Black and grey realism tattoo of a bearded man in a collared shirt and bow tie, on the outer upper arm.

Black and grey portrait of a bearded man on upper arm

Realism · Upper arm · Black and grey · Photo

The tattoo shows a bust-length portrait of a bearded man with short, swept-back hair, looking slightly to the side. The face is built from fine hatching and soft shading, with a finer engraved texture across the hair, beard and clothing. It is rendered entirely in black and grey ink against the skin, with the figure centred and a little of an older tattoo visible at the top right.

Realism Upper arm Portrait Man Beard Collar Bow tie

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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

The burin skidded on the fourth morning and cut a hair-thin line clean across the brow of the copper plate. Hollis Parr stared at it until his eyes watered, then swore softly, the way his father had sworn at bad weather. The commission was for Mr Ezra Bellwood, a wool factor from Halifax, who had paid in advance for a likeness fit to hang above his counting-house fire, and who had already sent his boy twice to ask whether the plate was finished.

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Hollis could not lift the line without taking the forehead with it, so he did what engravers have always done with their mistakes and worked around it. He deepened the hatching in the hair until the scratch vanished into the swept-back locks. He let the beard grow thicker, each stroke following the curl of wool he had studied for three evenings in a shop window. The collar, the lapels and the flat bow tie he cut with the same care he gave a banknote, because Bellwood was a man who checked the cut of a coat before he trusted the coat's owner.

When the first proof came off the press, Bellwood held it to the lamp for a long time. "You've given me a crease," he said. Hollis opened his mouth to apologise, but the factor was already smiling, a slow private smile that lifted one side of the beard. "Good. A man who has never been tested has no lines. I'll pay the balance on the condition that you leave it."

Hollis wrapped the copper in oiled cloth that evening and left the scratch where it was, a thin silver road running into the dark hair. Years later his daughter asked why every print from that plate seemed about to answer a question nobody had asked. He never corrected it. The line stayed, and the man in the portrait kept looking sideways at whoever stood in front of him.