Realistic colour tattoo of a lion's face with a full orange and black mane, shown on the upper arm.

Realistic lion portrait on upper arm

Realism · Upper arm · Colour · Photo

A lion's head faces forward with golden eyes, a broad nose and a full mane that spreads around the face. The linework is soft and the fur is built up with layered shading in browns, ochres and black. Warm orange tones dominate the mane while the muzzle and chin are rendered in paler tan.

Realism Upper arm Lion Mane Portrait Eye Whiskers

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

The circus lorry slid into our top field the week before Christmas, its back wheels sunk to the hubs in the gateway mud, and Dad said nothing for a full minute before he went to fetch the chains. The lion rode in the last cage under a tarpaulin. When Mr Varley pulled the cover back in our barn that night, the animal lifted its head into the lantern light and I forgot to breathe.

Keep reading

Its mane was the colour of wet bracken, darker at the roots and nearly black where it lay against the bars. Frost had got into the thick hair along its neck, and when it shook itself the white spray fell across the hay like flour. Mam sent me out with a bucket of mutton scraps and told me to keep my eyes on the floor. I didn't. Its eyes were the amber of a barley field at dusk, and they watched me the way our old sheepdog watched the gate, patient and not in the least afraid.

The thaw came on Boxing Day, and two Clydesdales borrowed from the Hallams dragged the lorry free. Mr Varley counted his takings on our kitchen table, shook Dad's hand twice, and drove off towards the coast with the cage swaying behind him. We went out to sweep the barn. Caught on a splinter of the gate was a single tuft of russet hair, as long as my hand.

I kept it in my Sunday book for years. Some winters, when the wind comes down off the Wolds and rattles the byre door, I take it out and hold it to the window, and it still looks like the sun going down behind a hedge.