Black and grey realism tattoo of a white bull terrier's head on an arm, shown beside a reference photo of the dog.

Bull terrier portrait on a forearm

Realism · Forearm · Black and grey · Photo

A split image pairs a studio photograph of a white bull terrier wearing a dark blue collar with a close-up of a tattoo of the same dog's head on an arm. The tattoo uses soft grey shading and fine detail for the eyes, nose and ears, with a dark background behind the head. The skin tones and shading are blended smoothly, and the tattoo fills most of the right-hand frame.

Realism Forearm Dog Animal portrait

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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

Tobin came down the slipway every morning at six, white as a gull's belly, ears up as if the tide had said something he wanted to hear. Dad said he was the only dog in Porthlew who never barked at the boats, only at the gulls, and only when they had something of ours in their beaks. He wore a blue collar Mum bought off the market in Penzance, and he would sit with his back to the chandlery door and wait for my uncle Ray's boat to come round the breakwater.

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The February Ray went out and had not come back by dark, the whole harbour stood on the wall with torches. Mum made tea nobody drank. Tobin would not come up the steps. He stayed on the bottom rung with his nose to the black water, not moving, not even when the lifeboat horn sounded twice across the bay. I sat beside him in my wet coat and he leaned his whole warm weight into my knees, the way a dog does when he has decided you are the thing he means to hold onto.

The Marigold came in at half past two on one engine, with Ray swearing at the mooring warp. Tobin was first off the steps. He put his front paws on the gunwale as if he had been waiting all along to be proven right, and Ray laughed until he coughed.

Years on, Ray had a drawing made of Tobin's face in soft grey, against a sky the colour of wet slate. I asked why he hadn't wanted colour. He said the harbour was never colour after dark, and a dog who waits is always in the half light anyway.