Black and grey fine line tattoo of an outlined cross with a figure on a person's shoulder blade, photographed from behind.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Outlined cross on a shoulder

Fine line · Shoulder · Black and grey · Photo

A black and white photograph of a bare upper back and shoulder showing a thin, single-line outline tattoo of a cross with a simple figure and outstretched arms. The linework is unshaded and sits centrally on the shoulder blade, with a pale background and a fine necklace and strap visible at the edge of the frame.

Fine line Shoulder Cross Figure

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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 mate wants the outline finished before the weather turns, so you sit on the hatch cover with the ink pot wedged between your boots and trace the same line you have traced for three nights running. The figure is only a few strokes: a head bowed toward the port rail, arms flung wide as if along a yard, a body that never quite decides whether it is hanging or flying. Gerrard says thin lines hold better at sea, because salt eats heavy ink and leaves a man looking like a smudge.

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Past the Bishop Rock the ship rolls so hard the galley shelves empty themselves onto the deck, and you kneel among spilled peaches to keep your hand steady. Gerrard, who has crossed the Atlantic eleven times with a canvas roll of needles in his duffel, tells you to breathe with the swell and never against it. You don't believe him until the sea flattens for an hour off the Scillies and the line comes out clean, unbroken, the cross standing square against the page like a mast that has decided to stay put.

When the cargo is landed at Barry, the mate tears the sheet from the log and pins it above your bunk without a word. Two days later a deckhand from Swansea asks who the man on the cross is supposed to be. You shrug and say it is the one who went over the side off Ushant, though nobody recorded him as lost. The deckhand nods as if that makes sense, and you leave the drawing where it is, arms still wide, holding the wind.