Two matching traditional tattoos on the thighs, one showing a cartoon mouse in a porthole frame and one showing a cartoon character on an anchor, both framed by red roses.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Matching cartoon and anchor tattoos on two thighs

Traditional · Thigh · Mixed · Photo

Two thighs are shown side by side, each with a tattoo of a black and grey cartoon character framed by red roses. The left design sits inside a rope-edged porthole with a cloudy backdrop, and the right design sits on an anchor with a ship's wheel and rope. The linework is bold with grey shading, while the roses and some rope details use colour, and the crop cuts off above the hips and below the knees.

Traditional Thigh Cartoon character Mouse Rose Anchor Ship's wheel Rope Cloud

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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 steam organ starts up at six, and by seven you can hear the Waltzer creaking through the wet field. You are the one who gets the mouse running. Every night Harlan hands you the tin with the black and white reel, and every night you thread it through the old projector in the back of the penny arcade, behind the brass porthole window, and watch the little fellow in his white gloves kick the painted clouds out of his way. He whistles a tune nobody has paid for since before the war. The porthole is the only thing in the arcade that doesn't rattle.

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Harlan says the anchor is what pays, though. It stands at the end of the pier with the ship's wheel bolted to its shank and rope coiled round it, and the rope has been there longer than either of you. Last August a girl from the dodgem crew wanted to sail away with the show to Skegness, and you told her to wait for the last reel. She waited. She is still waiting somewhere past the cattle trucks, but every spring you paint the roses on the anchor fresh, so they stay red.

On the final night of the season you splice the film so the mouse keeps steering and the wheel keeps turning, and you leave the rope slack so nothing is tied down. When the lamp finally dims you can still hear him whistling through the porthole, a tune nobody has ever paid to hear.