Bat emblem filled with three red roses
Traditional · Thigh · Colour · Photo
A bat-wing emblem outlined in heavy black ink holds three red roses with dark shading and white highlights. The teal background and yellow accents on the petals and leaves add colour. The emblem sits centrally across the frame on a light skin tone, with the bold outline giving it a clear, flat graphic shape.
Find an artist for thisTake 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 groom wants the bat dead centre on the sign, and you tell him the wings will need a steadier hand than yours on a wet Thursday. He laughs, then unfolds a beer mat with a biro sketch on it: a bat with its wings curled round three roses like cupped hands. Your job is to get it onto the board above the bar of the Fleece before Saturday, when half of Hebden Lane will watch Dana Pryce marry a man who still calls Batman his best mate.
Keep reading
You start with the teal, because teal is what makes it look like night. You mix it twice, then a third time when the first batch goes chalky under the strip light. The roses come last. Red on red is a trap, so you load the darks with plum and leave the highlights as bare board, the way your old master taught you, and you feel the brush go soft in your fingers the way it does when you are working on something that matters more than you let on.
On Saturday you climb the stepladder with a flask of tea wedged in your coat. The bride stands below in a cardigan, holding a cup, and looks up at the wings for a long time. She says the roses are the only sensible part of the whole arrangement, because they are the only bit anyone chose on purpose. You have no answer to that, so you hand her the brush and let her put the last yellow leaf on the left-hand rose herself.
More like this
From the plentytattoo archive, uploaded by a user. Is this your work? Ask for credit or removal.