 Fast | Faster and lower cost. 5s 720p text-to-video ≈ 248 credits. Mini is cheaper still. |
| Video | Veo 3.1 | Billed per video (Lite). About 34 credits at 1080p, about 23 at 720p. |
| Image | Nano Banana 2 | Generate or edit from text and images. About 8 credits per 1K image, 12 at 2K, 18 at 4K. |
| Image | Nano Banana Pro | Consistent run times across generations. About 12 credits per 1K or 2K image, 21 at 4K. |
| Image | Nano Banana 2 Lite | Faster, simpler variant. About 8 credits per image. Start here to test. |
Before and after the stencil
Design it, preview it, or take the drawing somewhere else.
Turn the reference into line
Upload the photo, get the transfer draft, and spend the evening on the tattoo instead of on tracing it — then [check the placement on a real arm](/image/tattoo-try-on).