Colour Japanese style half sleeve tattoo of red koi fish and pink cherry blossoms over a grey swirl, covering the upper arm and shoulder.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Koi and cherry blossom half sleeve

Japanese · Upper arm · Mixed · Photo

A large red and pink koi fish swims up the arm, with a second koi above it, both with black outlines and scale detail. Pink cherry blossoms with yellow centres sit around the fish, and a grey swirling background with small black stars and wave-like shading fills the spaces between them. Colour ink dominates, with smooth grey shading giving depth to the water and the fish bodies.

Japanese Upper arm Shoulder Koi Fish Cherry blossom Flower Swirl Star Wave Water

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

The big red koi had been out of the courtyard pond three times since August, and each time Joan found her in the same place, circling the water tank on the roof of Hollins Tower. Dev, the caretaker, said the fish was clever and Joan said she was stubborn, and they agreed on neither point while they climbed the eleven flights with a net, a bucket and a bag of pellets that rattled every time Dev swore at the lift.

Keep reading

The stairwell smelled of bleach and somebody's Sunday dinner. Joan stopped on every landing to rest her knees and to look out of the narrow windows at the cherry tree by the bins. The residents had planted it the year the block was finished, and every spring its blossom blew across the car park and stuck to the windscreens like confetti nobody had asked for. Eddie had always said it was the only thing in Hollins that had got the design right.

On the roof the wind was cold and the tank's surface was patched with petals. The koi turned slowly beneath them, a streak of red that looked almost black where the grey water shaded it. Joan knelt on the wet felt and didn't reach for the net. She watched the fish make one full loop, then another, the way water goes round a drain before it decides to leave.

When they got back down, Joan carried the bucket herself and tipped it into the pond. The koi nosed out of the bucket, turned once, and sank into the green. A single pink petal drifted onto the surface and stayed there. Joan told Dev the stairs were good for her, and he didn't argue, though he did carry the empty bag all the way back up to the fourth floor.