Black and grey Japanese style tattoo of a helmeted samurai warrior with armour and smoke, covering the upper arm and shoulder.

Samurai warrior on upper arm

Japanese · Upper arm · Black and grey · Photo

A helmeted samurai warrior in full armour is the central subject, with a raised arm, a bow and arrows, and a pale mask-like face. Smooth shading and sharp linework create strong contrast in the armour plates, while swirling clouds and smoke fill the background. The design wraps around the upper arm and shoulder in greys and black with no colour ink.

Japanese Realism Upper arm Shoulder Warrior Helmet Armour Cloud Smoke Bow Arrow

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Your hands are still raw from the last string when the rider comes up the causeway, and the smoke from the burning barley fields is already rolling over the ridge like a tide that has forgotten how to be water. Lord Ottery wants his great bow strung before dusk. He wants it strung by you, the bowmaker's apprentice, because your master's fingers have stiffened and because the old man swore you had the patience of a heron standing in a cold ford.

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The warden's armour hangs on a peg in the hall. Its plates are lacquered black and laced with red silk, and the helm carries a crescent of iron that the smiths of Vell claim they caught from a falling moon and bent to their will. Beside it sits the face-mask, pale as a peeled almond, with a mouth that never once softened in the three summers you have watched it ride past the gate. You take the bow down from its rack, feel the wood settle into your palm, and loop the cord over the nock with a slow, steady pull until the limbs bend like a held breath.

When the warden rides out, he lifts one arm high, and the quiver on his back rattles with grey goose-feathered shafts. He does not look at the wall where you stand, and you do not wave. By nightfall the smoke has swallowed the whole ridge. The only thing still visible from the battlements is the warden's raised arm, the bow drawn to its full stretch, and beneath it a long grey cloud that has learned to move against the wind.