Realistic colour tattoo of a helmeted Roman warrior with a plume, eagle and lion armour details, on the upper arm against an orange background.

Roman warrior in armour on upper arm

Realism · Upper arm · Mixed · Photo

A detailed realistic portrait of a helmeted Roman-style warrior in side profile, with a crested plume, an engraved eagle on the breastplate and a lion head on the armour. The metal armour is rendered in soft greys with smooth shading and highlights, while the skin, a dark cloak and a hazy orange background add colour. The figure fills the upper arm and shoulder, and the image is a close photograph of the healed or fresh tattoo.

Realism Upper arm Shoulder Warrior Helmet Plume Armour Eagle Lion Cloak

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The helmet rolls off the passenger seat for the third time before the cattle grid, and this time you leave it where it lands. Fine dust has settled in the crest of horsehair, and the cheek guards have taken on the colour of the road, but the lion's face on the brow still snarls up at the roof lining as if it resents being moved. Your uncle bought it from a stall in Marrakesh along with a lorry load of brass fittings and swore it was the real thing. You have never believed him, which is why you are driving it out to the Harrow Wells gate instead of leaving it in the yard.

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The road runs straight for forty kilometres with nothing on it but telegraph poles leaning like tired men. Heat lifts off the tarmac in orange sheets, and the sky behind the wing mirror is the same colour as the sand, so the distance has no edges. Every few miles you glance at the breastplate on the seat beside you, where the engraved bird spreads its wings over the metal, and you think of the old drill sergeant who taught your uncle to salute, and how he said a soldier stands with his shoulders back even when no one is watching.

At the checkpoint a young guard with sunburnt ears lifts the barrier and asks what you are carrying. You tell him it is a helmet for a school play. He turns it over in both hands, looks a long time at the lion, and hands it back without a word, as if it weighs more than he expected. You drive on.

Past the last pole the sun drops onto the horizon and sets the plume alight, and for a moment the whole helmet glows like a coal you have carried too far.