Colourful sketchy tattoo of a leaping fox on a shoulder and upper chest, with loose orange, red and green washes over black linework.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Leaping fox tattoo on a shoulder

Neo-trad · Shoulder · Colour · Photo

A fox or canine figure leaps across the shoulder and upper chest, drawn with loose, broken black outlines. Orange, red, yellow and green washes fill the body and a pale glow behind it, giving a painterly finish. The figure is angled diagonally, with the tail sweeping up and the forelegs reaching down over the collarbone area.

Neo-trad Shoulder Fox Animal

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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

Sit nearer, you with the wet boots, and mind the peat smoke, for the fox does not care for a cold hearth and neither do I. This is the tale of Ruadh, that the old people on Hallan called the red one, and I will tell it the way my grandmother told it, which is the only honest way.

Keep reading

Ruadh lived in the rocks above Sgeir Bhan, where the tide comes in like a horse at a gallop. Every winter the sea took a field or two, and every winter Ruadh took a hen from Morag Teague's yard, and every winter Morag swore at the sky and forgave the fox by Candlemas. There was a bargain in it, though none of us wrote it down. The fox kept the rats out of the barns, and the people left the hens' heads on the wall for her.

The autumn the moon fell into the bay, nobody could agree on why. Some said the lamp at the point had been left burning too long. Ruadh came down from the rocks at the turn of the tide and leapt the sea wall in one long arc, forelegs reaching, tail sweeping up behind her like a torn flag, and went down into the black water after it. We stood on the wall with our lanterns and watched her go pale as she fell, the colour running out of her coat until she was nothing but light.

She came back at dawn, dripping and pleased with herself, with the moon tucked somewhere under her ribs. You can see it still, if you're fool enough to look at the hens' wall at night. Go on, now. The fire is low, and the fox is out there, watching the door.