Black and grey realism tattoo of a pocket watch, skull and building on the upper arm, photographed against a dark background.

Pocket watch and skull on upper arm

Realism · Upper arm · Black and grey · Photo

A detailed pocket watch with Roman numerals and visible mechanism sits above a realistic human skull, with a building rendered faintly below and a dark curved line running through the composition. The work uses fine detail and smooth grey shading to give the metal and bone depth, with soft haze behind the watch. Only black and grey ink is dominant, though a small patch of red is visible at the top right edge of the frame.

Realism Upper arm Pocket watch Skull Clock Building Roman numeral

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 caller at the Lantern Hall in Holcombe kept his father's pocket watch in his waistcoat, and every Saturday he wound it at the top of the last waltz so the hands would know when to stop. Nobody asked him why. The fiddlers were used to him holding it up to the lamp like a man reading a letter.

Keep reading

One winter a girl came in from the rain with a blue ribbon in her hair and asked him for the next dance. She had a laugh like a dropped spoon and feet that would not keep time, and he danced with her anyway, past the tenth stroke of the hall clock, past the point where the hands should have closed on twelve. The watch ticked louder in his pocket. Under the floorboards, the old burial ground where the mill owner's children lay had begun to hum along.

When at last he looked, the watch face showed the hour of his own birth, the Roman numerals worn smooth by his thumb. The girl was gone. Only the blue ribbon lay on the boards, and beyond the far window the brick of the mill stood black against a sky with no moon, while a pale face hung in the glass, patient as a clock.

He wound the watch once more, very carefully, and the fiddlers struck up again, because the people of Holcombe had learned long ago that nobody leaves a dance before the music says so.