Black and grey dotwork tattoo of an animal skull with two roses, leaves and a triangle, on the outer thigh.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Animal skull and roses on a thigh

Dotwork · Thigh · Black and grey · Photo

A black and grey tattoo of an animal skull, possibly a cat or fox, sits at the centre with two shaded roses on either side and a line of leaves below the jaw. The linework is bold and clean, and the shading is built from stippled dots, most visible in the rose petals and the eye sockets. A thin outlined triangle sits above the skull, and the design fills the frame against a plain dark background and a white brick wall.

Dotwork Blackwork Botanical Thigh Skull Animal skull Rose Leaves Triangle Chain Dot

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Take it to an artist as a reference. A good artist will make it yours rather than copy someone else's tattoo.

A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The cake is already cut when your uncle Ray starts the fox story again, and by the third telling nobody at the long table pretends to listen. You sit between a bridesmaid who cried through the vows and a stranger from the groom's side who keeps topping up your glass. Across the marquee your sister laughs with her head back, the way she did before, and you decide today is not the day to correct the details.

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You remember the skull in the biscuit tin under the stairs, wrapped in a tea towel that smelled of paraffin. Your grandmother said it came out of the hedge at the bottom of Coldharbour Lane the winter the vixen had her cubs, and that a skull keeps the shape of whatever it was trying to say. Her roses climbed the back wall with greenfly on every bud, and she pruned them with the same grim care she gave everything else.

When the band starts up, the best man finds you by the gate holding that same tea towel. Your grandmother's initials are still stitched in red in the corner. He says it turned up in the bric-a-brac pile and he thought you would want it. Inside, the skull has been rewrapped so neatly that someone must have opened it with patience and put it back exactly as it was.

You lift the cloth. The sockets are still dark with old soot, and on the lid, under the lamp, you can make out the triangle she drew in biro, the one she said kept the cold out. The bride has been watching you across the lawn for some time, waiting to see whether you will ask her to dance or take this out to the car park. You choose the car park. Halfway down the gravel you stop under the lamp and tell the skull, quietly, that the roses are still climbing.