Black and grey realism style tattoo of an eye within a pyramid and sunburst inside a circular coin-style border with lettering, on the back of a hand, with a tattooed forearm above.

Eye in pyramid coin design on hand

Realism · Hand · Black and grey · Photo

The tattoo covers the back of the hand and shows an eye within a triangular pyramid, with a radiating sunburst behind it and a ground line below. A circular border with a scrolled pattern carries the words GRIND HARD, STAY HUMBLE and SELF MADE. The shading is soft and detailed in greys and blacks, with the forearm above showing a further tattoo of carved-looking faces.

Realism Hand Forearm Eye Pyramid Sunburst Coin Lettering Face

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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

Mr Okafor never let the apprentices touch the eye. He cut the pyramid's sides himself, then the sunburst in rays so fine that the lamp had to be pulled down to the bench, and only at the end did he take up the small bright point and sink the pupil. Ruth, who had swept the shavings for three years, asked him once why the eye came last and not first. He said an eye should be the last thing anyone looks at and the first thing they remember.

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The job came in on a Thursday from a man who wanted a commemorative token for his mother's shop, something to sit under the till. He wanted GRIND HARD cut around the rim, then STAY HUMBLE, then SELF MADE, in letters that would not wear down. Okafor measured the blank twice, then said the brass was too soft for lettering that size and sent Ruth to the cupboard for the hardened steel. She found it wrapped in a folded trade paper, and under the paper a second die already engraved: the same pyramid, the same sunburst, but the rays running the wrong way and the letters reading backwards from the centre out.

She held it up to the window. Through the reversed lines the eye looked straight back at her, and it was the only thing in the room that was not a mirror. Okafor came over, took it from her and turned it once in his fingers. 'My father cut that,' he said. 'For a man who wanted to be certain nobody copied his money. Then the man died and nobody came for it.' He wrapped it up again. 'Strike the token from the good die, Ruth. The old one only shows you what the world looks like from the other side.'