Black and grey blackwork and dotwork tattoo on the outer thigh showing a fierce mythical creature head with ornate detailing, a compass-like motif and fine trailing lines.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Large mythical creature tattoo on a thigh

Blackwork · Thigh · Black and grey · Photo

A large black and grey tattoo covers the outer thigh of a bare leg, centred on a fierce creature head with an open mouth and detailed scales or feathers. Ornate circular motifs, a flower-like form and fine dangling lines extend down the leg toward the knee. The shading uses dense dotwork and bold black fills, shown in a soft, low-light photograph taken on a white surface.

Blackwork Dotwork Geometric Thigh Creature Dragon Flower Compass Ornament Line Star

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 barge Marrow had been moored under Hollin lock for three days when the water started running the wrong way, and old Tessa Brand, who kept the lock keys and the lamp, said it was the dragon turning over in its sleep.

Keep reading

The dragon lived beneath the weir, where the river went white and loud. Its scales were as fine as a fish-pot's wicker and its mane spread out like the wheel of a barge in the spray. Round its neck it wore a brass compass on a cord, and the needle always swung towards whichever boat was lost. Tessa's grandson Ned was ten and stubborn. He took the bow line and the spare lantern and rowed out past the sluice gates in the dark, counting the stars as they came out one by one on the black water.

At the weir the dragon lifted its head. Its mouth opened wide enough to hold a mast, and its eyes were the colour of the lamp. It did not eat him. It asked where his people had come from, and when he could only say the lock, it laughed bubbles up through the foam and let the compass drop onto the water. The needle swung and settled, pointing straight back to the lock house. "Follow that," it said, "and no boat will ever be lost to you. But you must never let the needle lie."

Ned rowed home with the lantern guttering and the compass wrapped in his jersey. Tessa said nothing when she saw it. She only took it from him and set it on the wheelhouse sill, where it trembled and then held still. Every boat on the Hollin reach has a brass needle in its wheelhouse now, and none of them has ever strayed.