Colour tattoo of a sailing ship, red sun, waves and an octopus across the side of a torso and upper thigh, in a Japanese and traditional style.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Sailing ship and octopus side piece

Japanese · Ribs · Colour · Photo

A large full colour tattoo covers the side of the torso, running from the ribs over the hip and onto the upper thigh. A sailing ship sits at the top, framed by swirling white and grey waves, with a red sun behind it and an octopus with curling tentacles wrapping the lower section. Bold outlines and shaded water give the piece saturated red, orange, green and grey tones against the skin.

Japanese Traditional Ribs Thigh Sailing ship Octopus Wave Sun Tentacle Sea

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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

The Hesketh's Floating Ship had been bolted to the back of the lorry since Lowestoft, and by the time we pitched on the Tyne Dock field the mast had begun to lean. My father blamed the crossing. I blamed the tent, which had been soaked in seawater the summer before and still smelt of salt and wet rope, whatever Mrs Dunn scrubbed at it with.

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Every night at nine the flap went back and the crowd shuffled past the great painted board that was the reason for the whole show. A barque went down in a red sunset, its sails torn to ribbons, and out from under the hull came an octopus with its arms wrapped round the rigging, deciding which sailor to take first. Old Okonedo had painted it from a pickled specimen in the Hull museum. He told me the trick was to make every arm look like it was still making up its mind.

Our Teddy was sixteen and wanted nothing more than to be on the water. One October he took the painter's brushes, a coil of rope and the day's takings from the tin, and walked down to the quay to find a coaster bound for Rotterdam. I stood at the tent flap and watched the moon over the river turn the colour of brick, and I told myself the boards would keep.

Next spring I hung the big canvas back in the tent, its arms curled tight, and the first customer asked why the octopus looked so anxious. I told him it was waiting for a boy to come back up the gangway. It was a lie, and it paid better than the truth.