Black and grey realism tattoo of a paw print with realistic eyes inside the toe pads, shown on a forearm.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Paw print with realistic eyes on the forearm

Realism · Forearm · Black and grey · Photo

A close photograph of a paw print tattoo, with a large central pad and four toes. Two of the toes contain detailed, realistic eyes that look like a dog's, and the other toes and pads are shaded with fine stippled texture. The image is black and grey and centred on the design, with the skin lit evenly against a dark background.

Realism Forearm Paw print Eye Dog Animal

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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 lift in Harcourt House has been broken since Easter, so you take the stairs to the eleventh floor with the torch in your teeth, counting landings the way your mum counted rosary beads. Nobody is supposed to be up here after the caretaker's round. Somebody has been leaving the fire door propped with a brick, and you are tired of pretending you do not know who.

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On the seventh landing a dog is waiting. Not a stray, exactly. A lurcher with a torn ear and a collar too tight for its neck, sitting square on the lino as if it has an appointment. Its prints go off ahead of it in the dust, four toes and a fat pad, and where the dust is thickest the marks look almost like someone pressed a thumb into it and watched. Every few steps it glances back to see whether you are coming, and you are, because you have been following the same prints for three weeks and they have never once led you to a door that opened.

Flat 41 has been empty since the old man in it died in February. The lino is yellowed by the skirting and the letterbox has been taped over from the inside. The prints stop at the tape. You kneel and peel one corner back, and through the gap comes the smell of wet wool and a radio still tuned to the shipping forecast. Two pale eyes look up at you out of the dark, steady as a lamp left on. The lurcher pushes its nose through the slit, leaves a grey smudge on the glass of your torch, and sits down again on the mat as if the rest of the building can wait.

You have the spare key in your pocket. You have had it for three weeks. Maybe the sensible thing is to go back down the stairs and ring the council, and maybe the sensible thing is to open the door.