Traditional style scorpion tattoo with black outlines, grey shading and a red sun behind it, on a forearm.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Scorpion over red sun on a forearm

Traditional · Forearm · Mixed · Photo

A large scorpion with bold black outlines and grey shading runs diagonally across the skin, with its raised claws and curled tail clearly visible. A solid red disc sits behind the body as a strong focal point. Partial tattoos of a small flower and ornamental linework appear at the edges of the frame against a black background.

Traditional Forearm Scorpion Sun Flower Dagger

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

Mind the puddle by the fish stall, it's deeper than it looks, and nobody leaves until I've reached the sun. Right. It was raining on Saltergate market the morning Ada Penhallow found the scorpion under her tarpaulin, the way it rains here, sideways and without any manners.

Keep reading

It had come in a crate of tinned peaches from a man called Oswin Dray, who sold lanterns and owed everybody money. Black as a wet boot it was, with its claws raised like a pair of pliers ready for business, and its tail curled over its back like a question nobody wanted answered. Ada tried to shoo it into the gutter. It simply sat there while the rain bounced off its shell, as if it had paid for the privilege.

By dinner time the drips had emptied every stall but hers, and Ada did not believe in luck, but she believed in a good trade. So she set out a saucer of water and told the scorpion it could stay if it kept the weather off her counter. Mind, that was a bargain struck with a creature that never blinks. That afternoon the cloud split over the harbour, and a red coin of a sun hung above the cobbles, so hot the traders came out from under their awnings just to look at it.

And if you go down Saltergate tomorrow, you'll find her stall still dry, a little red lamp burning under the canvas, and the scorpion keeping its tail curled round the takings. Now who wants a cockle?