Black and grey realism tattoo of a bandana-masked banknote portrait with TRUST NO ONE and a script quote on a forearm.

Masked banknote portrait and script on forearm

Realism · Forearm · Black and grey · Photo

A forearm tattoo shows a bandana-masked portrait in a banknote-style oval, with TRUST above and NO ONE below, followed by a script quote reading lack of money is the root of all evil and a heavy blackletter-style word at the wrist. The portrait uses soft shading and fine detail, while the lettering is outlined with grey shading and filigree scrolls. The image is a three-panel collage of the same tattoo from different angles, and the ink is entirely black and grey.

Realism Lettering Forearm Banknote Portrait Bandana Script Quote Filigree Scroll

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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

Tuesday, 14 March. The plate is finished, and I am ashamed of how much I like it. Mr Pargeter wanted the old gentleman on the note to look respectable, the way the bank's notes always have, but I gave him a bandana in place of the collar. He laughed until he coughed and then asked me to keep the proof. Perhaps he thinks it a joke about the clerks who stand at his counter with their hands in their pockets.

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Stanley, my apprentice, is the one who carries the sheets to the printers on Halloway Lane. Last week he came to me with a parcel wrapped in brown paper, two sheets of the same design, too clean at the edges, and asked whether the plate could take a little more ink. I asked him where the money was going. He said the same place as all money: into other men's pockets. I told him what my father told me, that a note is only paper until enough people agree it is worth something, and agreement is the easiest thing in the world to counterfeit.

When he was at the bench this afternoon I took the parcel from the drawer and carried it down to the coal fire in the back kitchen. Stanley saw the flames and went white as the blank card. I said nothing. Afterwards he sat on the step with his cap in his hands, and I thought of the words I have been cutting under the portrait all month: lack of money is the root of all evil. It is true enough, but I have come to think the mask matters more.

Stanley left at six without asking for his wages. I sat with the plate across my knees and read the lettering backwards in the mirror, the way it has to be cut. TRUST at the top, NO ONE at the bottom. It seemed the only honest advice a banknote could ever give.