Fine line black tattoo of a paper plane with a dotted trail on the side of a foot, near the ankle.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Paper plane with dotted trail on a foot

Fine line · Ankle · Black and grey · Photo

A small black tattoo of a folded paper plane sits on the outer side of a foot, with a dotted line curving back from it toward the ankle. The linework is thin and clean, with the plane drawn as simple outlined planes and the trail built from short dots. The ink is black on pale skin, and the photo is taken from a close angle against a light tiled floor.

Fine line Ankle Paper plane Dotted line Trail Foot

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 wind off the Dene kept shoving the paper back at Hester's chin, so she stood with her heels against the post office step and tried again. The plane had come out wrong twice already, its nose too blunt, one wing creased by her thumb. This one sat right. She pinched the tail and checked the fold with her nail the way Dad used to, then wrote the address along the underside in capitals, because Tom still couldn't read joined-up writing and she wasn't going to let him miss it.

Keep reading

The beech wood was the trouble. Every letter she had sent by the road had come back soggy from the ford, so this time she meant to go over. She had pricked the route into the paper before folding it, a pin's width at every turn, so the dots would show later where it had been. Ruth from the shop came out to watch with a tea towel over her shoulder. "It'll never clear the top," Ruth said. "Then it'll clear the top by a hair," said Hester, and let go.

The plane caught a gust, dipped, lifted, and vanished into the rowans. Hester ran the path to the stile, then the stile to the ridge, reading the little holes in the grass as though they were tracks. Near the old quarry she found it snagged on a holly, one wing torn, the address still legible. She untangled it carefully, because a plane with a torn wing still flies if you know how to hold it.

Nine days later a reply came up with the carrier's cart, folded the same way, its trail of pin-pricks running all the way from the far farm to her step. Inside, in Tom's wobbling capitals, it said only: AGAIN. She sat on the step and read it until the ink blurred, then went to find a fresh sheet and a pin.