Three-view photo of a full sleeve tattoo on an upper arm and forearm, showing a shaded grey dragon head at the shoulder with red blossom branches and smoke down the arm, in a Japanese style.

Dragon and cherry blossom full sleeve

Japanese · Shoulder · Mixed · Photo

The sleeve shows a large dragon head with open jaws and claws at the shoulder, with smoke and cloud forms wrapping down the upper arm. Lower on the forearm, a branch of red blossoms sits among grey smoke. The linework is fine and the shading is soft and detailed, with mostly grey and brown tones and red accents. Three angles of the same arm are shown side by side against a plain background.

Japanese Realism Shoulder Upper arm Forearm Dragon Claw Cherry blossom Smoke Cloud Flower

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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 canvas has been rolled up behind the bandstand since the war, and tonight Mr Pell wants it hung before the Saturday dance. You climb the step ladder with the cord between your teeth while the caretaker holds the bottom rung and grumbles that the dragon is worth more than the hall. Tomas Ishida painted it in 1938, a seaman off a freighter from Kobe who danced with your aunt once, badly, and then went back to sea with a sketchbook full of her hands.

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Unrolled, the dragon is still fierce. Its claws hook over the top of the proscenium and its open jaws look straight down at the floor, smoke curling from its mouth and rolling down into the cherry trees painted along the bottom edge. The paint has lost its shine but the reds still hold. You wipe the cloud forms with a damp cloth and find, under the left claw, a smudge of pencil that someone tried to rub away: For Ruth, who said the dragon would be bored in Liverpool.

You tie the top corners to the rail and feel the canvas drop into place, heavy and cool, the blossom branch stretching down past the lamps. Below you the band is tuning up, a clarinet sliding through the same three notes over and over. Mr Pell calls up that it looks grand and that you are to get down before you break your neck. You do not get down yet. You stay on the ladder and watch the first couples turn beneath the dragon's open mouth, the light catching the petals, and somewhere near the back a man in a demob suit laughs at something his partner has said, the way Tomas must have laughed, once, before the sea took him.