Colour realism tattoo of a woman's face in a red and gold masquerade mask, surrounded by leaves and swirls, on the outer thigh.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Masked woman and autumn leaves on a thigh

Realism · Thigh · Colour · Photo

A woman's face wears an ornate masquerade mask decorated with a red gem and gold filigree, framed by red and orange leaves and feathers. The face is shaded smoothly with soft highlights, while the surrounding foliage and swirls use bold yellow, orange and red ink. Colour dominates the composition, which fills the thigh from the top edge down past the knee.

Realism Thigh Woman Face Mask Leaves Feather Swirl Gem Lip

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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

Mind the step, the cobbles are slick with leaves this time of year, and the mask-maker's widow never swept them for anybody. Come in out of the wind and sit by the stove. No, the good chair, the one with the cushion. I'll tell you how the Michaelmas mask came to hang above the door of the Gold Lantern, where it has hung ever since.

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Teodor Vell made it for his wife Ilse, who wanted something to wear at the autumn fair, where the whole town went masked so nobody could say for certain who had danced with whom. He worked three months on it. He beat gold wire into curls, set a garnet from her mother's brooch into the brow, and stitched red oak leaves and rust-coloured feathers around the temples so the thing looked as though she had walked out of a wood and never quite left it.

On the night of the fair she came across the square in it, and Teodor swore on his father's grave that she was a stranger. The stranger asked him to dance. He said yes, of course he did, and under the paint she laughed in a voice he had known for twelve years, and he still did not know her until she lifted the mask to drink from his cup. They say he was angry for a week, and then he was not, and that is the only part of the story anyone disputes.

He hung the mask above the door when she died, the winter after. The leaves on it never fade, and the garnet catches lamplight however dim the room. On the first cold morning of each year, the stone is warm to the touch, though nobody has ever found the stove lit. Drink your tea. The cup is hot, and the leaves outside are only leaves.