Black and grey death's head hawkmoth tattoo with shaded wings and a skull-like marking on the thorax, placed on the forearm.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Death's head hawkmoth on a forearm

Traditional · Forearm · Black and grey · Photo

A death's head hawkmoth is tattooed on the outer forearm, with its wings spread diagonally across the skin and its long antennae curving towards the wrist. The design uses bold outlines and smooth grey shading, with banded abdomen segments and scalloped wing patterns rendered in tonal contrast. Only black and grey ink is used, and a partial botanical tattoo is visible at the top right edge of the frame.

Traditional Realism Forearm Moth Skull Wing Antennae

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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 Ada, the moth came in through the lamp-room door on Tuesday, the morning the men were stood in line for their checks. Nobody else noticed it. It sat on the shelf among the brass tallies with its wings folded like a tent, and that marking on its back, the grinning skull made of dust, sent young Frank Pryce straight out into the yard to be sick. His mother had told him at four that those moths carry death in their bellies. I told him to stop being soft, and then I found I couldn't look at it either.

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Dad went down at six as usual. He took the lamp off its hook, checked the wick, and never once glanced at the shelf. I watched him go past the winding gear with his shoulders loose, the way he walks when he isn't thinking of anything, and I said the old prayer Mam used on Sundays, without quite meaning it.

Thursday the cage came up with news of a roof-fall. Two men hurt, neither of them Dad. Frank's mother came round with a pie she hadn't eaten herself and sat in our kitchen saying nothing. The moth was still on the shelf. Nobody had dared move it.

So I did. I put a jam jar over it, slid a card underneath, and carried it to the back step. When I lifted the card it was already dead, dry as a leaf. Its wings had the same scalloped edges as the lace on Mam's good collar, and the skull on its back looked less like a warning and more like a face that had been tired a long time. I pinned it in the tin beside your birthday ribbon. Dad's back with us tonight. Come home at Christmas if you can. Love, Nell