Realistic black and grey tattoo of an open pocket watch with Roman numerals and visible gears, with a poppy and a chain on the inner forearm.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Pocket watch and poppy on a forearm

Realism · Forearm · Black and grey · Photo

A realistic tattoo across the forearm shows a pocket watch with a cream dial, Roman numerals and exposed brass-tinted gears, with a fob chain looping above it. A large poppy with a gold centre sits to one side, and a shadowed pocket watch or cloth fades in at the upper left. Shading is smooth and detailed, with most of the work in greys and only small gold touches on the hands, bezel and flower centres.

Realism Forearm Pocket watch Clock Roman numeral Gear Poppy Flower Chain

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 tide has already turned when you reach the slipway, and the pocket watch in your fist is still ticking against your palm. The man it belonged to has been under the harbour wall since Tuesday, but the watch never got the message. Mrs Ferrier at the shop said the chain was too fine for a fisherman. You told her a fisherman can own what he likes.

Keep reading

Along the machair the poppies have gone to seed, their red spent, the grey heads nodding as if listening for a boat. You sit on the dyke and thumb open the case. The cream dial has a hairline crack running from the VI toward the IX, and behind the glass the gears turn in their brass cradles without any hurry at all. The crown is worn smooth where a thumb has pressed it every morning for years, always the same hour.

Then you notice the hands are wrong. The watch runs a quarter hour fast, set for a ferry that stopped sailing the year the pier collapsed. He kept it that way on purpose, so he would always be early for something. You sit with that until the gulls go quiet and the light lies flat across the water like a sheet of tin.

You stand, shake the sand from your trousers, and turn the minute hand back until it agrees with the church clock. Then you walk to the shop, drop the chain into Mrs Ferrier's open palm, and tell her the tide is right on time.