Colour Neo-trad tattoo of a smiling crescent moon with stars, swirls and purple petals on a teal background, placed on the upper back near the shoulder blade.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Crescent moon with stars and swirls on upper back

Neo-trad · Back · Colour · Photo

A crescent moon with a carved-looking human face sits at the centre, surrounded by small stars and curling swirls. The linework is dark and bold, with smooth gradients of yellow, teal, green and purple shading the moon, background and petal-like shapes. The design is roughly circular and filled edge to edge, sitting on the upper back.

Neo-trad Back Moon Crescent moon Face Star Swirl Petal

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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

Dear Nell, the moon's up again over the heap, fat on one side and thin as a paring on the other, and Mam swears it has been smirking at the Eldon pit since the day they sank it. You'd have laughed at her. She took the lamp out to the back step last night and told the crescent it was a liar, and then she went quiet, because the stars were out in their hundreds over the washing lines and it's hard to stay cross under that much sky.

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Sadly the lads have started on the green paint. Tom Ridley, who can't draw a straight line to save his life, has been painting a swirl of ivy and sparks on the wall of the chapel hall, and somebody dared him to put a face in the middle. He says he won't, the moon's too proud for a mouth, so the moon stays faceless in his version and Mrs Carr keeps tutting at it every Sunday.

Then the thing I actually wanted to tell you. Our Joe came off the early shift grey to the eyebrows last Thursday, and he sat on the step with his tin cup and looked up at the moon for an hour without saying a word. When he finally spoke it was only to say the thin edge was pointing at Ashington, the way it points home when you're far off. I didn't know what to say, so I said nothing, and we watched the smoke drift past the stars together.

Write soon, and tell me if Newcastle has a sky like ours or if it's all lamps and smoke. Your loving sister, Peg.