A colour tattoo of a red balloon on a string holding a king penguin, placed on the side of the ribs.

Red balloon and penguin on the ribs

Ribs · Mixed · Photo

A red balloon floats above a king penguin, joined by a thin black string that runs diagonally across the side of the ribs. The penguin has solid black wings and back, with orange and yellow patches on its head and chest and grey-white shading on its belly. The balloon has a glossy highlight, and the composition is simple, with plenty of open skin around the motifs.

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

Now you'll want to hear about Mabel Crake's penguin, because nobody in Scarrow Bay believed a word of it until the balloon came down on the slipway. Mind the gulls, they've been listening too.

Keep reading

It was the August regatta, the year the lifeboat went out for a sailing dinghy and came back with a goat. Old Tobias Fenn had a stall selling red balloons at a penny each, and the king penguin belonged to nobody. It had walked off a cargo ship from the Falklands in a crate meant for a zoo in Bristol, and it had decided Scarrow was far enough. Mabel bought the last balloon on the stall and tied it to the penguin's flipper with her hair ribbon, because the bird had sat down on the harbour wall and refused to move for anyone.

Up it went, the penguin dangling on the string like a grave gentleman being carried off to a dance. It drifted over the chandlery, over the fish market, over the vicar, who was still holding his hat. The wind turned north and so did the bird, and by teatime it was a black speck over the lighthouse, going nowhere in particular with great dignity.

Mabel never got the ribbon back. Some say the penguin is still up there, slowly turning in the weather. I say the string snapped at the lighthouse and the bird landed on the rocks, where it's been seen fishing ever since. Either way, when you're down by the slipway and a red balloon catches the light, you'll know whose it is.

More like this

Colour tattoo of a green ivy vine with a red ladybird across the top of a foot, in a botanical style.
Ivy vine and ladybird on a foot
Black and grey fine line tattoo of a hatched tree with a thin trunk, a small red heart, and two small figures on an upper arm.
Tree and red heart on an upper arm
Small pink flamingo tattoo with black outline legs, placed on the side of an ankle.
Pink flamingo on an ankle
Small colour tattoo of two red cardinals perched on a black branch, on the inner forearm.
Two red cardinals on a branch on a forearm
Colour tattoo on the inner forearm of a black silhouette figure lifted by a cluster of red, orange, pink, green and blue balloons.
Silhouette floating from colourful balloons on forearm
Black ink tattoo of a stretched cartoon cat with a curled tail on the inner forearm, in a blackwork style.
Black cat stretching on a forearm
Small fine line tattoo of a pug dog held aloft by a galaxy-coloured hot air balloon in pink, purple and blue, placed on the side of the ribs.
Pug floating from a galaxy balloon on the ribs
Colour tattoo of two bullfinches in flight on the upper back near the shoulder blade, with red breasts and blue-grey wings and loose splashes of ink.
Two bullfinches in flight on a shoulder blade
Black and grey realism tattoo of two birds perched on a bare branch, placed on a woman's upper back near the shoulder blade.
Two birds on a branch across a shoulder blade
Realistic red ladybird tattoo with black swirling vine linework wrapping around an ankle.
Ladybird and swirls on an ankle
Small colour tattoo of a red and blue butterfly with outstretched wings on the ankle, shown against a dark background.
Red and blue butterfly on an ankle
Fine line black botanical tattoo of a thin wildflower stem with two seed heads and small leaves, on the inner forearm.
Small wildflower stem on a forearm

From the plentytattoo archive, uploaded by a user. Is this your work? Ask for credit or removal.