Two raised hands show fine line black tattoos of faceted gemstones on the inner forearms near the wrists.

Faceted gem tattoos on both forearms

Fine line · Forearm · Black and grey · Photo

Two raised hands with dark nail polish are shown against a plain pale grey background. Clusters of faceted gemstone outlines are tattooed on the inner forearm of each arm, with the left arm showing a group of three to four stones and the right arm showing a row of three stones partly cut off at the edge. The linework is thin and uniform, with simple grey shading inside the facets and no colour ink.

Fine line Geometric Forearm Gem Crystal Gemstone Hand Nail polish

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

You are forty minutes into a stone that does not want to be cut. The lamp above the bench hums, and the wheel throws a fine grey dust across your sleeve. Outside, the shutters on Vellum Street are down, and the last tram has clanked past without you.

Keep reading

Your master, Halloran, used to say a rough crystal is a liar. It shows you one face and keeps the rest hidden. So you turn it on the dop, slowly, tilting it until the light catches the first facet, then the second. Every cut is a decision you cannot take back. You count the angles under your breath the way he taught you: forty-five, then the crown, then the table, and never hurry the last one.

Near two in the morning the stone gives. It splits clean along the cleavage, and you catch both halves before they reach the floor. One is a pointed teardrop, the other a squat lozenge. You hold them to the window, where the streetlight comes in orange, and for once the light passes through both and leaves again in a scatter of sharp little lines.

Before you sleep you sketch them on the back of an invoice, thin pencil, facet by facet, until you can no longer tell which is the stone and which is the drawing. In the morning the sheet goes to the tattooist on Crane Row, who asks you how many stones you want on the wrist. You tell him three, then four, then a fifth that you will not cut from anything, only draw.