Black and grey realistic tattoo of a lion's head with a full mane on the upper back near the shoulder blade.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Realistic lion head on upper back

Realism · Back · Black and grey · Photo

A realistic lion's head faces forward with its gaze slightly to the side, filling most of the frame. The fur and mane are rendered with fine, layered shading that moves from dark grey to pale highlights. The design is in black ink and greys on skin, with the top of a shoulder visible at the edge of the photo.

Realism Back Lion Mane Portrait Animal

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Tom,

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The lock at Stoke Ferrers has finally given back Dad's old mooring post, the one with the carved head he swore was a lion and Mum swore was a badger. Ray dredged it out of the silt on Tuesday. Its mane was black with a hundred years of coal dust, but when I rubbed at it with my sleeve the grain came up grey and silver, like weather moving over water.

Ray wanted it broken up for firewood. I told him it was ours, which was a lie, because nothing on the Patience has been ours since the bank took the engine. He let me keep it anyway. It sits on the foredeck now with its face turned toward the towpath, looking past the lock keeper's cottage the way Dad used to look at the weir when he was deciding whether to go on or wait another day.

I've been sitting with it each evening, working linseed into the cracks and waiting for the light to go flat. What surprises me is how calm it looks now that it's clean. Mum was right about the eyes. They're too soft for a lion, round and patient, like someone who has decided not to be angry about something yet.

Come up in the spring. Bring the children. We'll set the lion on the bank by the bench and see whether anyone along the cut recognises it.

Love, Nell