Black and grey realism tattoo of a face within a rolled-up 100 dollar banknote on an upper arm, with blackletter lettering visible beside it.

Portrait face on a banknote, upper arm

Realism · Upper arm · Black and grey · Photo

A large tattoo of a face shown within a folded and rolled 100 banknote, with serial-style markings and the number 100 printed on the bill. The linework is fine and the shading is soft and detailed, with the skin tone of the arm showing through in places. The composition fills the frame of the upper arm, with the rolled edge of the note curling across the top.

Realism Upper arm Banknote Money Face Portrait Scroll Lettering

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 note came across the ticket window at Cold Ashby halt on a wet Thursday, folded into a tight roll the way cattle dealers folded their winnings, and Mabel Fry had to flatten it with her thumb before she could read the serial. AH 31076 17LA, it said, in ink gone soft at the edges. Someone had pencilled H88 beneath it. The face in the middle of the bill was a woman's, or the engraver had meant it to be, and it looked up at her with the patience of a station clock.

Keep reading

She gave change for it, as the rules said, and the man who had paid it stepped onto the 4:10 to Ferrow without a ticket and without a word. The note stayed in her drawer. Each morning it was rolled a little smaller, though nobody had the key. By the second week the curled edge had wound round the top of the drawer like a sleeping snake, and the face had drifted from the centre of the bill to its rim, as if leaning out to see who was coming along the platform.

Mabel began to spend it. She bought a loaf, a pair of gloves, a week of her sister's rent, and each time the change came back in coins that had been rubbed bright, and the note returned to the drawer tighter than before. The porter said it was only damp. The stationmaster said it was a bad hundred and ought to go to the bank. Mabel only said that the face had stopped watching the clock and had started watching her.

On the last day of the winter timetable she unrolled the note at the window, smoothed it flat and wrote on its back the name of the one she still owed. She posted it, unpaid, to the address pencilled under the serial, and when she opened the drawer again it was empty. Somewhere past Ferrow a train whistled once, and the platform clock, for the first time that winter, showed the right time.