Colour tattoo of a red-haired cartoon mermaid with a green tail and a yellow fish beside her, surrounded by blue bubbles, on a lower leg.

Cartoon mermaid and fish with bubbles on a leg

Traditional · Calf · Colour · Photo

A red-haired cartoon mermaid in a shell top sits with a green fish tail, and a yellow fish with blue fins swims beside her. Blue bubbles rise around the figures against the pale skin, with a dark background behind the leg. Bold dark outlines and smooth colour blends give the piece a bright, cartoon-like finish.

Traditional Calf Mermaid Fish Bubble Cartoon character Tail

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

Rain had been coming off the harbour since six, and by eight Mags Doherty had given up on the awning. Her fish stall at Saltgate market sat under a sheet of dripping plastic, and the only sale all morning was a bag of cod heads to a one-eyed cat. Ruth had taken the van to the cash-and-carry, leaving Mags in charge of the crabs, the ice, and the painted sign.

Keep reading

The sign was older than either of them. It hung above the scales on a board of faded blue, showing a mermaid with bright red hair and a tail the colour of sea glass, grinning down at customers who never bought enough. Mags had long ago stopped expecting it to do anything. Down in the drainage tub, a fat yellow bream called Dennis had been living since he wriggled out of a crate of mackerel three winters back, and nobody else seemed to think that was strange.

At half eleven the mermaid sighed. Mags nearly dropped a crab. "Don't look at me like that," the painted figure said, one hand on her hip, the other fluttering at a passing gull. "I've been stuck above mackerel since nineteen seventy-one. Do you know what a fish thinks passes for romance?" Dennis blew a stream of bubbles that rose past the ice and popped against the plastic. "Bream," said the mermaid. "Don't encourage him."

So Mags, who had never believed in anything but tide tables and the price of hake, unhooked the sign, carried it through the rain, and propped it against the harbour wall where the water came up green and loud. The mermaid kicked her tail and shrieked with delight. Dennis slipped off the edge of the tub and was gone without a splash. Mags went home, dried her hands, and found the sign back on its hook the next morning, with a smear of blue paint along one fin, as if someone had swum straight into it.