Black and grey tattoo on the inner forearm and wrist showing silhouetted bats, a shaded moon and clouds, with a black cat sitting at the lower edge.

Bats, moon and black cat on a forearm

Blackwork · Forearm · Black and grey · Photo

The tattoo shows several solid black bat silhouettes in flight, a soft grey-shaded moon and wisps of cloud behind them, and a black cat sitting upright near the wrist. The bats are crisp filled shapes, while the moon and clouds are softly graded with grey wash. The image is a close view of the inner forearm and hand against a red top and a wooden floor, with the tattoo centred on the forearm.

Blackwork Forearm Bat Moon Cat Cloud

Find an artist for this

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 coach stopped at the crossing a little after nine, and the cat in Marta's lap began to hum the way it did before thunder. She kept one hand flat on the carrier and watched the guard come down the aisle, his torch beam sliding over sleeping heads and the rain-streaked glass. Outside, the frontier lights made a hard white square in the dark, and above them something small and fast flicked across the sky, then another, then a dozen.

Keep reading

"Passport," the guard said, not looking up. He was young, with a cold sore on his lip and a biro tucked behind one ear. He read her name twice, then the photograph, then her face. "Anything to declare?" She shook her head. "Only Gran's cat. She wanted it to come home." He tapped the carrier with his knuckle. "Animal papers?" She had none, only a folded note from a vet in a town that had since been renamed, and the guard's mouth tightened the way mouths do when paperwork looms.

He lifted the carrier's latch. The cat did not run. It stepped out onto the seat, sat upright with its tail wrapped neatly round its feet, and stared at the guard with yellow eyes, the way a cat stares at a man who has forgotten what he came for. The torch wavered. "Go on, then," he said quietly, and handed back the passport without a stamp.

Outside, the bats were still wheeling above the fence, black cut-outs against a moon that had slipped free of its cloud. The cat leapt down, padded to the window and watched them climb over the wire and out across the field, where the line on the map meant nothing at all.