Black and grey realism tattoo of a pocket watch with Roman numerals and a hanging chain across the upper arm and shoulder.

Pocket watch and chain on upper arm

Realism · Shoulder · Black and grey · Photo

A large pocket watch with an open face, Roman numerals and a script inscription on the dial sits across the shoulder and upper arm, with its chain looping down and a fob hanging at the bottom. The shading is smooth and detailed, with highlights on the metal casing and soft shadows that give the watch a three-dimensional look. The tattoo is rendered almost entirely in black and grey tones against the skin.

Realism Shoulder Upper arm Pocket watch Clock Chain Roman numeral Script

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

Mind the coal, and don't let the tiller drift. Right, where was I? Ah, the watch. Old Tobias Crane kept his father's pocket watch on a chain across his waistcoat, the same chain that had hauled a dozen bargees out of the cut when the ice came down on the Trent in the hard winter of nineteen-ten. Not that the dial agrees with me. It says MMX in the little window, which the clockmaker swore was a mistake, and Tobias swore was a joke between the two of them.

Keep reading

He never once set it by the church clock at Keadby. He set it by the lock keeper's bell, because the bell was honest and the church was always late with its Sundays. Each evening he'd tie the Mary Ellen to the bollard at Torksey, unhook the little brass key from its link, and wind the watch with the care you'd give a sleeping child. The hands moved steady. The fob swung. Gulls lifted off the reeds like someone had dropped a handful of wet paper.

Then the flood came, the one that took the lower yard and the stables, and the Mary Ellen broke her moorings in the dark. Tobias found her three bends down, nose into a willow, and his watch had stopped at twenty to four. He sat on the gunwale and held it up to the lantern for an hour, waiting for it to tick. When it finally did, it was the lock keeper's bell ringing across the water, telling him the gate was open and he could go home.

So that's why, when you meet a man with a watch on a chain, you don't ask him the time. He'll tell you it's whatever the water says.