Fine line tattoo of an ornate cat face with mandala patterns and a lotus flower on a forearm, beside a matching black ink sketch on paper.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Ornate cat design on a forearm

Fine line · Forearm · Colour · Photo

A fresh tattoo of a cat face with decorative mandala-style patterning covers the inner forearm, with a lotus-like flower and hanging ornament below the chin. The linework is fine and dense, with the eyes, ears and forehead filled with intricate detail. The tattoo is shown in purple-toned ink, and a black pencil or ink drawing of the same design sits on white paper to the right.

Fine line Forearm Cat Mandala Flower Ornament Sketch

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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 tide has left the harbour wall slick, and the cat is already waiting on the third step of the chapel stairs as you come up from the boats with the lamp. Her ears are fanned out like the lids of two copper pans, and the low sun has painted every whorl on her forehead gold. She does not come down to greet you. Nobody on Skerry Lowe has ever seen her come down.

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Your grandmother kept the lotus pond behind the salt store, and she said the cat was older than the pond. Every spring the flowers open in a ring, one petal for each winter the island has survived, and the cat sits in the middle of them counting. You once asked her what happens if the count goes wrong. She laughed and said that was why you should never be the one to count. Still, when the fog came in off the north bank in March, it was you who walked the pond edge with the lantern, calling the cat by the name nobody else used.

The fog thins at dawn. Your boots are soaked to the knee, and the lantern has gone out. In the reeds, a pale line of flowers has opened all the way round the water, more than you have ever seen, and at the centre sits the cat, her eyes narrowed, the hanging seed-ornament beneath her chin swaying in air that has no wind. She blinks once, slowly, the way the tide turns.

You kneel on the wet stones and count the petals with her. At the last one you stop and hold your breath, because she has been waiting for you to say the number aloud. So you say it, and the island exhales, and the cat rises, stretches, and walks into the reeds without leaving a single bent stalk behind.