Black fine line tattoo of four crossed arrows with the Roman numerals XI, XXV and XII, on a forearm in a black and white photograph.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Crossed arrows with Roman numerals on a forearm

Fine line · Forearm · Black and grey · Photo

A black and white photograph of a forearm with a tattoo of four arrows crossing at a central point, with the Roman numerals XI, XXV and XII placed between the arrow shafts. The linework is thin and even in black ink, with small arrowheads and feathered fletching drawn in detail. The wrist is wrapped in a white dressing, and the background is dark grey.

Fine line Geometric Forearm Arrow Roman numeral Compass Cross

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

The cook of the Eliza Nairn kept her four arrows in a bucket beside the galley stove, fletched with gull feathers she had plucked from the rail herself. Her clock had gone over the side in the February gale, along with the second mate's hat and most of the biscuit, so each morning she told the hour by the shadow of the funnel and chalked it on the iron lid of the stove. XI for the first watch, XII for noon, and XXV for the day after, because the ship had lost hours in the storm and she refused to lose count with them.

Keep reading

Every dawn she loosed one arrow from the hatch, north, south, east, or west, and the crew wagered on where it would stick. The mate, Josiah Vell, bet on the shore every time and paid out in tins of pease every time. Nobody thought much of it until the morning the arrow flew south and did not come back. The boy who went looking found it in a cabin door on the Glenmore Quay, a day's sail the wrong way, with a ribbon knotted round the shaft.

The ship made harbour the next week. A woman in a grey shawl came down the gangplank asking who had been sending messages through her kitchen wall. The cook took the arrow from her, rubbed the chalk off the iron lid, and wrote one thing only, which was the name of the quay, and then she put the kettle on for two.