Enlarged with AI from a smaller original
Nautical star and flames on a forearm
Traditional · Forearm · Colour · Photo
The tattoo covers a forearm and part of the upper arm, centred on a green and yellow nautical star with black outlines. Red and orange flames with black shading curl around it, and a grey winged shape with some partial lettering sits above the flames. The colour is saturated against the skin, and the photo is taken at an angle with a tattooist's gloved hands visible in the background.
Find an artist for thisTake 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 fire started in the paraffin locker of the Marigold Rose two hours after we cleared the Humber, and by the time Tom Heskey got the hatch up the whole aft deck was roaring like a Guy Fawkes night. Nobody panicked. Walter Brand put the wheel over, shouted for sacks and sand, and told the cook to stop screaming and start soaking.
Keep reading
We fought it with wet sacking and a bucket chain that stretched from the scuppers to the bow. The flames climbed the rigging and licked up the sides of the wheelhouse, red and orange with black at the edges, and I remember thinking how pretty they looked against the grey water, which is a daft thing to think with your eyebrows singed. Walter stayed at the wheel the whole time, one hand on the spokes and his eyes on the brass star bolted above the binnacle, the one his father had cast in Grimsby and that he swore would bring a man home from anywhere.
By dawn the fire was out, the deck was black as a chimney, and half our catch was ruined. The star had gone green-gold and scorched at its points, but it was still whole. We limped into the Humber mouth on the morning tide with gulls screaming over us and the old flag on the mast tattered down to a single word: Constant.
More like this
From the plentytattoo archive, uploaded by a user. Is this your work? Ask for credit or removal.