Four colourful turtle tattoos in a diagonal row across the top and side of a foot, set against a red fabric background.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Four turtles in a row on a foot

Other · Colour · Photo

Four turtles are tattooed in a diagonal line from the top of the foot towards the toes, each with a green head and limbs and a shell filled with purple, pink, blue and green panels. The outlines are clean and the turtles vary slightly in size and angle, with the largest near the ankle and the smallest near the toes. The skin is pale and the background is red fabric, which makes the green and purple ink stand out.

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

The kitchen range has been out since midnight, so you keep your coat on while Aunt Morwen tips the biscuit tin onto the oilcloth. Buttons spill out first, then the scraps, then a square of green cotton that she holds up to the window as if it might tell her something. "Your nan's turtles," she says. "She always said they were walking to the sea."

Keep reading

There are four of them, stitched in a diagonal across the cloth, each with a green cotton head and flippers and a shell pieced from purple, pink, blue and green hexagons. The largest sits in the top corner and the smallest runs out near the edge, as if the thread had got tired halfway. You count them twice, because your nan used to count them too, out loud, every winter she sewed the hem of a coat.

Outside, the yard gate freezes over and the ewes stand bunched under the ash tree, breath hanging over them in the dark. Morwen wants the cloth pinned to the funeral table with the photographs, but you take the kitchen scissors and cut the last turtle free, the one nearest the edge, and fold it into your coat pocket. Nobody asks why. The train back to Shrewsbury leaves at seven, and the platform will be sheet ice, so you set your alarm for five and leave the other three walking in the tin.

More like this

Colour tattoo of two cartoon green turtles walking across the foot, the smaller one trailing behind the larger.
Two cartoon turtles on a foot
Small fine line tattoo of two stylised stick figures with round heads on the top of a foot, near the toes.
Two stick figures on the top of a foot
Colourful watercolour-style splash tattoo with black ink spatters and outlined bubbles wrapping around the ankle and lower leg.
Watercolour splash and bubbles on an ankle
Colour tattoo of three pink butterflies with dark outlines along a wavy pink and yellow swirl on the top of a foot.
Pink butterflies on a foot
Fine line tattoo of a small bird carrying a dandelion seed head, with a tiny red heart above it, on the ankle.
Small bird and heart on an ankle
Small black fine line tattoo of a cat with whiskers on the outer ankle, beside the heel, on a bare foot photographed against a pale background.
Small cat outline on an ankle
Colour tattoo of a smiling cartoon sea turtle with large eyes and a red-brown shell, on the top of a foot.
Cartoon sea turtle on a foot
Two bare feet with fine line black tattoos: a column of planets, one ringed like Saturn, on the left foot and a column of moon phases on the right foot.
Planets and moon phases on both feet
Two small fine line tattoos in black ink, a circle with a minus sign and a circle with a plus sign, on the inner wrists of two people holding hands.
Matching plus and minus circle tattoos on wrists
Two cartoon character tattoos in colour on the tops of a pair of feet near the ankles, one with a white hat and one with orange flame-like hair, with red toenail polish.
Matching cartoon tattoos on two feet
Two small red heart tattoos with black outlines and thin black swirls, one on each ankle, shown on bare feet against a beige carpet.
Two small red heart tattoos on ankles
Colour botanical tattoo of purple, blue and pink flowers with green leaves and black swirling script, running from the ankle onto the top of the foot.
Three flowers and swirls on an ankle

From the plentytattoo archive, uploaded by a user. Is this your work? Ask for credit or removal.