Traditional colour tattoo on an upper arm showing a purple horse head, a cartoon figure with round glasses and a red scarf, and red and blue flowers.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Cartoon figure, horse and poppies on an arm

Traditional · Upper arm · Colour · Photo

A purple horse head with a yellow eye sits on the left of the design, beside a cartoon figure with round glasses, dark hair and a red scarf. Red poppies and blue flowers with green leaves fill the lower area and frame the composition. Bold black outlines and flat, saturated fills in purple, red, blue, yellow and green give the piece a classic traditional look.

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

On the island of Hallen, where there were more sheep than people and the ferry came twice a week when the wind allowed, a girl called Ilse Marr decided she would have a horse. Her mother said there was no grass for one. Her teacher said there was no room. Ilse said she would wait, and she wore her round spectacles and her red scarf every day to show she meant it.

Keep reading

The horse came in March, after a gale. It was carved from bog oak the colour of a bruise, its head higher than the dune grass, and one eye was a yellow lens that had once belonged to the lighthouse on the Skerry. Ilse found it at low tide with its nose buried in the sand. She dug it out with a fish crate and a borrowed spade. When she asked its name, the horse said nothing, so she called it Thursday, because that was the day it had arrived.

Thursday ate poppies. Every evening Ilse picked one from the red patch above the kirk and held it under the horse's nose, and every morning the flower was gone and the horse had grown a little more solid, its legs thickening into the sand. The ferryman noticed the poppies were disappearing and blamed the goats. Ilse did not argue. Her grandmother had taught her that you do not tell a horse what it is owed. You only feed it and see what it carries.

By midsummer the horse had legs, and on the last night of June it lowered its head so she could climb on. They rode out past the Skerry, past the blue flowers of the sea pinks, while the lighthouse lens in its eye turned toward the mainland. Ilse came home at dawn with her scarf tied tight and her spectacles fogged, and the horse was standing by the kirk, eating the last poppy with great seriousness.

More like this

Traditional style tattoo of a smiling cartoon woman with glasses and pink flowers in her dark hair, on the forearm.
Cartoon woman with flowers in her hair
Colour traditional-style tattoo of a cartoon woman with glasses and a black bun, with a red banner reading UGHHH and flowers, on a calf.
Cartoon character with UGHHH banner on calf
Colour tattoo on a lower leg of a cartoon character with a dark bob haircut and glasses, framed by a wreath of blue leaves, in a traditional style.
Cartoon character in a blue leaf wreath on a calf
Traditional style colour tattoo of a cartoon head with glasses and a blue headscarf decorated with a pink rose, on the calf.
Cartoon head with rose headscarf on a calf
Traditional style tattoo of a nurse in profile wearing a cap and blue uniform, with a large red cross, shown on the upper arm.
Nurse portrait in profile on an arm
Colour traditional-style tattoo on a thigh showing a cartoon woman in a red polka dot bandana and glasses, flexing one arm in front of an orange sun, with a red rose below and a quote in black
Cartoon flexing woman and rose on a thigh
Traditional colour tattoo of a cartoon couple within a gold-edged heart frame with red roses, on the outer thigh.
Cartoon couple in heart frame on thigh
Colour tattoo of a cartoon character with black hair and glasses inside a pink and purple scalloped frame on the thigh, in a neo-traditional style.
Cartoon character portrait in a scalloped frame
Full colour tattoo of a woman in traditional dress holding a sword before mountains and flowers, across an upper arm and shoulder.
Warrior woman with sword on upper arm
Neo-traditional colour tattoo of a spray paint can with an eye and a dripping pink shape, beside orange and red roses with green leaves, on a lower leg.
Spray can and roses on a leg
Black and grey dotwork tattoo of two stylised figures embracing, with a large flower and leafy sprigs, on the upper thigh.
Two figures embracing with flowers on a thigh
Neo-traditional tattoo of a stylised bird with a crescent moon and diamond shapes on the inner forearm, in yellow, blue-grey and orange.
Stylised bird and crescent moon on a forearm

From the plentytattoo archive, uploaded by a user. Is this your work? Ask for credit or removal.