Black and grey tattoo on an upper arm and shoulder showing a chess piece with chains, tentacle-like linework and mechanical gears.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Chess piece and chains on upper arm

Upper arm · Black and grey · Photo

A black and grey tattoo covers the upper arm and shoulder, with a chess piece at the centre holding a blade. Chains and tentacle-like forms wrap around the piece, and mechanical gear shapes sit beneath it. The shading is smooth and the linework is bold, with the design filling the frame against a dark green background.

Upper arm Shoulder Sword Chain Tentacle Gear Mechanical

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

Don't look at the water yet, I haven't got to the bit with the bishop. Sit where the lamp can reach you, and hush, because the sea listens. Every winter in Scarrow Bay the thing came up beneath the breakwater, all arms and suckers, and tried to drag the harbour chains down into the dark. The council could neither shoot it nor shift it, so they made a wager instead.

Keep reading

Old Abel Reddy, the clockmaker, was sent for. He built a bishop from brass and gearwheels, with a tin-bright blade in one hand and a face like a drowned saint, and he set it on a table at the end of the quay. No living man would sit across from a thing with that many arms, so the bishop played for the town. Each time it moved, its works ticked loud enough to hear over the surf.

The thing lost. It lost game after game, and with each loss a chain slid off its body and sank back into the harbour mud. On the last night the bishop did not take the queen. It raised its blade, cut the final chain clean through, and walked off the quay into the black water, gears grinding, until the tick faded under the swell.

Come morning, the fishermen found the chains coiled on the slipway, every link stamped with a tiny wheel. The sword stood upright in the wet stone, still ticking, and it still does, if you put your ear to it on a quiet night. Go on, then. Mind the slip.