Black and white photo of a hand-drawn crown above a grinning skull-like face tattoo on an upper arm, in a sketchy outline style.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Crown and grinning skull on upper arm

Upper arm · Black and grey · Photo

A black and white photograph of an upper arm showing two tattoos in simple black outline: a three-pointed crown at the top and a grinning skull-like face below it. The linework is loose and sketchy with no shading, and the background shows a denim jacket and a patterned black top.

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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 crown went up first, three points drawn in one wobbly pass while the bus idled at the stop on Rope Street. Marcus had the marker, Sal had the lookout, and I had the job of deciding whether a crown on a brick wall counted as art or just trespass with ambition. We settled on art because it was raining and nobody fancied the walk home.

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The skull was Sal's idea. He said every king needed a memento mori, a phrase he had read on the back of a record sleeve and was desperate to use. He drew it fast, grinning, with eyes like two hollow coins and a jaw that would not quite close. It looked less frightening than it should have, more like someone who had heard a bad joke and decided to enjoy it.

The next morning a woman with a spaniel stopped in front of the wall, laughed out loud, and photographed it on her phone. Marcus wanted to paint over it before the council did. I told him to leave it. The skull had come out looking happier than any of us, and I could not see the point of hiding a face that was clearly having a good time.

The bricks are a car park now. Sal still has the marker cap, chewed flat from years of thinking. When a bus pulls up at that stop, he taps the glass twice with one knuckle, the way you would greet a mate who once kept a secret for you.

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