Realistic eagle head and flag on upper arm

Realism · Upper arm · Black and grey · Photo

A close photograph of a realistic eagle head in profile, with a detailed eye, hooked beak and feathered neck. Behind the bird, a flag with rows of stars and soft stripes fades into the skin. The shading is smooth and soft, with fine feather texture, and the ink is set against a blue background with a dark tree silhouette.

Realism Upper arm Eagle American flag Star Stripe Bird

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

Dear Nell, you will laugh, but the bird has taken to our back wall again. Mr Calloway, who has had room four since the spring, insists it is a sea eagle blown off course from Norway, though he says it with the face of a man who has never once been right about birds. It sits on the coping with its hooked beak to the wind and watches the harbour as if it has paid for the view.

Keep reading

Mr Calloway is the only lodger who has ever asked me for a bigger flag. He wants one hung from the attic window on the Fourth, and he has been sewing the stars himself at my kitchen table, fifty of them cut from an old bedsheet, while the kettle goes cold beside him. I told him the gulls would have it down in a week. He said the gulls could have the stripes, he only wanted the stars seen from the water.

Last night the fog came in so thick I could not see the pier from the scullery. Calloway knocked at midnight with a lantern and the flag folded under his arm. He had heard the bird calling from the dead oak behind the church, the one with the black branches against the sky. We walked down together. The eagle was on the rail, hunched and quiet, and when the lantern caught its eye it did not stir at all.

I have hung the flag from the scullery window this morning so the men out on the boats can find the harbour mouth through the murk. Calloway has gone to the station to buy his ticket home. He left his sewing box on the table with a note that says only keep the bird fed. Write soon, and tell me whether the oak at Ardley is still standing. Your loving sister, Win.