Colour tattoo of a spotted leopard prowling along a branch across a woman's upper back, shaded in a realistic style.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Leopard on a branch across upper back

Realism · Back · Colour · Photo

A spotted leopard stretches along a thin, shaded branch that curves down the upper back from the neck towards the shoulder blade. The cat is rendered with soft shading and fine dark markings, with orange and tan fur and grey tones on the branch. The photograph is taken from behind, with the subject's dark hair and a hoop earring visible at the top of the frame.

Realism Back Leopard Branch Cat Spots

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

You have been told to paint the cat from memory, because the abbot says a monk who draws only what sits still will never learn anything. The scroll paper is cheap and the ink keeps bleeding at the edges of the brush. Below the scriptorium wall the valley has gone the colour of wet slate, and the old plum tree at the gate has put out one thin grey limb over the drop.

Keep reading

The leopard came up the gorge three nights ago. Brother Anselm heard it cough in the dark, a dry sound like someone tearing linen, and by morning the goats were penned and the hens were silent. Nobody has seen it since. Yet you have found its tracks in the frost along the terrace, each print the size of a bowl, and you have begun to suspect it has been watching the scriptorium window the way you watch the page.

On the seventh evening you climb out onto the plum limb with a lamp and a pot of ochre. The branch sways under you. Below, the cat lies stretched along it, belly low, tail hanging like a rope, its spotted coat the colour of dried apricot. Its eyes are not on you. They are on the dark path where the novices carry water. You understand that it is not hunting. It is waiting for the bell to finish, the way you have waited all winter for permission to paint.

When you return to the desk the scroll is still wet, and you have painted the cat with its head turned back over its shoulder, looking at you. Abbot Piero finds it at dawn and says nothing. He only lays one finger on the grey wash of the branch and tells you the cat has done the work for you. You cap the inkwell. Outside, the gate creaks, and something heavy drops soft onto the path and goes away up the hill.