Black and grey dotwork and geometric tattoo on an upper arm showing a classical bust with flames, a galaxy band across the eyes and a single tear.

Classical bust with flames on upper arm

Dotwork · Upper arm · Mixed · Photo

A classical stone-style bust with a moustache and a tear below one eye sits on the upper arm, with flames rising from its head and a galaxy-filled band covering the eyes. Fine engraved hatching and stippling shade the face and drapery, while faceted geometric shards and dotted triangle lines extend around the design. Orange and yellow ink appears in the flames and the galaxy band, with the rest in black and grey.

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

Mind the step, that third flagstone rocks, and don't lean on the urn, it was my grandfather's and it has opinions. Now. You've come about the head in the box hedge, the one with the moustache. Everyone does. Old Mr Lacey, who had the house before the war, used to say it had been a senator, or a bishop, or a baker who lied about his bread, depending on the year and how much cider he'd had.

Keep reading

The truth is plainer and sadder. A carver from Lucca came up the drive in the summer of 1911 with a block of pale stone and a commission to make a likeness of Lacey's son, who had gone into the sea off the Cornish coast and not come back. The carver worked six weeks. On the last morning he struck the stone once too hard, and a crack ran through the brow. Lacey, half mad with the telegram still in his coat, had the bust dragged to the bottom lawn and set alight with the hedge clippings, so the grief would burn out of it. It did not burn out. The stone blackened and the flames went up through the crack as if they had somewhere else to be.

Night came, and a sky settled over its eyes, the soot lifting into a band of cinders that glowed like the Milky Way seen from a boat. Every morning after that, the carver came back with his folding rule and measured the pieces that had fallen from the brow. He never finished. The gardeners and I have counted them since: twelve shards, sharp as cut paper, laid out on the gravel in a loose triangle, as though somebody meant to build a house out of them and kept losing the plan.

So mind the step on your way out. If you see a tear on that cheek, don't wipe it. The rain puts it there, mostly.

More like this

Black and grey engraving-style tattoo of a headless gentleman in a suit with a question mark on his chest, with a floating head in a top hat above, on a forearm.
Headless gentleman with floating head
Black and grey dotwork tattoo on an upper arm and shoulder showing a whale tail above a man in profile with a moustache, with a bearded man in the waves.
Whale tail and face in the sea on upper arm
Black and grey realism tattoo of a man's face split into angled panels with a cigarette, on the inside of a forearm.
Fractured male portrait on a forearm
Black and grey sketch-style tattoo of a face with tousled hair and clasped hands on the forearm.
Sketched portrait and hands on forearm
Black and grey realism tattoo of a moustached man's face covering the back of a hand, with a second face-like shape above the knuckles.
Moustached man portrait on the back of a hand
Colour realism portrait tattoo of a man in yellow aviator glasses with a cigarette in his mouth, on the inner forearm, with ink drips above and below the face.
Colour portrait of a man in yellow aviator glasses
Black and grey sketch-style tattoo of a woman's face and hand with a fan-shaped motif, running down the upper arm.
Sketched woman portrait and hand on arm
Fine line and dotwork tattoo on a calf showing a bearded face in a red dotted balloon, with a paper plane above and a small house with a red heart below.
Surreal balloon face and house on a calf
Sketch-style tattoo of a skull with a smoking pipe and grey smoke wisps, with orange wash shading, on the outer thigh.
Skull with pipe and smoke on a thigh
Traditional style tattoo of an orange campfire with flames, brown logs and grey stones on a forearm.
Campfire tattoo on a forearm
Black and grey bold-outline tattoo of a bob-haired woman in lightning bolt sunglasses and a leopard print cap holding a revolver, on the outer thigh.
Woman with revolver on thigh
Realistic tattoo of a man in a brimmed hat with his hands gripping dog tags on a beaded chain, shown in a close-up photograph.
Hands holding dog tags under a hat

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