Two printed arm sleeves laid diagonally, covered in traditional-style tattoo designs including an octopus, a pin-up, a skull, a rose and a nautical star.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Printed tattoo-style arm sleeves

Traditional · Mixed · Flash

Two fabric arm sleeves are shown against a pale grey backdrop, each printed with a collage of traditional-style tattoo designs. The motifs include an octopus, pin-up women, a skull in a cap, a red rose, a nautical star, a banner and paisley-like ornaments, drawn with bold outlines and flat fills. The sleeves use a mix of black, red, teal, pink and skin-toned backgrounds, and the composition is a product mockup rather than a photograph of skin.

Traditional Octopus Pin-up Skull Rose Banner Paisley Sleeve

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 octopus went first, rolled tight in brown paper and tied with garden string, because Mr Pascoe from the pier had paid cash and wanted it before the tide turned. Ada watched him carry it off past the shuttered amusements, one tentacle poking out of the paper as if it was still looking for something to hold.

Keep reading

The rest of her father's flash lived in a biscuit tin under the counter: a pin-up with a cherry-red sash, a nautical star gone blue at the points from years of damp, a rose the colour of tinned peaches, and a grinning monkey skull in a peaked cap that he had drawn after a bet he never explained. He had worked the chair in the back room for thirty years and never once let anyone draw on the walls. He said flash was for looking at, not for taking home.

On Saturday a lad with a fishing rod leant across the counter asking for the skull. He wanted it printed onto something he could wear on the boat, he said, so his mates would stop calling him soft. Ada found the sheet, smoothed its curled corner flat under her palm, and told him the price was three pounds and a promise to come back if the colour ran.

After he left she pinned the rose back on the board where the octopus had been. The gap looked wrong for an afternoon, and then it looked like room.