Close view of a realistic, colour-shaded feather tattoo in teal and lilac on the lower abdomen, above a black lace waistband.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Realistic feather tattoo on the lower abdomen

Realism · Other · Colour · Photo

A single feather is tattooed diagonally across the lower abdomen, with its quill running towards the hip. The barbs are rendered with soft shading and fine strokes in teal, blue and lilac, giving a three-dimensional look. The close crop shows the tattoo against bare skin, with a navy-blue navel piercing and a black lace and zebra-print garment at the bottom of the frame.

Realism Other Feather

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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

Dear Tom, I am writing this on the bonnet of the hire car outside Salt Wells, a petrol station with one pump and a dog asleep in the shade of it. The road east has been straight for two hundred miles, and the heat makes the tarmac shiver like water that isn't there.

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Yesterday a feather caught under the wiper somewhere past the dry lake. Teal at the root, fading to a bruised lilac at the tip, and the barbs were still fine enough that the wind hadn't flattened them. I kept it. Mum would have called it a sign and I'd have told her not to be daft, but I've tucked it into the sun visor, and every time I look up it catches the light.

Desmond, who has run this place since before the road was tarred, says the birds that carry those colours only come through after the rains, and it's been six years since the last proper rain. So either the feather travelled a long way on the wind or some bird came to grief nearby. He didn't seem to mind which. He gave me a bottle of water and wouldn't take the coins I put on the counter.

The sun is sliding behind the ridge and I'm nearly out of paper. I'll post this from Halfway Creek tomorrow. If it reaches you with a little grey-blue feather stuck to the flap, you'll know I haven't gone soft, only slow.