Realistic colour tattoo of a grinning grey cat with blue eyes, wearing a green top hat with a pink band and a peacock feather, on a calf.

Cheshire Cat in a top hat on a calf

Realism · Calf · Colour · Photo

A grey cat with pale blue eyes and a wide toothy grin sits beneath a tall green top hat with a pink band and a peacock feather tucked into the side. The cat's fur is rendered with fine, soft shading and whiskers, while the hat has painterly swirls and a patterned sheen. Colour is used throughout, with the blues, greens and pinks standing out against a dark, softly lit background.

Realism Calf Cheshire cat Cat Top hat Peacock feather Smile Whiskers

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

Ward Seven at three in the morning has its own weather. The corridor lights sink to a tired amber, the drinks machine hums a note nobody asked for, and the old man in bed four has been asking since midnight whether the kettle is still on. It isn't. I tell him so, and he laughs as though I've made a joke at his expense, which I suppose I have.

Keep reading

His name is Mr Pilling, and he is convinced a grey cat sat on his windowsill during the evening round. Not any cat, he says, but one with a green top hat tipped at a dangerous angle and a peacock feather stuck in the band like a dare. It had a grin, he tells me, that stayed in the room after the rest of it had gone. I check his obs and tell him the only thing on that sill is the spider plant from the League of Friends. He looks at me over his glasses with the patience of a man who has been lied to by better liars than me.

Around half four he asks which way is home. I say the corridor, then the lifts, then the car park, and he shakes his head. Cats always know the other way round, he says. I don't argue. I pull the pink tartan blanket up to his chin and he closes his eyes, still smiling, as if he has been let in on something.

At seven the day staff arrive with their coats and their coffee. Bed four is stripped, the mattress wiped and dry. Caught in the folds of the blanket, I find a single peacock feather, its eye a bright green gone to gold at the edges. I hold it up to the window. In the glass, for a second, something grins back at me before the sun comes up and takes it away.