Black fine line compass rose with a fleur-de-lis top and a sketched anchor linked by a thin line, on the inner forearm.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Compass and anchor on a forearm

Fine line · Forearm · Black and grey · Photo

A black ink compass rose with a fleur-de-lis point sits above a thin single line that runs down to a shaded anchor near the wrist. The compass has fine radiating lines, a ringed dial and small dotted splatter, while the anchor uses loose hatched shading. The tattoo is shown in black ink only against pale skin on a plain white background.

Fine line Dotwork Forearm Compass Anchor Fleur-de-lis Compass rose Line

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

Dear Oskar, The survey drone came back off the Cold Reach yesterday with its lens full of silt, and I have spent two nights trying to make its readings agree with your grandmother's paper chart. They do not agree. The rose is still where she drew it, the fleur-de-lis pointing north over the old ferry road, but the line she ruled from the centre runs straight down into the water and stops at a shape the drone calls debris and I am calling an anchor.

Keep reading

Nobody on the Harrow Deep has seen a real anchor since the second drowning year. Our ships were built to be lowered and never raised. Still, the hatching on the thing is careful, the way a hand works when it has nothing else to do but keep a line steady. I think someone sketched it on the chart by lamp light and then forgot to rub it out.

I took the boat out at dawn with the chart folded inside my coat. I followed the ruled line by the sun and by the pale ring of the rose on the water, rings spreading from its centre as if someone had just dropped a stone. The anchor was exactly where the line said. Rust had taken most of the shank, but the ring at the top was still whole, and tied through it was a length of brass wire wound around a folded square of paper that has not yet dissolved.

I have not opened the paper. I wanted to tell you first, in case you want to be the one who does. Bring the good knife and the wax. Tell your mother the needle still points north, even if it is the only thing that does.