Realistic greyscale tattoo of a crowned lion above a scroll banner and roses, on an upper arm.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Lion with crown and roses on upper arm

Realism · Upper arm · Mixed · Photo

A crowned lion with shaded mane fills the centre of the piece, with a scroll banner curving beneath its chin and roses below. The lion and roses are rendered in soft grey shading with fine detail in the fur and petals, while warm brown and reddish tones in the background suggest flames or glow. The photo is taken close to the arm at a slight angle, with the tattoo filling most of the frame.

Realism Upper arm Lion Crown Banner Rose Flame

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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

The lorry has been idling in lane seven since a quarter past two, and by the time you climb onto its tailgate the driver has stopped pretending to be patient. Behind the curtain sits a long wooden crate stencilled THIS WAY UP and ORNAMENTAL, and someone has scrawled a phone number on the side in biro. You snap the tape with your thumbnail and lift the lid on a lion.

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He is carved from pale wood and painted grey and gold, a tin crown nailed crooked onto his mane, his jaw tilted up as though he has heard something on the wind. Under his chin a scroll curls around like a dropped ribbon. Roses lie on a folded blanket beneath him, and someone has painted tongues of flame up the inside walls of the crate, scorched orange at the corners, so that he seems to be sitting in the last of a fire.

The paperwork is a sheaf of carbon copies clipped with a rusted pin. A travelling fair, an owner's name, a list of towns from Doncaster to Dover, and at the bottom, in a different pen: 'Keep him out of the rain. He still wants to lead the parade.' You ring the number on the crate. A woman answers from a caravan in Kent, laughs when you describe him, and says her father carved the lion the winter before he died and never sold him.

You stamp the form CLEARED and slide it across the tailgate. The driver lifts the crate onto his shoulder as if it weighs nothing, and the lion goes off down the motorway, crown first, into the grey morning.