Neo-traditional colour tattoo of a death's-head moth with a red gemstone on its body and a dark scrollwork frame, placed on the thigh.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Death's-head moth with a red gem on thigh

Neo-trad · Thigh · Colour · Photo

A death's-head moth sits at the centre of the tattoo, with a faceted red gemstone on its thorax and dark, shaded wings edged in pink and yellow. An ornate black and grey scrollwork frame with curled tendrils sits behind and beneath the moth. Bold outlines and saturated colour give the piece a neo-traditional look, and the design fills the upper thigh.

Neo-trad Thigh Moth Gemstone Scrollwork

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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 Iris, the moth came out of the cocoon on Tuesday while I was stood on the chair fixing the blind, and I nearly came off the thing. You'll laugh, but it went straight for the lamp in the back room and then sat on the frame of Mother's mirror like it owned the place. Dad says it's only a death's-head, that they come in with the potatoes from over the water and mean nothing by it. He'd know, he's the one who reads the almanac aloud at breakfast whether we ask or not.

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I took the red glass from the bottom of the button tin, the one from your grandmother's brooch that snapped, and I pressed it into the cardboard frame I'd cut from the Christmas box, the one with the holly edge. Then I put the whole arrangement on the windowsill and drew the curls round it in pencil, the way the ironwork looks on the gate of the Co-op. Mrs Pryce saw it through the glass and said I'd make a poor sort of Christian and a good sort of thief, which I suppose is fair.

What I want to tell you is that when I came down this morning it had gone from the mirror. The window was shut. The gem was still on the sill, though, sitting where the moth had been, and it caught the light the whole way across the kitchen like it was pleased with itself. I've kept it. Don't tell Dad. Write soon and tell me what the dance was like, and whether Ray Coughlin finally asked you or only stared at your shoes again.

Your loving sister, Peg.