Black and grey realism tattoo of an open pocket watch with ornate scrollwork, a key and looping chain, on the inner forearm.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Pocket watch and key on an arm

Realism · Forearm · Black and grey · Photo

The tattoo shows an open pocket watch with a numbered face, surrounded by ornate scrollwork at the top, with a key and a fine looping chain extending to the right. The linework is crisp and the shading is soft, giving the metal casing and chain links a three-dimensional look. The design is entirely in black and grey ink, and it spans most of the frame across the arm.

Realism Forearm Pocket watch Clock Key Chain Scrollwork

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

Mr Hollis had the watch open on his bench before the shop bell had finished ringing, its case splayed like a mussel. "Stopped at twenty past four," he said, tilting the dial to the lamp. "Somebody meant it to stop."

Keep reading

The boy who had brought it in was called Joe Carrow. He was twelve, wore a school jumper too big for him, and kept his hands pushed into its cuffs. The watch had come out of his father's waistcoat pocket, he said, and the chain ran down to a small key that hung off the end like a second pendant. The key's bow was worked into curls, the way the iron gates of the Methodist chapel were. Nobody had wound the thing since March, when his dad caught the southbound train to find work at the docks and promised to write.

Hollis turned the key and the spring went stiff, then easy, and the hands began to move as though they had only paused for breath. He held the case to his ear and grunted, satisfied. Inside the lid, pressed flat against the brass, was a folded slip of paper. He read it twice before passing it across the bench.

Wind me at six every night, Joe. I'll be home before the hands get round to twenty past four.

Joe read it for a long time. Then he took the watch, hooked the key back onto the chain, and walked out into the lane with the case warm in his palm. When the church clock started across the square at six, he knelt on the wet kerb and wound it again, counting the turns under his breath, until the ticking settled into the rhythm of his own pulse.