A Giant Inkling (Female)

Appearance of an inkling: Inklings can alternate between humanoid and swim form, which coincidentally resemble the Bloopers from the Super Mario video game series. By at least the age of 14, Inklings gain complete control over both these forms and can change between kid and squid at will. Between each game, Inklings generally becoming taller, and having more rounded and less squat faces.

The humanoid form has a black marking resembling a mask around their eyes, pointed ears, and tentacles that change color in battle depending on the color of ink that their team uses. They possess pointed teeth similar in shape to a squid's beak. Their squid form resembles a brightly colored cephalopod the same color as the Inkling's "hair" with two long clubbed tentacles, four shorter tentacles, and two large eyes that seem to be joined. Inklings evidently have no bones, excellent eyesight, and the ability to leap five feet in a single bound, as shown in 1 of the Sunken Scrolls. They are characterized as being aggressive. Their spoken language is composed of high-pitched gargling and creature noises. Known colors for Inklings and their ink include orange, blue, green, lime green, purple, turquoise, yellow, and pink. These colors vary in shade slightly depending on the color of the opposing team. Additional colors appear in the story mode campaign. Inklings are customizable. If the player chooses a girl inkling, she will have smaller, thinner eyebrows, straight cut bangs that are curve toward the left, and two long, flowing tentacles that hang from both sides of the head, resembling hair. A boy inkling has noticeably thicker eyebrows, and his main tentacles are secured into a ponytail, with a camouflage-print hairband, at the back of his head, again resembling hair.

In Splatoon 2, the playable Inklings’ hairstyles are no longer limited to one style per gender, allowing the player more customization options, six different hairstyles are allowed for each gender. Inkling girls have a choice between their original Splatoon hairstyle, a shorter bob cut style with a mirrored bang compared to the original, a style with one long, wavy tentacle hanging on the right side of their face and a small one in the back or have their tentacles tied up into a knot. Inkling boys have a choice between their original Splatoon hairstyle, a spiked comb back hairstyle, a ponytail haircut with a tentacle hanging on the left side of their face, a buzz cut hairstyle devoid of visible tentacles with what appear to be scar marks. In Version 2.0.0, four more hairstyles were added that include two new styles for boys and two new styles for girls. For the females, they can now have a curly, shredded pigtail style (sometimes in a ponytail when wearing certain headgear) or a straight, long hairstyle with a long bang and slightly cut tips. For the males, the new hairstyles consist of a short mohawk hairstyle topped with many tiny spikes with buzzed sides or a bowl cut. Unlike Splatoon, these Inklings do not have the dark spots they had before but instead have glowing oval spots that match their ink color. Sometimes these spots will glow to a slightly different color. The dots also become a darker tone just like in Splatoon when the spots are above the gradient area of their tentacles.

Splatoon 3 offers hairstyles from both games, but also a hairstyle with one tentacle identical to the original female Inkling hairstyle, but with one tentacle in a braid tied with a black bow, a hairstyle featuring bangs from the 'buzz-cut' hairstyle from Splatoon 2. The style's tentacles are short and curly, resembling Callie's tentacles from when she was a child. Inkling's eyes also can have 'gradients', for example, the Splatoon 3 trailer shows an Inkling girl with blue eyes that fade into light purple, and at the bottom of the eyes, light pink.

Eye color and skin tone choices also return, and Inklings now have a choice of legwear. Inkling girls can choose between their Splatoon shorts, a skirt with black shorts underneath, tight capri sweatpants, loose sport shorts, or tight black pants. Inkling boys can choose between their Splatoon shorts, looser shorts with leggings, cargo pants, leggings, and denim shorts. Legwear, unlike other pieces of gear, are part of a character's customization and have no impact on an Inkling's stats.

Inklings take on a unique appearance when they have a special weapon ready: they give off sparks, the tentacles on their head become very brightly colored and glow, bubbles form at the top of their head as if from boiling water, and they appear to be caught in a strong wind even when completely still. Their appearance goes back to normal once their special weapon has been used.

Some Inklings (namely Callie, Marie, and Pearl) have special features such as a black/grey color on the majority of their "hair" with their ink color on the tips of the tentacle and plus-shaped pupils. These pupils are either brown or white, as opposed to the standard Inkling's black. Callie and Marie (along with some Inklings shown in Splatoon official art) have tipped curves at the bottom of their ears, giving them a slightly angular appearance. The ears can also, in Pearl's case, be incredibly small. Inklings can additionally have different skin colors (seen with KAGI of Wet Floor) and multiple different ink colors at once (seen with Yōko of Ink Theory). They gain the ability to transform between humanoid and squid form at the age of 14. Art from the Sunken Scrolls shows that prior to this, they resemble squids with four limbs, and as infants they appear fully squid-like.