Four black and grey fine line tattoos of classical marble statue heads arranged in a grid on the outer thigh.

Four classical sculpture heads on a thigh

Fine line · Thigh · Black and grey · Photo

Four tattoos of classical sculpted heads with curly hair are arranged in a two by two grid on the outer thigh. The two upper designs are drawn in light sketch-like linework with visible construction lines, while the two lower designs use finer outlines with soft shading to suggest marble form. The image is in black and grey with a plain skin background and dark clothing and belt at the bottom edge.

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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

Sit yourselves down, the soup's still hot and I'll not be hurried by the best man. You want to know why old Tobias Penhale never married? I'll tell it the way my mother told it to me, under this same oak.

Keep reading

Tobias kept a workshop behind the church, where the bells came through the wall and the marble dust hung in the window light like flour. A house up the valley wanted a head copied, a young god with curls piled high and a mouth set hard against something he would not say. Tobias had only one cast to work from, grey with rain, and he did not trust his hand. So he drew it first, faint and wandering, ruling a line down the middle and across the brow the way the masters taught him.

He drew it three times more. Each sketch was closer and each one went under the rubber. His daughter Nell, fourteen and sharp as a tack, told him the god had stopped looking at the page by the third try, and that her father was only copying his own worry.

On the last morning he set the pencil down, sat on the cold step and laughed until he coughed. Then he took up the chisel and carved the head just as it stood, eyes turned a little past the door, curls heavy as wet rope. The family up the valley got their god. Tobias got a daughter who said he'd finally drawn something true, and a wife who came later, though he always swore she'd been the one who kept him still long enough to finish.

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