Realistic colour skull tattoo covering a person's entire back, shown from behind with ochre bone tones and teal and black shading.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Large realistic skull across a back

Realism · Back · Mixed · Photo

A large skull fills most of the person's back, shown from behind with the face of the skull facing the viewer's side. The skull is rendered in a realistic style, with soft blended shading, a fine crack line along the cranium, and deep black sockets and nasal cavity. The bone uses warm ochre, orange and tan tones, while the shadowed areas around the edges are teal and near black against a plain red wall.

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Hesper,

Keep reading

The lamplighters have stopped climbing the Saltgate since the crack opened across the Bone Warden's brow, and the guild says it is only lichen, only frost. I have spent three nights on a ladder with a brass rule measuring it, and the line runs from the crown down to the left brow exactly as wide as my thumb.

Our kingdom of Ashmere was built on that carved face. Its eye-sockets are tall enough for a barge to pass through, and the stone there is so dark that river ink stains the mortar teal at the edges. Grandmother swore the jaw turned ochre at dusk when the sun came low off the marshes, and I laughed at her until I stood under it myself and watched the colour climb the stone like a tide.

Yesterday the Chancellor ordered the crack sealed with fresh lime. This morning it had opened again, a finger wider, and the lime lay in the gutter like spilt milk. I have copied the measurements into the back of this letter. Do not show them to his clerk. He will call them superstition and lock the ledger, and I would rather you read the figures with your own eyes.

Come home before the spring tides, and bring your good compass. If the crack reaches the eye, we will know the Warden has finally decided to look at us, and I would rather be standing at the gate to see what it sees than hear about it from the bells.

Your brother, Tobin

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