Black fine line tattoo of a butterfly made from scrolls and curls, sitting on the side of the ribs.

Scrollwork butterfly on the ribs

Fine line · Ribs · Black and grey · Photo

The tattoo shows a butterfly built from flowing scrollwork, with its wings and body formed by curling lines and leaf-like swirls. The linework is thin and mostly outlined, with small areas of solid black shading inside some of the curls. The design is in black ink only and sits diagonally on the side of the torso against a plain skin background.

Fine line Ribs Butterfly Scroll Swirl Curl Leaf

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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

Mr Abney never drew on paper. He said paper lied about how a curl wanted to turn, so he worked straight from the bar, heating half-inch rod until it glowed the colour of a wet cherry, then letting it talk him round the anvil. I was nineteen, and my job was to hold the tongs and keep my mouth shut.

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The commission was a garden gate for a house on Ecclesall Road, the owner wanting something that looked as if it had grown there. Abney gave me the scrolls to forge: a long stem that swooped and doubled back on itself, then leaf shapes hammered flat and dished so they caught the light. Only at the end did I see what they made together, two wings lifting off a body no thicker than a finger.

We hung the gate on a Thursday. The owner came down the path, looked at the leaves, and asked where the butterfly was. Abney shrugged and said it had been there the whole time. I took a file to the dark joins where the leaves met the wings, then shaded them with a hot punch until they went black and glossy, and I still think that was the best work I ever did.

Years later I walked past the house. The gate was still standing, paint flaking, and a child was swinging on it, her small hands wound into the tight spiral at the bottom where the iron finished. She had found the butterfly's tail and was holding on to it as though it might lift her off the path.