Colour tattoo of a galaxy-filled anchor wrapped in rope with two shaded butterflies, on the lower leg above the ankle.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Galaxy anchor and butterflies on a lower leg

Realism · Calf · Colour · Photo

A colour tattoo of an anchor with a rope wrapped around its shank, filled with purple, pink and teal tones and small star-like sparkles. Two butterflies with shaded wings sit beside the anchor, one above and one to its right. The shading is soft and blended, and the design is shown on a pale lower leg against a plain light background with a dark red floor below.

Realism Calf Anchor Butterfly Rope Galaxy Star

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

Dot Pellow was already on her feet, one hand flat on the tablecloth to stop the cake sliding, when a knife rang against a glass and the whole marquee turned round. Nobody had told her she was next. I held my gin and waited, the way you wait on a ferry deck for the rope to come snapping in.

Keep reading

Frank had crewed the Margate boat for thirty-one years and never once let her forget it. He used to say the sea was only the sky lying down, and that on a clear night you could steer by the same little lights you saw from the quay. He'd sketched an anchor on the back of a fag packet the summer they met, with all the stars crowded into the shank, and a man in Ramsgate had inked it so the rope wrapped round like a sensible lead on a dog.

"An anchor's not for going anywhere," Dot said, and the marquee went quiet enough to hear the gulls. "It's for stopping still when everything else wants to blow you off. And the rope's what brings you back when you've drifted. Frank said butterflies were just anchors that had learned to fly, so I'm told." She looked at the jar, then at the bride, then at the open flap where the harbour showed grey and bright. "I reckon he'd have liked that."

The kids let them go all at once. Forty painted ladies lifted off the tablecloths, climbed the sunlight and went out over the wall towards the water, catching the light like sparks off a sea that had nothing left to prove. Dot sat down slowly, pulled her cardigan tight at the wrist, and didn't wipe her eyes. A loose thread of wool at her cuff kept unravelling, and nobody stopped her.