Black and grey dotwork tattoo of an exploded mechanical watch movement, with plates, wheels and screws linked by dotted lines, on the calf.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Exploded watch movement on a calf

Dotwork · Calf · Black and grey · Photo

An exploded view of a mechanical watch movement, with bridges, plates, balance wheels, gears and small screws floating in stacked layers. Fine linework outlines each component, and stippled dotwork shading gives the metal parts depth. Dotted vertical lines connect the layers, and the tattoo is in black and grey on the calf.

Dotwork Calf Gear Cog Dotted line Clockwork

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

Tuesday. Mr Ferrier had me take the Hallam pocket movement apart this morning, which he says is the only way an apprentice learns anything. Plate off, then the train wheels, then the balance cock, each part laid out on the green baize in the order it came out. He held the magnifier over it for a long while and said nothing, then said, 'Now you can see how it thinks.'

Keep reading

Wednesday. Could not sleep for the picture of it. In my head the layers float above the bench, screws climbing up through them like rungs, the wheels stacked like coins nobody has spent. I drew it again at lunch in the back of the ledger. Mr Ferrier caught me at it, didn't scold, just turned the page over and told me to draw the escape wheel properly, tooth by tooth, because a drawing is a promise you can check.

Friday. Found one screw short. Swept the floorboards twice, shook out the cloths, nothing. Mr Ferrier said the dotted lines in my drawing are where the screws should be if you follow them down, and that a movement remembers where every part was. I laughed. He didn't. We spent the afternoon on our knees with a torch, and at half past five I found it wedged in a crack under the radiator, bright as the day it was cut.

Saturday. Reassembled it. Four hours, one wrong pivot, one good tick. The widow from Leeds collects on Monday. Mr Ferrier wound it, held it to his ear, then passed it to me without a word. I've been listening to it since, and it sounds like something that knows exactly where every piece of itself belongs.