Colour tattoo of a running fox in orange and red watercolour washes with fine black linework, on the side of the ribs.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Running fox on the ribs

Ribs · Colour · Photo

A fox in mid-stride runs across the side of the ribs, with its tail trailing into a fiery wash of red and orange. The fox is outlined in loose black linework, with sketchy strokes on the legs and body, while the orange and red fills blend softly like watercolour. The skin tone and a dark garment at the top edge frame the design against the plain background.

Ribs Fox Animal

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 back gate is open again, and the fox is standing in the flour light as though it has paid the rent. You have a sack of strong white on your hip and the batch still proving under damp cloths, so you say nothing. Mr Pargeter told you on Tuesday that foxes come for the bins and never the bakery, and he has been wrong about most things since he moved his camp bed into the back office.

Keep reading

It trots to the oven door, nose lifted, tail trailing a smear of ember light across the tiles. You tear the heel off yesterday's rye and set it on the sill. The fox takes it without hurry, then bolts past the proving racks, out through the gate and into the lane, where the milk float rattles past the chapel. You follow as far as the setts. Above the rooftops the sky has gone the colour of weak tea, and the fox is a streak of orange across the grey, legs stretched long.

Back inside, the first tray is ready. You knock a loaf on its base and listen for the hollow note Mr Pargeter taught you to trust, and it rings true. The fox does not return that day, or the next. But on Thursday there is a neat paw print in the flour dust on the back step, and beside it a single rye crumb, as though someone wanted you to know the gate had been used.

You unbolt the shutters at six, flour to the elbows, and the first customer is already waiting with a coat over her nightdress and a shilling in her fist. You hand her the warm cob. Behind you the sky goes gold at the edges, and you find you are running a little faster than you were before.