Neo-traditional colour tattoo of an owl with pink flower eyes, purple and teal scale feathers and orange accents on a thigh.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Colourful owl tattoo on a thigh

Neo-trad · Thigh · Colour · Photo

A front-facing owl sits centrally on the skin, with pink flower-shaped eyes outlined in orange and a small orange beak. Its wings and body are filled with layered teal and purple scales, with orange and purple striped panels and small red and orange flowers on the wings. Bold black outlines and saturated colour give the piece a flat, graphic finish against the pale skin.

Neo-trad Thigh Owl Flower Scale Bird Feather

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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

The owl had been sitting on the lintel of the chapel in Harrowgate Bottom since before anyone in the village could remember, and nobody had ever seen her blink. Mrs Pargeter swore she had been painted there by the Victorians, but Dilys at the post office said her colours changed with the weather, teal in the wet and purple when the pit whistle went quiet on a Sunday.

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When the colliery closed, the men gathered outside the Miners' Welfare and argued about what would become of them. Tom Rudd, who had lost two fingers to a conveyor belt and gained a reputation for stubbornness, stood on the bench and declared that the owl had gone to fetch the money. Nobody believed him, but they stayed to listen anyway, because his voice carried and the evening was cold.

The next morning the owl was gone from the lintel. In her place, on the chapel step, sat a tin box with scales of teal and violet painted down its lid and a single orange beak stamped on the clasp. Inside were forty-two pounds, a ration book from 1947 and a note in careful capitals: TAKE THE TRAIN TO THE CITY AND ASK FOR A JOB WITH YOUR HANDS. Tom read it twice, then looked up at the empty stone where she had been, and found he could not tell whether he was relieved or sorry.