Realistic black and grey tattoo of a pocket watch on a chain above an ornate key on the forearm, with a small green detail beside the watch.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Pocket watch and key on a forearm

Realism · Forearm · Mixed · Photo

A pocket watch with Roman numerals hangs on a fine chain above an ornate key, both shaded in black and grey on pale skin. The watch face has soft tonal gradients and a cracked glass effect, and the key's bow is detailed with fine scrollwork. A small green element sits beside the watch at the edge of the frame, and the composition runs diagonally down the forearm.

Realism Forearm Pocket watch Clock Key Chain Gem

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

The lost property office at Harrowgate station kept its strangest things in a biscuit tin under the counter, and Maureen Thwaite knew every item in it by weight. The brass key with the fleur-de-lis bow had come in on a wet Tuesday, wrapped in a bus timetable and nothing else. It was too ornate for any door. She weighed it in her palm the way her mother used to weigh eggs, and it sat there heavier than it looked.

Keep reading

The pocket watch arrived a week later, handed across by a platelayer who had found it between the rails near the water tower. Its glass was cracked corner to corner, and the hands stood at twenty to four. The chain had snapped at the bow, one loose link still clinging to it. Maureen hung the watch on the hook above the kettle, where the light from platform four could reach it, and tried the key in every lock she could find: the cash drawer, the cabinet, the gate to the staff stairs. Nothing turned. Outside, the platform clock ran three minutes ahead, as it had since the refit, and nobody ever seemed to mind.

On Friday a man in a grey mac came asking after a watch with a cracked face. He described the chain before he described the watch, which she took as a good sign. 'My father wound it every night,' he said. 'The key only fits the stem. It doesn't open anything.' She didn't argue. She fitted the key to the stem, turned it seven times, and felt the spring take up the strain.

The watch ticked into the quiet office, loud as a dropped spoon. Maureen handed it across the counter, then reached up and set the platform clock back three minutes, so that for once the two of them agreed on the time.