Colourful realistic tattoo of a hot air balloon made of butterflies with fine black rope lines, on a person's upper back near the shoulder blade.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Butterfly hot air balloon on upper back

Realism · Back · Colour · Photo

A hot air balloon formed from a cluster of many butterflies in blues, greens, oranges, pinks and purples, with fine black lines descending to a brown basket at the bottom. The butterflies are shaded with soft gradients and detailed wing patterns, and the balloon fades into darker teal and brown tones. The design sits centrally on the upper back, with the subject's head and face outside the frame.

Realism Back Butterfly Hot air balloon Basket Rope Wing

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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

Dear Tom, the 4.10 is late again, so I have the waiting room to myself and the stove is going, which is more than the timetable deserves. I am writing because you will not believe what came over the platform this afternoon.

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It was a balloon, but not one of the striped sort the fair brings. It was made of butterflies. Hundreds of them, blue and green and an orange like marmalade held up to the window, all clustered together in a bulge the size of a haycart. Underneath hung a little wicker basket with a man in a waistcoat leaning over the side. Mr Pell said the travelling show had been trying to get it off the ground since Michaelmas. Black threads ran down from the wings to the basket, and the whole thing hung over the cattle pens as if it had forgotten what it was for.

Then the man tipped a gauze bag over the rim and the butterflies lifted the way a crowd lifts when someone shouts fire, all at once and every which way. I thought they would scatter over the downs. Instead they circled the water tower twice and went north in one ragged line toward the Lincoln road, the basket sinking a little lower with every mile, until the last of the blue ones were only a smudge against the hedges.

I haven't had your reply, so I suppose the letter went astray again. Write when you can. Mr Pell says he will hold the 4.10 for you if you ever turn up on it.