Black tribal-style guitar tattoo with swirling body ornaments and a looped neck, on the inner forearm.

Black guitar tattoo on a forearm

Blackwork · Forearm · Black and grey · Photo

A black ink guitar design sits on the inner forearm, with a scrolled headstock at the top and a neck of small loops running down to a body made of bold swirls and curved flourishes. The shapes use solid black fills and fine detail, with some soft grey shading in the body. The tattoo is centred on the arm against a dark red background and a blurred skin tone at the edges of the frame.

Blackwork Forearm Guitar Music Swirl

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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 guitar came up the stairs of Ferncliff House on the back of an unpaid week, and Mrs Ostler dropped it on your bed with the rent book tucked under the strap. "He's not coming back for it," she said. "Sell it or learn it, I don't mind which, so long as the sheets are clean by Friday." Outside, the wind off the bay rattled the sash as if it wanted in.

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You knew no chords. The body was black and heavy, cut with swirls that curled like smoke off a struck match, and the neck ran up in a row of small looped knots that snagged your thumb whenever you shifted. At the top sat a scroll as tight as a fern. Each night, after the last guest had gone up, you carried it down to the sea wall and coaxed out something that was not a cat in a bin.

Mr Halloran, who mended nets on the slipway and had no interest in you whatsoever, started sitting on the bench beside you. He never spoke until your fingers hit a clean note, then he grunted and tapped the third loop from the top. "Count the knots," he said once. "Each one's a bar. Don't rush the swirls. That's where the sea gets in." You didn't understand him for a fortnight, and then you did.

By the last week of October you could play the tune he hummed, badly at first, then with the slow lift he gave it. On the final night Mrs Ostler stood on the stairs with a tea towel over her shoulder, listening to the whole thing through. When it finished she said nothing about Friday. She just went down to the kitchen and left the light on for you.