Black and grey realism tattoo of a bearded figure with a radiating halo and a spread-winged dove on an upper arm.

Bearded figure with halo and dove on upper arm

Realism · Upper arm · Black and grey · Photo

A realistic black and grey portrait of a long-haired, bearded figure in a robe, framed by a halo with radiating ray lines. A dove with outstretched wings sits below the figure, rendered with fine shading and soft grey tones. The photo is taken close up at an angle, with the arm filling the frame and a blurred background.

Realism Upper arm Halo Dove Portrait Robe Sunburst

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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

Dear Nell, the big top has been grey with rain since Tuesday, and Mr Ansell has me repainting the sunburst board over the Wall of Death, because the last coat ran into the rays and made them look like a sick sun. I'm writing from the back of the lorry with the paint tins for a pillow. Don't laugh.

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You'll want to know about the old man at Hartlepool. He came to the booth on the last night of the season with a folded photograph of a carving in his coat and asked me to make his own face look like it. I told him I paint signs, not saints. He said a sign is only a saint that hasn't been asked yet.

So I did it in grisaille, the way Dad taught me for the cinema posters: no colour, just the greys doing the work. The hair took three days. The beard I kept soft, because he said his wife liked it soft. The halo I drew with a compass and a ruler, every ray the same width, and I could hear the generator humming outside the whole time. When I finished, he sat with his eyes shut, then opened them and looked at the dove I'd set low on the board. He said he'd never seen one with its wings open like that, as if it were landing or leaving, and he couldn't tell which.

He paid me in shillings, every one of them, and asked me to keep the board when the fair moves on. I've nailed it inside the lorry door. When the wind comes off the sea it swings, and each time the light catches the rays I think of him counting them. Yours, Tom.