Black and grey realism tattoo of a pocket compass with N, E, S and W markings on the forearm.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Pocket compass on a forearm

Realism · Forearm · Black and grey · Photo

A detailed pocket compass with a loop at the top and a needle pointing south-east sits on the outer forearm. The dial, bezel and rim are shaded in soft greys with fine tick marks, giving the metal a rounded, three-dimensional look. The image is a close crop against a dark background, with the tattoo centred and the skin tone visible around it.

Realism Forearm Compass Needle

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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 needle has gone wrong again, Tom, or else the orchard has moved while I wasn't looking. I stood between the Bramleys this morning with Dad's compass open on my palm and it kept swinging south-east, towards the gate where the lane drops to the river, as though it wanted me out of the field. You'll say I'm soft in the head. Perhaps I am. The apples are coming down faster than the pickers can gather them, and the wasps have found the windfalls.

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I found the compass in the drawer under the cider press when I was clearing his things, the brass ring worn bright where his thumb used to rub it. Scratched inside the lid with a nail was 'Stay true to the wind, Bess,' which I took for a joke until I remembered he never once let the wind decide anything for him. I asked Mrs Pugh at the farm shop, and she laughed and said the needle had always pointed to the old boundary stone, the one that went when the hedge was grubbed out in 1962.

So yesterday I walked to the stone with a trowel. Under the nettles there was a tin box, rusted shut, and inside it a bundle of letters in his hand, every one addressed to a woman in Gloucester he never married. I haven't decided what to do with them. I have decided I'm keeping the compass.

Come down when the cider's racked. Bring your boots, and I'll show you where the needle points now that the stone's gone.