Full-colour tattoo of a red-haired cartoon mermaid with a purple shell top and green tail, sitting on coral, on the outer thigh.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Cartoon mermaid on a thigh

Thigh · Colour · Photo

A red-haired cartoon mermaid in a purple shell top sits on a rock beside small red coral and green seaweed. The tail is shaded in teal and green, with soft blended tones and clean outlines across the figure. The design fills the frame against pale skin, with blue-green water tones behind the figure.

Thigh Mermaid Red hair Coral Seaweed Tail Shell Sea Cartoon character

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Nell had been on the cut since Tuesday, and the lock at Stoke Hythe had already cost her two hours and most of her temper when the boy from the next boat leaned over the rail and announced that the mermaid was lonely.

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"She's sitting on a rock," he said. "Rocks are hard. She needs some weed."

Nell looked down at the cabin side, where she had painted the mermaid that morning in teal and a bright red hair the drizzle hadn't reached yet. The paint was still tacky. She had meant it as a sea-bed scene for her sister's birthday boat, a bit of nonsense for a dull stretch of water, but the boy had a point about the rock.

So she mixed a green she called Pondweed, and the boy came back with a jam jar of tiny red coral he had fished out from under the lock gates. The two of them spent the afternoon arguing about fins. By the time the sun slid behind the poplars, the mermaid had a lilac shell top catching the last of the light, and the water behind her looked deeper than the cut ever had.

The boy asked whether she would ever swim off. Nell said no, she was a painting, and paintings stayed where they were put. He nodded as though that were a sensible answer, then ran back along the towpath to his mother's boat. When Nell switched off the lamp she could still see the mermaid through the cabin window, her tail curled round the rock as if she had only paused.