Two colour tattoos side by side on a limb: a geometric wolf head with a crescent moon on the left and a geometric stag head with antlers on the right, in a neo-traditional style.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Geometric wolf and stag side by side

Neo-trad · Calf · Colour · Photo

Two animal heads are tattooed side by side on a limb. The left shows a wolf built from blue, green and purple facets with a crescent moon on its forehead, and the right shows a stag in red, orange and yellow triangular panels with a pale sun-like circle and gold antlers. Both have bold dark outlines, soft shading in the fur, and faint watercolour-style washes behind the heads.

Neo-trad Geometric Calf Wolf Stag Deer Antler Moon Sun Geometric Animal head

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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 rain came in at nine and hasn't left the market since. I've pegged the awning down twice and the tin of pins has rusted through its lid, so this is written on the back of a returns slip, and you'll have to forgive the smudges. Your stag and wolf are still on the trestle by the tea urn. Nobody has wanted either all morning, which is either the weather or the fact that you drew them in gold and I only had brown ink left.

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Mrs Cathcart from the bric-a-brac side came over at eleven to ask whether the wolf was the one from the paper. I said no, that was a different wolf, and she bought the stag instead, for her husband, who she says has been a sun man all his life. She paid in coppers and asked me to tell you the moon on the wolf looked like a thumbprint on a window. I didn't know what to say to that, so I said thank you and wrote it down for you.

Mostly I've been thinking about the night you sat up in the van with the lamp, arguing that the sun belonged on the right-hand panel because the stag has to face the light. I let you have it. I always let you have the light.

The rain is easing over the bridge now. I'll wrap the wolf in the blue tissue and keep the stag back for Sunday, when the lanterns come up from the river. Come home by then, or at least send me the address where you're sleeping, so I know which way to point the lamp.