Two photographs of black ink lettering: "I'm fine" on the thigh above the knee, and "save me" on the ankle, both in a brush-style script.

"I'm fine" and "save me" lettering on leg

Lettering · Thigh · Black and grey · Photo

The left photograph shows the words "I'm fine" in black brush-style script on the outer thigh, just above the knee. The right photograph shows the words "save me" in similar black lettering on the ankle, with the foot raised towards the camera. The strokes are bold and solid with no visible shading, and the plain background keeps the focus on the text.

Lettering Thigh Ankle Text

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

You learn the brush from your grandad's hand before you learn your times tables. Every Saturday the lamp-room door at the Ashgrove colliery wants fresh black on its notices, and you are the one who holds the sign-writer's brush steady while the coal dust settles on the wet paint like a second skin. "Keep the stroke wet, pet," Dai says, "or it dries thin and looks like a lie."

Keep reading

The trouble starts when the new manager, Mr Pryce, sends the safety board back twice for being too decorative. You sit on an upturned bucket in the yard with the board across your knees and try to think of a line that will pass his inspection. Your mum shouts from the back step that the kettle's on and are you alright, and you call back "I'm fine" so loudly the crows lift off the coping stones.

At half five the whistle goes and the shift comes up the cage grey and silent. Your brother Gethin is last out, and he sees the board propped against the wall with a short line of careful black letters along the bottom. He reads it aloud, slowly, the way he reads everything. Then he laughs so hard he has to sit down on the step.

Pryce comes out at six, reads the warning about the slope by the spoil heap, and stops. Tucked into the bottom corner, in strokes so small he has to lean in to find them, you have written SAVE ME A PASTY. He doesn't send the board back. He takes a pasty from Gethin's tin, eats half of it standing there, and tells you the brushwork is fine.