Colour tattoo on the upper chest of a beetle in an ornate brown oval frame, flanked by two pink roses and set on a teal swirl pattern.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Beetle in a framed cameo with roses on the chest

Neo-trad · Chest · Colour · Photo

A green beetle with golden wings sits at the centre of an ornate brown oval frame on the upper chest. Two pink roses with green leaves flank the frame, and a pale teal swirl pattern fills the background inside the frame. The shading is smooth and detailed, with saturated colour dominating the design against the lighter skin.

Neo-trad Chest Beetle Frame Rose Leaves Swirl Cameo

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 beetle had been dead nine days when Mr Pell finally let me touch it, and he watched my fingers the whole time as though I might pocket one of its legs. Its wings were the colour of weak tea held to a window, and the green of its back, when the lamp caught it, looked wet even though it had been dry since June.

Keep reading

Mrs Ashcombe wanted it set in the oval frame her late husband had bought in Florence, the gilt flaking at the crest like pastry. She had no interest in science. She wanted the thing to look as if it had flown into a painting and decided to stay. 'Put roses either side,' she said, 'the pink ones from the wall at Hollin Row, so he can smell them if he likes.'

I painted the paper behind it with teal swirls, copying the wallpaper from the nursery that had never been used. Pell said that was sentimental and I agreed, because it was, and because the beetle looked less like a specimen with the swirls around it and more like a thing somebody had loved enough to keep.

When the frame went back to her, she held it up to the window and turned it slowly, and I saw the wings catch the light the way they had on that first morning. She did not ask what it cost. She only said, 'There, now he can't go anywhere,' and I understood that was the thing she had wanted all along.