Full body Japanese style tattoo covering a man's arms, chest, back and legs, with a dragon, cherry blossoms, clouds and waves in bright colour on grey shading.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Full body Japanese bodysuit tattoo

Japanese · Upper arm · Colour · Photo

The tattoo covers the arms, torso and legs of a man photographed against a black background, with the head cropped out of frame. It includes a dragon head on the upper arm, a serpent, cherry blossoms, swirling clouds, waves and a fan, with bold outlines and smooth shading. Vivid reds, greens, teals and oranges dominate, set against grey and black clouds and water.

Japanese Upper arm Forearm Chest Back Thigh Calf Dragon Cherry blossom Cloud Wave Serpent Fan Flower Sword

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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 sea has been climbing the steps of Marrow Street all week, and Mrs Kerrigan has stopped pretending it won't reach the cellar. You arrive on the Tuesday with one case and a folded letter, and she reads the letter, hands it back, and says nothing about the rain. Upstairs the back room smells of lavender polish and something older, like wet rope. Above the wardrobe hangs a silk fan painted with a storm: teal waves folding over themselves, clouds rolled grey as pewter, and a dragon's head rising out of the spray with its jaw open.

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Mr Kerrigan painted it the summer before he went to sea and did not come back on the boat that was meant to bring him home. He learned the work from a man in Yokohama who drew the outlines on rice paper and made him copy them until his wrist ached. You ask whether the cherry blossom means spring. She says it means things fall and you have to let them go. The fan is not for sale, and she says that twice, as if you might have asked.

Each evening you sit with it while the lamp hums, and the wave lines seem to lift when you look away. On the sixth night you find a serpent you had missed, coiled through the cloud bands along the rim, its eye a single red dot. In the morning the fan is lying on the blankets, and Mrs Kerrigan is at the window saying the tide has taken the bottom step and the other lodgers have all gone home.

You carry it down to return it. She takes it from you, turns it to the light, and hangs it back on its nail above the stairs, where the dragon can keep watch over the harbour.