Colour tattoo of a four-quadrant house crest with a gold outline and black linework, in red, yellow, green and blue, on the forearm, with script lettering above it.

Hogwarts house crest on an arm

Traditional · Forearm · Colour · Photo

A colour tattoo of a shield-shaped crest divided into four quadrants in red, yellow, green and blue, with a gold scroll border and a central emblem. The bold black outlines and flat fills give it a cartoon-like finish, with some soft shading within the quadrants. Script lettering reading "we'll fly home" runs along the top right of the arm, and the photo is taken at a slight angle against a plain background.

Traditional Forearm Crest Shield Emblem Script Lettering

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

Beyond the salt marsh stood a castle whose east tower had lost its roof to a winter storm. Over the great gate hung a shield cut in four, red, yellow, green and blue, with a gold scroll running round its edge like a ribbon nobody had untied. Four founders built the place, the gatekeeper said, and each claimed a quarter of the halls, and they had not agreed about anything since.

Keep reading

One November a boy called Tobin Reeve walked the causeway with a sack of eels and a letter sealed in red wax. Mrs Garrow read the seal, then looked at his hands, which had gone the colour of slate. "The blue hall takes the cold ones," she said. "It also keeps the pigeons, which is more than the others can say."

The pigeons lived in the loft above the stables, grey birds with green-sheened necks, and Tobin learned their ways in a month. A bird let go at dusk came home by dawn, and the old keepers had carved a line above the loft door to say so: we'll fly home. Each night he sent a bird south with a note for his mother. Each morning one came back with a green thread tied to its leg, which he took to mean she was still listening.

In spring the bird did not return. Tobin climbed the east tower, where the sky showed through the rafters, and found his last note tucked under a loose slate, with a reply beneath it in a hand that shook: Keep the bird. Keep the hall. I will walk the causeway myself when the marsh dries. He waited at the gate every evening after that, and the blue quarter of the shield, the old woman said, still caught the last light long after the others had gone grey.