Black and grey lion face tattoo framed by mandala-style ornament and a small crown, placed on the side of the ribs.

Lion with mandala ornament on ribs

Blackwork · Ribs · Black and grey · Photo

A lion face sits at the centre of the design, with a crown above and a mandala-style frame of petals and dotted detail behind it. The lion's nose, brow and mane are shaded in soft grey, while the ornamental patterns and dripping fringe below are built from bold black linework and dotwork. The tattoo is shown up close on the side of the ribs against plain skin.

Blackwork Dotwork Ribs Lion Mandala Crown Ornament Floral pattern

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 lion came down to the harbour town of Saltmere in the year the bells froze, and nobody knew whose lion it was. It had a crown of iron on its brow and a mane fanned out like the petals of a winter rose. Old Hennie Dray, who mended nets for the fishing families, said it had walked out of the sea with the tide, and the children believed him because he never lied about the weather.

Keep reading

The harbour master's daughter, Ada Penhallow, was the first to speak to it. She was carrying a basket of salt cod up the quay steps when she found the beast sitting in the doorway of the chandler's shop, its grey muzzle resting on its paws, its black fringe dripping with seawater that did not run off. She asked it what it wanted. It looked at her for a long time and then lowered its head, as if to show her the knot of old rope tangled in its mane. She untangled it with her fingers and the lion sighed and went back to the sea.

Every year after that, on the night the lamps were lit along the wall, a single drop of black ink would appear on the chandler's step, dripping down in a neat dotted line to the water. Ada kept the shop when she grew up, and she never sold a cord of rope without tying a little knot of her own into the end, so that whoever came looking for her lion would know the town had kept its promise. The rope was always returned, and so was the favour.