Colour tattoo of a pink and purple butterfly with black edging and a soft drop shadow, placed on the upper back near the shoulder blade.

Pink 3D butterfly on upper back

Realism · Back · Colour · Photo

A realistic butterfly with pink and purple wings, black edging dotted with white spots, and a soft black shadow beneath it, giving a raised, three-dimensional effect. The wings have fine shaded veins and smooth gradients, with a thin black antenna and body. The butterfly sits off-centre on the upper back, with a bright pink bra strap and a blurred workshop background visible around it.

Realism Back Butterfly Wing

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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

Dear Nell, you asked how the commission went, so here it is plainly. Mr Hollis wanted a butterfly for the back wall of the Lantern Room, the ballroom at the Grand in Margate, and he wanted it to look as if it could lift off the plaster and go out over the sea. I told him paint can't fly. He said that was what he was paying me for.

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I worked three weeks on it from a ladder with a tin of gold size and a pot of violet lake that cost more than my boots. The wings went in rose first, then a deeper plum for the veins, and I put the white freckles along the black edging with the tip of a goose quill, one dot at a time, because a brush would have made them lie flat. Every evening I stood on the stair landing with the gas lamp behind me and checked the shadow. It had to sit low and to the left, soft as a bruise, as though the wings were a finger's width off the wall.

On the last night the lamplighter came through and stopped under the ladder. He looked up for a long while and said the thing had been sitting on the plaster all along and had only just decided to leave it. I laughed, but I took it as the compliment it was.

Tomorrow the room opens. I am not going to the dance. I have packed my tins and I'm catching the Thursday boat home, so put the kettle on, because I have a great deal to tell you about Mr Hollis's cousin.