Traditional style tattoo of a grey key with a red ribbon banner and skull-shaped bow on the forearm, with red script across the banner.

Key with skull bow and banner on a forearm

Traditional · Forearm · Mixed · Photo

A grey key with a skull-shaped bow runs horizontally across the forearm, with a red ribbon wrapping around the shank and a banner carrying red script. The shading is soft grey with black outlines, and red accents pick out the ribbon and banner. The tattoo fills the centre of the frame against a blue wristband at the left edge.

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 find the key in the pocket of your father's coat in late August, when the windfall Bramleys are already going soft under the trees at Hollins Farm. Its bow is a little skull with a grey enamel jaw, and a red ribbon is knotted round the shank as though someone once meant to stop it from being lost.

Keep reading

The gate at the bottom of the orchard has a padlock nobody has opened since your mother left. You walk the rows with wasps drunk on plums, touching each trunk the way she taught you to count them. Behind the old cider shed the key turns with a dry click, and the door swings on hinges that have forgotten how to complain.

Inside there is no cider, only a tin trunk, a stack of seed catalogues gone brown at the corners, and beneath them a banner rolled tight. Red script runs across it in a language your father never spoke at the supper table. You hold it up to the light falling through the gap in the boards and cannot read a word, but you know the shape of a thing that has been kept on purpose.

Outside, the first conkers are splitting their green cases on the path. You pocket the key, leave the gate open behind you, and let the orchard have the rest of the afternoon.

More like this

Black tribal-style band tattoo wrapping the inner forearm, with a shaded flower and swirling motifs, in black ink on skin.
Tribal band with flower on a forearm
Black outline tattoo of two elephants touching trunks with a small red heart, above Roman numerals, on the lower leg.
Two elephants with red heart on a limb
Black and grey realistic tattoo of three elephants walking in a line across the upper arm, trunks raised.
Three elephants on an upper arm
Grey ornamental elephant tattoo with a pink lotus at the raised trunk, on the upper back near the shoulder blade.
Ornate elephant with lotus on upper back
Black ink elephant tattoo with patterned fill on an upper arm, beside a small outline elephant tattoo on a wrist, in blackwork and fine line styles.
Two matching elephant tattoos on arms
Black and grey tattoo of three patterned elephants walking in a line across the forearm, each filled with paisley and mandala detail.
Three ornate elephants on a forearm
Black and grey elephant tattoo on a forearm, with small script reading never forget arched above its back.
Elephant tattoo on a forearm
Black and grey tattoo of three elephants walking in a line, decreasing in size from left to right, on the side of the ribs.
Three elephants walking in a row on the ribs
Black linework tattoo of a walking cat built from circles and straight lines, on the inner forearm.
Geometric walking cat on a forearm
Red ornamental elephant head tattoo with mandala-style patterns across the forearm.
Ornate elephant head on a forearm
Two wrists held together, one with a grey shaded key tattoo and the other with a padlock tattoo outlined in pink on the inner forearm.
Matching key and padlock wrist tattoos
Fine line black outline tattoo of a small elephant facing left on the inner forearm, close to the wrist.
Small elephant outline on a forearm

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