Realistic colour tattoo of a jaguar's face with yellow eyes and black rosette spots on the forearm, set against a green and yellow watercolour background.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Realistic jaguar head on a forearm

Realism · Forearm · Colour · Photo

A close-up of a jaguar's face, with its head facing forward and its yellow-green eyes, dark nose and whiskers clearly shown. The fur is built from fine black spots and soft orange, brown and cream shading, which gives the head depth and a lifelike texture. Loose green and yellow washes fill the background behind the head and frame the design.

Realism Forearm Big cat Eye Whiskers Spots

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

You learn the path to the spring the way your grandmother taught you, by counting the wet stones and never looking up at the canopy when the light goes thin. Today you have carried the clay jar on your hip for three bends of the river, and the water inside slaps against your ribs with every step. The men have gone downstream to trade salt for cotton, and you were left to fill the jars because you are the only one who can climb the bank without slipping.

Keep reading

The sound stops first. Frogs, then the monkeys in the fig trees, then even the small insects that sing in the leaves. You stand still with the jar against your hip and feel the ground hold its breath. When you finally lift your head, there are two lamps in the green dark above the ferns, yellow at the edges and greener at the centre, and they are not moving. Your grandmother said the jaguar only shows its eyes to those it has decided to follow home.

You do not run. You set the jar on the flat stone, the way she showed you as a child, and pour a cupful of water onto the moss as an offering. Then you lift the jar again and walk back the way you came, slowly, counting stones. Behind you the ferns part with a sound like a long breath let out. When you reach the village the jar is lighter by that cupful, and the path behind you is empty except for paw prints pressed deep into the mud, each one as wide as your palm.