Four black and grey traditional moth designs drawn on a sheet, one with a skull on its body and a crescent moon above it.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Four traditional moth designs on flash sheet

Traditional · Black and grey · Flash

A sheet of four moth designs drawn on pale paper, each with bold black outlines and grey shading. The top moth has eye-spot markings on its wings and feathered antennae, while the right moth has a skull on its body with a crescent moon above. The two moths on the left and bottom have patterned wings with scalloped edges and fine hatched shading.

Traditional Moth Skull Crescent moon Feather Wing Antennae

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

Dear Ada, the moths came in again on Tuesday, a dozen of them, pale as wet paper, knocking against the lamp glass in the sorting shed until Mr Pattinson swept them into a biscuit tin. He says they're drawn to the pit head lights like fools to a bonfire. I said nothing, though I counted the painted eyes on their wings the way Father taught us to count tallies at the winding gear.

Keep reading

The one that stopped me had a skull on its back, a proper one, dusted over with the same grey as the spoil heap. Above it sat a crescent moon, thin as a fingernail, and I thought of the night you and I walked the cinder path to chapel and the moon hung just so over the headframe. I pocketed that moth before the others could see. It is folded in the back of my hymn book now, wings flat as a letter.

Mr Pattinson wants me on the screens above ground once the strike ends, which means sun on my neck all day, and I find I am frightened of it. Men come up grey from the cage and go home grey, and the moths seem to know it. They gather where the light is thickest and beat themselves against it, and nobody sweeps them out until morning.

Keep the moon business to yourself. Mother will call it an omen and light a candle for us both. Tell me instead about the goats at Hetton and whether the crocuses came up by the wash house. I will write again on Sunday.