Black and grey tattoo of a horned animal head inside a cracked circular medallion beside a cross, on a lower leg.

Horned animal medallion on a calf

Calf · Black and grey · Photo

A circular medallion shows a horned animal head in profile, with a cross on the left and cracks running across the stone-like surface. The linework is bold and the shading is soft and grey, giving the head and rim volume. The tattoo is entirely black and grey and fills the frame on the skin of a lower leg.

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

Sit closer, the lot of you, and mind the cold stone, for it remembers every hand that ever set it down. Brother Osric had the disc from the quarry above Wenlow, grey and heavy as a millstone, and the abbot told him to cut a blessing for the new gate. Osric was a stubborn man and a worse carver, so he cut a ram instead, the horned tup the old shepherds of that valley swore by, and he set it in profile, looking away from the gate as though it had seen something behind the hill.

Keep reading

The stone cracked as he worked. Every night a new line ran out from the rim like frost on a pond, and every morning Osric swore at it and filled the gaps with lead. Anselm, who kept the bees and had no patience for anyone's piety, said the stone was only tired of being a ram. Osric scratched a cross on the left of the disc with the point of his knife, so the ram would know whose gate it was guarding, and he hung it over the lintel before the first hard frost.

That winter a drover came up the valley road with three hundred sheep and a fever on him, and the porter, half asleep, opened the gate before the bell. Anselm swore afterwards that the ram's head had turned on its stone, though the rest of us saw nothing but lamplight and snow. The drover lived to see spring. Not all the sheep came through, and the monks have never agreed on why.

Every Lent they climb up with a lamp to count the cracks in that disc, and every year there is one more than the year before.

More like this

Black and grey tattoo of a cross framed by two angel wings that form a heart shape, on the upper arm.
Cross and angel wings on upper arm
Black and grey tattoo of a caterpillar smoking a hookah on a mushroom, inside a circular frame with a landscape behind it, on a calf.
Caterpillar with hookah on a calf
Black and grey traditional tattoo of a rope-wrapped anchor with two mermaids, one above and one below, on an upper arm.
Anchor and two mermaids on an upper arm
Black and grey realism tattoo of a cracked stone-effect cross on the upper arm.
Cracked stone cross on an upper arm
Black tribal-style outline tattoo of a stylised creature with pointed ears and a spiked tail, with a small red spiral on its muzzle, on a limb.
Tribal-style creature with red spiral
Black and grey traditional tattoo of a shaded skull and crossed swords within a flame-like black shape on the upper arm.
Skull and crossed swords on upper arm
Solid black symmetrical blackwork tattoo on an upper arm, forming a heart shape with mirrored stylised animal heads and interlocking loops.
Symmetrical heart-shaped blackwork on upper arm
Black tribal-style dragon with raised wings and a curled tail tattooed on the outer calf of a leg.
Tribal dragon on a calf
Black and grey tattoo of a leaping hare with smoky shading and swirling forms on the upper arm of a man photographed in a bathroom mirror.
Leaping hare tattoo on upper arm
Black and grey tattoo of a halo and angel wings above a shaded heart shape on the upper thigh.
Winged halo tattoo on a thigh
Black and grey abstract skull tattoo with loose brush-like strokes on the outer thigh.
Abstract skull on the thigh
Colour tattoo of a worn stuffed rabbit with a button eye and stitched seams, shaded in ochre and grey on the forearm, with grass at the base.
Worn stuffed rabbit on a forearm

From the plentytattoo archive, uploaded by a user. Is this your work? Ask for credit or removal.