Colour tattoo of a golden koi fish swimming among pink flowers and teal water plants on an upper arm, in a Japanese-influenced neo-traditional style.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Koi fish and flowers on an upper arm

Japanese · Upper arm · Colour · Photo

A golden koi fish swims upward through teal water plants, with pink five-petalled flowers scattered around its body and tail. The fish has bold dark outlines, scale texture in orange and yellow shading, and flowing fins. The tattoo fills the upper arm and shoulder area against a plain background, with a studio light stand visible at the right edge of the photo.

Japanese Neo-trad Upper arm Koi Fish Flower Scale

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

Every October the water in the pond behind Hollin Farm dropped a hand's width, and every October Edwin Reave went out with a bucket and a net to count the fish. There had been eleven when his wife Maud was alive. Now there were six, and he had stopped counting the rest of the year, because the number had never really been the point. The point was Halfpenny, the big gold one, who would not come to the bucket and could not be caught.

Keep reading

The first hard frost came early that year. Edwin found the water furred with ice at the edges and Halfpenny lying still beneath the lily pads, her sides gone flat, her colour dulled to the brown of old pennies. He knelt on the wet boards for a long time. Then he slid the net under her, not to lift her out but to see, and a fin rose and fell like a page turned over.

He carried her up the path in the bucket, past Maud's bicycle still leaning against the wall, and set it on the kitchen table beside the teapot. He ran the tap lukewarm, a little at a time, and talked to her about the price of feed and the heron that had taken Sam's favourite. By dawn she had turned to face the window.

In March the thaw came down the lane in a rush and the culvert roared. Edwin went out to find the bucket empty and the pond open except for ice breaking at the edges. Then he saw her at the mouth of the culvert, a gold flash against the grey, pushing hard upstream towards the spring where the water came from, fins beating the current back again and again, until she slipped beneath the stones and was gone.