Colour tattoo of a patterned feather and arrow in teal, purple and grey linework on the side of a thigh.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Feather and arrow on a thigh

Neo-trad · Thigh · Colour · Photo

A vertical arrow with a dark grey shaft and metal-style tip runs diagonally across the skin, with a feather at the top in teal, purple and grey. The feather has fine ornamental linework and stippled detail in its grey sections, while the teal and purple panels are solid and shaded. The tattoo sits centrally on a pale background of skin with dark fabric at the edges of the frame.

Neo-trad Thigh Feather Arrow Ornament Pattern

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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 arrow has gone into the lavender bed again, and you crouch among the stems with the dew soaking through your knees. Your aunt Maud calls from the terrace that the target is on the far side of the lawn, not in her borders, and you pretend not to hear. The shaft is still humming faintly where it struck the old greenhouse frame. Its tip has bent a little, the metal filigree crumpled like tin foil.

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The feather on it was meant to be a jay's, or at least it looked like one when you bought the flights from the market stall in Ludlow. Last summer you worked the grey panels yourself with a dressmaker's pin and a jar of Indian ink, stippling the barbs until they looked like frost on a window. The teal and violet you painted on in the potting shed, letting the colour bleed toward the quill. Maud said it was a waste of a whole afternoon. You still think she was wrong.

You pull the arrow free, and the feather comes away whole. Turn it in the light and the ornament shows itself: dotted rings running up the spine, little swirls like the ones on the chapel tiles at Hallow Cross. You never told her you copied them from a rubbing you made on the church steps. You suspect she knew anyway.

You walk back across the wet grass with the arrow balanced on your shoulder like a rake. At the terrace you hold it up. Maud studies the feather for a long moment, then the bent tip, then you. She says it can be hammered straight by Sunday. Behind her the sundial keeps its patient count, and for once you are not late for anything.