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Otter portrait tattoo on a shoulder

Realism · Shoulder · Black and grey · Photo

The tattoo shows an otter's head in profile, facing right, with a closed eye, a dark nose and long, fine whiskers spreading across the skin. The head is rendered with soft, smooth shading that moves from pale highlights on the muzzle to deep black around the eye and the edges. A dark halo of shading surrounds the head and fades into the surrounding skin, which gives the animal a floating, spotlit look.

Realism Shoulder Animal Whiskers Portrait

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Sit still and mind that lamp, you'll have the whole cabin smoking. Right. The winter the Severn backed up over the towpath, my grandfather was bringing the Patience through Stourport with a hold full of cracked bricks, and out of the reeds came an otter, swimming hard against the current. It hauled itself onto the bow as neat as you like and sat there looking at him like a magistrate.

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He tried to shoo it. Took off his cap and flapped it at the thing. The otter only turned its head, slow, with its eye shut against the spray, as if it had heard all that shouting before and found it wanting. Whiskers spread out either side like the wires on a wireless set. Every lock-keeper for twelve miles came down to see it, and the keeper at Hampton Loade swore it was the same creature that had stolen his eel traps twenty years before, though I'd not trust him with a teaspoon.

The river went black that night, the way it does when the moon sits behind cloud. My grandfather lit the bow lamp, and the light caught the animal, pale at the jaw and dark round the eye, while the water beyond went so deep there was no edge to it at all. He said it looked like a face cut out of the night and pinned to the boat. He didn't sleep. Come morning the otter had slid off the bow, and the barge was just a barge again.

Here's the part I've never told the Inspector. When we reached Diglis there was a wet print on the brass rail, five fingers' worth of webbing, and my grandfather swore the boat sat a good ton lighter. Now hush, that's the kettle, and you'll have your tea and not one word more.