Small black and grey shaded tattoo of a seated panda on the upper arm, with a grey t-shirt sleeve visible.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Seated panda on an upper arm

Realism · Upper arm · Black and grey · Photo

A small seated panda with its paws resting together is tattooed on the outer upper arm. The animal is built from fine stippled dots and soft grey shading, with darker ink on the ears, eye patches and legs. The composition is centred on the arm against a plain light background, and the image is entirely black and grey.

Realism Dotwork Upper arm Panda Bear Animal

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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 panda had been on the wheelhouse sill since the winter my father bought the Marigold off a man in Stourport, and nobody on the cut ever asked where it came from. It was a fat grey and white thing no taller than a teacup, sitting with its paws folded as if it had been asked to wait and had agreed to it. Dad said it was the only crew member who never complained about the locks.

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We worked the Severn and the Trent that year, carrying coal to the potteries and coming back light with clay. Lock keepers came out of their huts with flasks and bad jokes. At Stenson we sat four hours while the water dropped, and I sulked over the tiller, and the panda just looked at the gate with its black button eyes. Dad caught me glaring at it and laughed. 'He's better at this than you,' he said. 'Give it a few years.'

The turn came at Shardlow, when the rain came sideways and the gauge on the bank read higher than Dad liked. He went ashore to check the paddles and didn't come back for an hour. I stood at the tiller with the boat dragging at her ropes, and I picked up the panda, which I had never once done, and found it cold and smooth from the damp. I set it down facing the water.

When he climbed aboard, soaked to the collar, he looked at the little bear, then at me, and sat down heavily beside it. We waited out the flood without saying much, hands folded in our laps the way its paws were folded. By morning the river had dropped back between its banks, and the panda was still sitting where I had put it, facing the water.