Black and grey realistic wing tattoo covering the upper arm and shoulder blade, photographed with the arm raised and the back turned to the camera.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Black and grey wing across upper arm and back

Realism · Upper arm · Black and grey · Photo

A large feathered wing fills the upper arm and extends onto the shoulder blade, with individual feathers and layered plumage rendered in smooth shading. Curling swirl linework sits near the shoulder, and a second swirl appears lower on the back. The image is in black and grey only, with soft grey backdrop and natural skin tones.

Realism Upper arm Shoulder Back Wing Feather Swirl

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 Lark Fair came to the water meadows below Thornwick every September, the same week the swifts left the church roof. It had three rides that squeaked, a tent with a two-headed calf that was really two calves sewn into one sack, and a woman named Mags Tennant who sold tea from an urn on a cart. Nobody knew where she slept. The children said she kept a wing in her trunk.

Keep reading

Ansel Broke was eleven and believed nothing grown people told him, so he waited until the fair was packing up and lifted the lid while she counted coins by the fire. The wing was folded longer than a door and grey as a rain cloud, its quills ridged like the inside of a shell. It was warm. When he touched the top feather it lifted his hand, gently, the way a dog nudges a stranger, and he heard wind in a place where there was no wind.

She did not shout. She said the wing had come off a boy who had asked the sky too many questions, and that it would fit anyone willing to be carried by something larger than themselves. Ansel asked whether it would take him over the hills to the sea. She said it would take him wherever he was already going, and that most people found this a poor bargain. He tried it on anyway, stood on the cart wheel, and felt the weight settle across his back like a wet coat, heavy and then not.

He did not fly that night. He stood in the field until dawn with the wing spread over the grass, and in the morning he folded it back into the trunk and went home for his breakfast. Mags watched him go and said nothing. On the step of the cart a single grey feather lay where he had stood, and she picked it up, tucked it into her hat band, and called the horses on.