Gold ink drawing of an ornate geometric mandala with dotted chains and drop shapes on dark paper, shown as a tattoo design rather than a tattoo on skin.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Gold mandala design with dotted chains

Geometric · Colour · Flash

A symmetrical mandala-style design drawn in gold ink on dark paper, built from a central lotus-like bloom, overlapping scalloped petals and a fine lattice pattern. Dotted lines hang in loops from the sides and bottom, ending in teardrop shapes, and the linework is thin and even. The gold ink is the only colour, set against a dark background with a blurred photograph beneath the paper.

Geometric Dotwork Mandala Lotus Lattice Dotted chain Drop Ornament Petal

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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

Sit nearer, you're letting the draught in. There, that's better. Mind the cup, it's the last of the rum, and Mags will have my ears if you spill it on the boards.

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Forty-one boats went out of Skerrow that spring, and every one of them had its name painted on the transom in gold leaf, because old Ansel Tully had the only steady hand on the coast and nobody else could afford to waste it. The Marigold was the exception. Tully drew her stern himself, freehand, the night before her first run. A flower of gold lines with petals stacked like fish scales, and between them a lattice so fine the lamplight could find its way through. He said a boat should carry something the sea couldn't net.

She came home that autumn with empty holds and a torn sail, and the crew swore the water had taken the catch and left the gold alone. Everyone laughed until they saw the drops. Tully had run a dotted chain from the gunwales, each loop ending in a teardrop of paint, and in the swell those drops had smeared and run down the planks like the sea was weeping on her.

So when you go down to the quay tomorrow and see the Marigold lying on her side with the tide coming in, don't go looking for fish. Look at the stern. The gold is still tacky on the last drops, because Tully never let them dry, and his daughter still refreshes them every spring with the same brush. Now finish that, and fetch me the other bottle.