Black and grey realism tattoo of a bearded classical bust wearing a ribbed beanie, placed on the forearm.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Bearded classical bust in a beanie on a forearm

Realism · Forearm · Black and grey · Photo

A classical stone bust of a bearded man wearing a ribbed knit beanie with a triangular emblem on its front is shown on the inner forearm. The piece is rendered in fine engraved-style linework and dense hatching, with detailed shading on the brow, nose, cheeks and flowing beard. The image is entirely black and grey against a dark background, and the composition fills the frame with the bust slightly angled.

Realism Forearm Statue Beard Man

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

Nobody on the fish quay ever agreed on the bust's name. Bert called him Socrates because Socrates was the only Greek Bert had heard of, and the Dutchman who ran the chandlery swore he was Homer, blind and bearded, knocked off a temple wall in Smyrna. What we knew for certain was that he had come off a salvage barge in 1964 with his nose chipped and his eyes rolled up at the gulls, and that he had never once looked at anybody who was talking to him.

Keep reading

Then came the winter the Sallow Rose went down off the Dogger, and the skipper's wife knitted a hat for every man on the next crew. Ribbed, grey, with a little triangle sewn on the front for the company badge. Four were left over after the men signed on. Mrs Ferris put one on the bust out of pity, mostly so he would stop looking so cold at the back of the net loft.

Nobody took it off him. Over the years it went grubby and then soft, and one side of the triangle came unpicked so it hung like a flap. Men coming in off the night tide would touch his brim for luck, the way you'd touch a rail. Bert said that was the only religion the harbour ever had.

When the council sold the loft in March, the auctioneer crated the bust and nobody stopped the van. A postcard reached the chandlery a month later from a city I won't name, showing a stone head in a museum window. Same nose. Same chipped brow. The hat still on, the loose corner of the triangle still dangling, as if someone over there had decided he should keep it. Bert read it twice, said, well, he's finally been noticed, and went back to counting rope.