Black and grey dotwork tattoo of a horned demon, skulls and a tentacled creature across the chest and upper arm.

Horned demon and skulls across chest and arm

Dotwork · Chest · Black and grey · Photo

A large black and grey tattoo covers the chest and right arm, centred on a horned, goat-like demon flanked by a crowned skull and a smaller skull. A tentacled, many-eyed creature fills the upper arm, with smoke, wisps and skulls in the surrounding areas. The shading uses fine linework and dense stippling, with strong contrast against the black background.

Dotwork Chest Upper arm Forearm Demon Goat Horn Skull Crown Tentacle Creature Smoke Eye

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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 down, sit, the soup is still warm and nobody here is leaving until the bride's aunt has finished her second sherry. Now, you'll have heard of the Hollow Crown, the one that sat on the skull of the old king of the marsh villages. Folk say he was never buried, only propped up in the church porch with his crown still on, and that the crown has teeth.

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The story goes that at Michaelmas a goat-horned stranger came up the lane with a sack of sheep bells and asked for a bride. Nobody in Aldermoor would give him a daughter, so he took a widow instead, Mabel Greaves, who had buried three husbands and had no fear left in her to spare. She laughed in his face. He laughed back, and the sound was like a gate dragged over stones, and smoke came off the hedges where he stood.

Now here is the turn, and mind the candles. Mabel did not go with him. She went to the churchyard at midnight with a pair of shears and a loaf of her own bread, cut the wool from every bell he had left on the gate, and tied the threads to the crown's little spikes. By dawn the king's skull had grown a hundred eyes along its cheekbones, and the goat had folded its legs under it and wept oil into the hay.

So when you raise your glass tonight, raise it to the bride, and leave a bread crust on the windowsill for the stranger. He always comes back for his bells.