Black and grey grim reaper with flames and skulls covering the upper arm and shoulder.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Grim reaper and flames on an upper arm

Upper arm · Black and grey · Photo

A large black and grey tattoo of a grim reaper with a skull face, surrounded by flames and several smaller skulls, covers the upper arm and part of the shoulder. The linework is bold and outlined, with smooth grey shading that gives the flames and skull depth. The arm is shown against a plain white vest and an indoor background, with a colourful tattoo partly visible on another arm at the right edge.

Upper arm Shoulder Grim reaper Skull Flame

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

Dear Tobias, the ink has thickened in the cold, so forgive the blots. Prior Gilbert has asked me to finish the skulls around the south door before the thaw, and I have, though not in the manner he expected.

Keep reading

The figure I was given to copy is an old one, a cowled death rising out of a bank of flames with his scythe laid across one shoulder. The panel has darkened so badly that I could only trust the outlines. Every time I drew him, his jaw came out open as though he were laughing at a joke nobody in the chapter had heard, and the flames beneath him grew tongues that curled back toward my bench like cats wanting milk.

On the third night I stopped copying. I let the figure be what I thought he must have been to the men who painted him, not a judge at all but a porter who had carried too many lamps down into the crypt and was tired of it. I gave him the stoop of Brother Wulf, whose name is in the register for the year the infirmary burned. Odd, but the coughing in the novices' dormitory eased the next morning, and Brother Osric swears the smell of smoke has gone from his habit.

I have left the shoulder unfinished, a clean space where the small skulls thin out into bare plaster. Prior Gilbert will want it filled before Easter. I think I shall leave it for whoever climbs the scaffold after me to find a face of his own. Do not tell the Prior, and burn this letter if you are kind.