Black and grey realism lion head tattoo across a person's upper back, photographed from behind with the neck and short hair visible.

Lion head tattoo across upper back

Realism · Back · Black and grey · Photo

A large lion head fills most of the upper back, with shaded fur, detailed eyes and nose, and bold dark flicks forming the mane around the edges. The shading moves from deep black in the mane to soft grey across the face, giving it a three-dimensional look. The image is a close, centred shot of the back, with the neck and top of the head visible above the tattoo.

Realism Back Lion Lion head Mane Animal Portrait

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The snow had sealed the Coldharbour road for three days when the stranger asked for the long ladder. Mam said no, then yes, because he had paid for two nights in advance with coins old enough to carry a king's head. I held the foot of the ladder while he climbed toward the lion over our door, the painted one that had hung there since before my grandmother kept the bar.

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The lion's mane was the blackest thing in the valley. Its flicks curled out from the board like smoke off a doused candle, and every winter the weather picked at them until they looked more torn than wild. The stranger didn't tap the paint or check the hinges. He rubbed at the lion's brow with his thumb, slowly, the way you'd wipe a child's face, and said his father had painted it the summer before he left for the mines and never came back to see it finished.

I asked if his father had been a good painter. He laughed, a short cloud in the cold. "Terrible," he said. "Look at the eyes. He never could get the eyes right. Every time he tried, they looked as if they were waiting for someone to come through the door."

We went down together. Snow was still falling on the step and settling into the mane as it had for a hundred years. Mam put a candle in the window for the road. When I looked back up, the lion's eyes had caught the snow-light, and they did seem to face the door, as though someone were expected and had been expected for a long time.