Black and grey realism octopus tattoo with tentacles wrapping down the upper arm and shoulder.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Octopus tattoo wrapping an arm

Realism · Upper arm · Black and grey · Photo

A black and grey octopus covers the upper arm and shoulder, with its head near the shoulder and tentacles curling down the forearm. The creature is shaded with soft greys and darker contour lines, and the suckers are drawn as small rings along the tentacles. The photograph is taken at a low angle against a dark background, with the tattoo filling most of the frame.

Realism Upper arm Shoulder Octopus Tentacle Sucker

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 octopus had been living under the slipway for three weeks before anyone thought to count its suckers, and it was Nell who did it, flat on her belly on the wet weed with a torch clamped in her teeth. Eight arms, she counted, then sixty-odd rings down the longest one, each as neat as a coin pressed into lead. The creature watched her with a pale, unhurried eye. Her father said octopuses forgot everything past a season and were clever only in the moment, like gulls. Nell left a mackerel head on the bottom step every evening anyway, and every morning it was gone.

Keep reading

By October the harbour had turned sour with weather, and the Marigold strained at her mooring chain like a dog at a lead. On the night of the big blow, Nell heard the chain shriek and went down the steps in her oilskins without waking anyone. The octopus had wound itself round the links, a grey, muscular knot of arms, and the boat was dragging it under the slipway edge. She had her father's knife and no sense at all. She sawed at the rope where the creature held it, and one arm after another unpeeled from the iron, each sucker letting go with a small wet click.

The last arm stayed. It pressed a single cold ring against her wrist, held there for the length of a breath, then slid away into the black water without a splash.

Morning came clean and still. Her father found her on the slipway, staring at the tide line, where a row of small round prints ran from the steps down to the sea, each one perfect. He crouched and started counting. He got to forty before he stopped, and he never said a word about the knife.