Lettering quote on a forearm

Lettering · Forearm · Black and grey · Photo

The tattoo is a band of decorative script and blackletter-style lettering that reads Blood makes you related, followed by Loyalty makes you family, with the word Loyalty in bold capitals. Fine outlines, scrollwork flourishes and soft grey shading give the letters depth, and a smoky grey wash fills the area above the heading. The photograph is black and white and taken straight on, with the lettering running down the length of the limb.

Lettering Forearm Lettering Script Quote Blood Family Smoke

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 rain has come in sideways over Carrow Street since before dawn, bouncing off the tarpaulins and running in brown rivers between the cobbles. You are already under the awning of your uncle's old fish stall when Declan splashes up, van keys in one fist, a paper cup of tea in the other. He has your grandmother's laugh and your uncle's habit of looking past people, and he has not met your eye since the funeral.

Keep reading

"Harold wants the lease back by Friday," he says, and sets the tea down on the ice where it will be cold in a minute. "Family sign-off. Mum's signed. Only thing missing is you." You wipe your hands on the apron that still smells of mackerel and think of the summer you spent hauling crates while he was away with his mates, the summer he borrowed the float and never paid it back. Blood, your mother used to say, always finds its way home, usually with its hand out.

Across the market, Mrs Okonedo from the flower stall lifts a bucket of lilies out of the wet and shouts at a boy to mind the puddles. She has worked beside your uncle for twenty years, cut his hair on Sundays when his fingers were too stiff for scissors, and kept this stall open the week he was in hospital. Nobody asked her to. Declan follows your gaze and goes quiet, which is the nearest thing to an apology you are going to get.

You pick up the tea, let it go cold in your hands, and tear the lease in half. Declan stares. Then you walk across the wet cobbles to Mrs Okonedo and take the other end of her bucket. The rain keeps falling on the empty stall, and behind you your cousin's van door slams hard enough to rattle the tarpaulins.