They ran the gamut — from Hell’s Angels to grandmas, undecided browsers to stoics getting inked in full view of strangers, a young mom contemplating her first tattoo to a man whose body is 80 percent covered in colors. They all rubbed shoulders Saturday at the “Inked Out New Jersey” convention in Secaucus.

The event, presented by tattoo luminary Mario Barth, had drawn approximately 6,500 attendees by early evening. It featured 300 exhibitors and tattoo artists with portfolios filled with all sorts of potential images, from skulls and zombies to such famous people as Salvador Dali, Jesus Christ, and Marilyn Monroe.

Like the myriad tattoo designs on display, those attending the convention, which runs through Sunday at the Meadowlands Expo Center, are a reflection of how much has changed in the world of tattooing, Barth says. They were once the domain of sailors and Marines, who got theirs in dingy harbor-town shops, he says. But thanks to the Internet, tattoo-flaunting celebrities and vastly improved technology, tattoos have crossed over.

His clientele has included Lenny Kravitz, Sylvester Stallone, Tommy Lee and Usher.

“Basically, the criticism is gone. Now, people start focusing on the actual art work,” said Barth, whose Starlight Tattoo empire is based in Rochelle Park. “And so, this is a new era for tattooing design.”.

Mona Satter, manning the booth for Scott Hill Tattoos in Closter, agreed.

“I think it’s become a lot more mainstream, much more acceptable,” said Satter, a graphic designer, as she watched husband Scott Hill tattooing a rhino on a man’s thigh. “You find pretty much everyone has something, even if it’s like the size of a quarter.”

Debbie Hansen of Paramus conceded there was a time when she would not have thought of getting a tattoo. But then, on a trip to Las Vegas, she stopped at one of Barth’s studios there and got a little butterfly tattooed near her waist.

“It was a spur of the moment thing,” said Hansen of that decision. “My husband and I had come [to the expo] last year, and he got a tattoo and now, my son’s being tattooed on the other side, at Starlight Tattoo.”

Kerry Fee of Bridgewater was among the undecided. She came to the expo with her husband, Brian, who was pushing their baby son, Easton, in a stroller.

“I might want to get something with his name on it,” she said of Easton. “I don’t know if I’d do anything big. I’m thinking small.”

Fee, whose husband already had a tattoo, says that what had thus far stopped her is the permanence. “I don’t want to get something that I’m gonna regret,” she said.

At the other end of the spectrum was “Inkman” Chris Baumann of Staten Island, the 80 percenter, whose face is covered with tattoos, including the image of Ben Franklin on his right cheek and Abraham Lincoln on his left..

“I started with little ones, but I owned a tattoo parlor, then I started getting tattoos,” said Baumann, whose favorite tattoo is the Pillsbury Doughboy that straddles his navel. “I’m still not done.”

In fact, he planned to have some more face work done at the expo.

According to Barth, the hottest trend today is “very large, colorful designs on females,” who now account for 55 percent of those who get tattoos.. “Females go very, very large. It’s not used anymore as a status symbol or a symbol of belonging. It’s used now to be an individual.”

Barth, 47, was born and raised in Austria, where, because they had been used to brand Jews, tattoos were banned after World War II. (He worked to get the law changed and opened the first legal tattoo studio in the country, he says.) He taught himself to tattoo at age 12, using a Bic pen, modified with three sewing needles, sewing thread, tape, candle wax and India ink.

Today’s tattoo artist has a limitless array of tools and ink colors.

“Up to about 12 years ago, there was only seven colors in the world of tattooing,” says Barth. “Today, we have 160, 170 – endless.”