Colour tattoo of a butterfly filled with red, blue, yellow and orange puzzle piece shapes, shaded to look three-dimensional with a cast shadow, on the forearm.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Puzzle piece butterfly on a forearm

Realism · Forearm · Colour · Photo

A butterfly with spread wings is tattooed on the outer forearm, with each wing filled with interlocking puzzle piece shapes. The wings use soft shading and a dark outline, and a grey cast shadow beneath the butterfly gives it a raised, three-dimensional look. The palette is mainly red, blue, yellow and orange on a plain skin background.

Realism Forearm Butterfly Puzzle piece Insect

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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 big top has lost its second pole since the spring, and the canvas sags over the ring like a tired sail. You sit under the work lamp in the caravan with the sewing box open on your knees, because Mr Fairweather says the wings must be ready for Saturday, and Saturday is the last date on the Kettering run. The silk is cut already: forty-two pieces of kingfisher blue, marigold and cadmium red, each the size of a palm, each with a small knob and hollow so they lock together like a child's puzzle.

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Nobody asked you to make them interlock. The old frame was bare struts and a wish. But Ada, who flies from the high bar and has never once looked down at the net, said the wings should look as if they were built from the pieces that didn't fit anywhere else. So you stitch with a doubled thread, pull each join tight, and count. Forty-two, then forty-two again, because the last time you miscounted, the left wing came out heavier and she came off the bar crooked and laughed about it for a week.

On Friday the generator coughs and dies at half past nine. You work by the moon through the caravan window, fingers finding the seams by touch. Ada comes to the door in her dressing gown, watches you for a while, then sits on the step and holds the lamp steady with both hands without being asked.

The wings go up on Saturday in a half-empty tent. Nobody buys the programme. Ada climbs, the red and blue pieces catch the spotlight, and for one long moment the whole sagging tent seems to lift off its poles with her. You don't look at the crowd. You watch the joins, and they are holding.