Compass rose and arrow design
Dotwork · Black and grey · Flash
A compass rose sits at the centre of a horizontal arrow, with the letters N, E, S and W marking the points. The compass ring and star are shaded with fine stippled dots, and the arrow fletching and ribbon flourishes are drawn in fine linework. The design is shown in black ink on plain white paper with no body part visible.
Find an artist for thisTake 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 brass compass on the wheelhouse of the Constance had swung a full point east since the fog came down, and Maud Ferrier would not let her brother trust it. 'Bell's out there somewhere,' Tom said, one hand on the spokes and the other wiping salt from the glass. 'Then we find the bell,' she said, and went forward with the bow line coiled over her shoulder.
Keep reading
Her father had taught her the old trick on this same stretch of Suffolk shingle. Shoot a fletcher's arrow from the end of the groyne, straight along the bearing of the harbour mouth, and bind its shaft with a length of red ribbon so the wind shows where it lands. Nobody in Lowestoft had ever asked where he learned it. He only said that a line you can see is worth three you have to guess at. His bow still hung in the net store, its string waxed against the damp.
She knelt on the wet planks, sighted down the shaft with the needle fixed in her head, and loosed. The ribbon unspooled behind the arrow like a kite tail, out through the grey, and somewhere beyond the sound a bell answered, thin and exactly where it should be.
Tom brought the boat in by that red ribbon at dusk, the cloth snagged on a bollard and stiff with brine. She hung it from the hook beside the compass where the needle could see it, and neither of them mentioned the arrow again.
More like this
From the plentytattoo archive, uploaded by a user. Is this your work? Ask for credit or removal.