Three bands of gold and silver metallic dot designs, applied as temporary tattoos, run across a bare upper arm beside a dark sleeve.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Metallic dot bands on an upper arm

Upper arm · Colour · Photo

A close view of a bare upper arm with three parallel bands of small metallic dots, in silver and gold, that look like temporary metallic tattoos. The dots are evenly spaced and the bands wrap around the arm, with the wearer's hand, which wears several rings, resting across the forearm below. The warm skin tones and soft natural light keep the focus on the shimmering bands against the dark sleeve.

Upper arm Dot Band Metallic Gold Ring

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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 silver came off the herring before the gutting knife ever touched it, and by the time the Mary Ellen Rose had tied up on the Monday tide, the whole quay smelled of salt and something like struck coins. You were the one raking the scales from the nets with bare fingers, because Tom Haig's gloves were full of holes and his temper was worse.

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The gold came from the older boats, the ones that still ran lamps for the mackerel. Old Sandy Lowrie swore the gold scales were shed by the pilchards that came up in the warm years, and he sold them in twists of newspaper to the girls at the net loft, who pressed them into their skin for the dances at the Working Men's Club on Saturdays. He charged a penny a pinch and never once gave change.

Three bands, he always said. One for the boat, one for the sea, and one for whoever you had left on the shore. You kept the brightest pinch for the last band and pressed it on with spit and a thumb while the gulls screamed over the fish market and Tom shouted about the price of diesel.

The first gale of October took the Mary Ellen Rose past the breakwater and did not bring her back. Sandy died the winter after, and the net loft shut its doors. But on the Monday tides you still walk down to the slip, and when the low sun lies flat across the water, the scales on your arm throw the light back up at you, row after row, the way the fleet once flashed signals from the quay.