Colour tattoo on a forearm showing a ringed purple planet, a striped brown planet, a blue planet and a pale moon above a hand in galaxy shades of teal and purple.

Planets and galaxy hand on a forearm

Forearm · Colour · Photo

The tattoo covers the inner forearm and shows several planets, including a purple ringed planet, a brown and grey striped planet and a large blue planet, with a pale moon above. Below them, a teal, gloved-looking hand appears to hold the planets, with starry purple and blue galaxy shading across its back. The linework is bold and the colour is soft and blended, with watercolour-like splashes of orange and blue across the composition.

Forearm Planet Saturn Moon Galaxy Star Hand Space

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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 wind comes over the col from the north and leans on the tent until the poles creak, and you lie in the dark counting the way your uncle taught you. Saturn first, because its rings show even through cloud if you know where to look. Then the blue one he called the cold planet, though you have never understood how he knew. You are nine. The sleeping bag smells of paraffin, and the dog has worked its way in against your feet.

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At first light he shakes you awake. The pass is white with frost and the stream below has gone quiet. He is already up on the scree with his flask, his old leather gloves stiff with cold, and he holds one hand up against the sky as though he is measuring it. Thumb is Jupiter, little finger is Mars, he says, and you laugh because he cannot possibly be right. From his coat pocket he takes a stub of chalk and draws a striped world on the back of his wrist, then a ringed one, then a pale moon above them all.

On the way down he tells you a planet is only ever held, never owned, and you should keep your fingers loose. You think about that for most of the afternoon, watching the dog run ahead through the bracken. When you reach the car park the chalk has smudged to grey on his skin, and he rubs at it with his thumb until nothing is left but a faint blue ring that will not wash off.