Realistic graphite drawing of an octopus with tentacles wrapped around a human skull, shown as a tattoo design sketch on paper.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Octopus wrapped around a skull

Realism · Black and grey · Flash

A detailed pencil drawing of an octopus whose tentacles curl around and over a large human skull, with the skull's eye sockets and teeth shaded in deep grey. The linework is fine and the shading is smooth, with strong highlights on the skull and suckers rendered individually along the tentacles. The design is drawn in greys on white paper, placed diagonally on a wooden table beside pencils and an eraser.

Realism Octopus Skull Tentacle Sketch Design

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Ned, the net came up heavy off the Dogger on Tuesday and we all thought we'd hauled a sack of coal. It was a skull, a proper old one with the crown gone green, and wrapped round it like a wet scarf was an octopus as broad as our galley table. Cook wanted the lot over the side. Mr Pardew said nothing. He just opened his knife and started sawing at the arms.

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The beast would not let go. Every sucker clamped to the bone, and when Pardew levered one loose, the arm swung across his wrist and left a ring of red dots that have not faded yet. We got the thing free at last by pouring buckets of fresh water over it, and the skull rolled into the scupper and sat there grinning at us all the way home, as if it had won a bet.

This morning I went to fetch my oilskins from the locker and found the skull sitting on my bunk, set square on the pillow like a guest who expected to be put up. On the lamp glass beside it was a single sucker print, perfect as a seal. Nobody will own to moving it. Pardew only says the sea gives back what it's owed, and then he goes quiet and mends his net.

I've kept the skull in the locker with the charts. If I don't write again, you'll know the sea has settled its account, and I'd be grateful if you'd tell Mother I was never once frightened of it. Your loving brother, Tom.