Dotwork tattoo of intertwined snakes shading from blue at the top to pink and red at the bottom, across the thigh.

Intertwined snakes in blue and pink dotwork

Dotwork · Thigh · Colour · Photo

Several snakes coil and overlap across the skin, with heads near the bottom centre and tails curling upwards. Each body is filled with dense dots and small angular scale patterns, and the outlines are fine and even. The ink moves from blue at the top through purple to pink and red at the bottom, and the tattoo is set against a plain, pale background of skin.

Dotwork Thigh Snake Scale Dot Pattern

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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 closer, the wall still holds a little of the day's sun, though not much, and the wind comes through that broken window like it owes somebody money. You want to hear about the two snakes of Harrowgate? Good. Mind the loose stone.

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The blue one lived in the cistern beneath the chapel, where the water was so cold it had a colour of its own. Its scales were all dots, the old mason said, because it counted every drop that fell on it. The pink one came up through the orchard wall each spring, its skin cracked like sun on mud, and it smelled of crushed apples. Nobody thought they would ever meet. Then Lady Ysolde ordered the cistern drained to find her lost ring, and the blue snake came up the stair, and the pink one slid in through the arrow slit to see what all the fuss was about.

They wound round each other in the great hall for three days. The steward brought a blade and the bell-ringer brought a rope, and each time they tried to pull one loose the coils only drew tighter and crept further up the pillars, until the whole hall looked like a knot of rivers. On the third morning the lady gave up and let them be. The snakes slid out through the broken north wall together, and the masons say the stones there have never sat right since.

Their heads still rest in the courtyard dust, one blue, one pink, and when the light is low their tails seem to lift off the ground to look at the sky. Go on, put your hand near. Not that close. They don't mind being watched, but they do mind being touched by someone who hasn't yet decided whose side they're on.