Neo-traditional style tattoo on the outer thigh showing a pocket watch, two red roses, playing cards and a banner reading We're all mad here.

Pocket watch, roses and playing cards on a thigh

Neo-trad · Thigh · Mixed · Photo

The tattoo shows a pocket watch with a grey shaded face and hands, wrapped by a ribbon banner reading "We're all mad here...". Two red roses and several playing cards fill the space around the watch and banner. Bold black outlines and soft grey shading define the watch, while the roses use red ink with darker shading, and the design is arranged diagonally across the thigh.

Neo-trad Thigh Pocket watch Clock Rose Playing card Banner Quote

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 Oakes had kept the shop on Harbour Street for thirty-one years and had never once been asked to value a watch that refused to agree with the church clock. The woman who laid it on the glass counter that Tuesday had come in out of the sleet, shaking water from a red-lined coat, and she did not sit down. 'It loses ten minutes at the top of the hour,' she said, 'and I want to know what you'll give me for the time it wastes.'

Keep reading

He turned the case over. Someone had wound a ribbon round it, a silk band with words he had to tilt to the lamp to read: We're all mad here. Tucked beneath the band were three playing cards, the ace of hearts, a six of diamonds and the four of clubs, soft at the corners from handling. 'Where did you get it?' he asked. 'My grandfather's,' she said. 'He lost the rest of his fortune at cards in Ostend and kept only this.'

He offered four pounds, which was honest, and she laughed and said the watch was worth a good deal more to someone who needed to be somewhere else. He wrote the ticket. When she left, the bell over the door rang twice, though only one person had walked out.

That evening, after the blinds were down, Mr Oakes wound his own watch by the shop lamp and set it against the dial of the one on the counter. The hands of the pawned watch stood still at ten, and kept standing there, patient as a card held face down.