Fine line black tattoo of a row of cartoon pugs wrapping around the forearm, shown in two photographs.

Row of cartoon pugs around the forearm

Fine line · Forearm · Black and grey · Photo

A band of small cartoon pugs in a row circles the limb, each dog standing upright with a simple outline and a few interior details on the faces and tails. The linework is thin and even in dark ink, with no shading or fill, so the figures read as clean outlines against the skin. The top photo shows the tattoo more faintly, likely when fresh or less settled, while the lower photo shows it sharper and more defined on a plain background.

Fine line Forearm Pug Dog Cartoon Outline

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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

Tuesday, and the lock at Hanwell is still shut, so I have had leisure to count the pugs again. Four this morning, lined along the cabin roof like footmen outside a bank, and not one of them willing to sit when Walter asks. Walter says they are only dogs and that I should stop writing them down. I am writing them down because nobody else on this cut has noticed how they walk, upright and tip-toeing, as though the towpath were a ballroom and someone had promised them a waltz.

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They belong to Mrs Pennock, who keeps the chandlery at the top of the flight. She swears they are a litter of four from the same dog, though the smallest has a tail like a question mark and the second has a face like a disappointed magistrate. She lent them to us for the summer to keep the rats off the coal. The rats have gone. The pugs have not, and now they expect a biscuit at every bridge.

Yesterday the rope snapped below Bridge Nine and we drifted sideways into the reeds. The pugs did not bark. They formed up on the bank in their line, one behind the other, and watched us with their fat, patient faces, the way a congregation watches a late bride. When Walter finally poled us free, the little one lifted a paw, just once, as if to say that was all very tiresome but we had got there in the end.

Thursday. The lock is open. Four dogs are back on the roof, and I have stopped trying to make them sit.