Colour realism tattoo of an ornate gold carnival mask over a woman's face, with a red rose and red feathers on the skin.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Realism mask and rose tattoo in red and gold

Realism · Colour · Photo

The tattoo shows an ornate gold filigree carnival mask covering the upper face of a woman, with her lips and chin visible below it. A red rose sits at the lower left, and red feathers fill the background behind the mask. The shading is smooth and detailed, with strong highlights on the metallic mask and soft gradients on the skin tones.

Realism Mask Woman Rose Feather Lip

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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

Mind the step, the lift hates a crowd. No, leave the lamp where it is, the old ones need their light low. Now. You want the mask story, the one the carnival folk tell when the Veil Market closes for the year? Then hush and pass me that feather.

Keep reading

Three hundred years ago, or near enough, the gilt-makers of Lower Venn Ring made masks for the Carnival of Thaw, and each one took a whole winter of hammering. The craftswoman Orla Haddow beat hers out of salvaged hull brass and painted them with the red of the wrecked sun-sails, because the Ring had nothing else that burned that bright. Her finest piece had curls like frozen smoke, and it sat in her window for nine seasons because no one could afford it. Then a ferry pilot named Tobias Quell came in out of a dust storm, stood dripping in front of it, and asked the price in a voice that cracked on the second word.

She told him the mask was not for sale. It was for whoever would wear it to the dance, and she would know that person when she saw them. He laughed and left. The next morning a rose arrived at her door, cut from the hydroponic gardens, red as the sails, with a card that said only: I am coming to the dance.

Every year after that, the carnival ended with the rose on the bench and the mask left on the sill, untouched, and Orla swept up the red petals herself. In the ninth year she stopped sweeping. She set the mask on a stand beside the rose, went home, and let the feathers she had been saving for a cloak drift down the lane behind her like a trail. Whoever wanted the mask, she said, could come and find her. Nobody had yet. Now, there's the lamp. Mind the step.