Black and grey tattoo on a forearm of a face formed from a folded banknote with a rolled bill above, shown in two side by side photographs.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Money-face portrait on a forearm

Realism · Forearm · Black and grey · Photo

Two side by side photographs show the same black and grey tattoo on a forearm. The design is a face, with a folded banknote and a rolled bill forming the head and crown, and a cigar at the mouth. The linework is bold and the shading is smooth and layered, with a grey wash across the banknote and face.

Realism Forearm Banknote Money Face Portrait Dollar bill

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 old man came into Ashby's Pawn on a wet Tuesday with a roll of banknotes folded tight, and he set it on my counter like a card player laying down a winning hand. He lit a cigar with a match he struck on the brass bell, and when I asked him to put it out he only smiled around the cheroot and said the paper was worth more than its face.

Keep reading

"Gold has a weight you can trust," he said. "Paper only has what people agree it has. My father knew that. He ran a press under a bakery in Hull for eleven years, and every note he printed had a man's face in the middle, staring out as if you owed him money." He tapped the roll with one yellow fingernail. "These are the last he finished before the police came down the cellar steps. I'd like them held against a loan."

I took them to the lamp. The face was clever work, shaded so finely that the cheekbones seemed to rise out of the grey, and the eyes were two white holes cut through the ink, so the lamplight passed straight through them and spilled onto my blotter. I told him I could lend twenty pounds, no more, because nothing that thin would survive a bank's glass. He nodded as though he had expected nothing else.

When he left he took his cigar stub and left the notes. I held the roll under the lamp until the light had gone through every eye in it. Then I locked it in the safe and did not write it in the day book, because a pawnshop only ever keeps what it can sell.