Two clenched fists show the word SELFMADE tattooed in dark letters across the knuckles, in a lettering style with teal shading on the hands.

SELFMADE lettering across knuckles

Lettering · Hand · Mixed · Photo

Two clenched fists face the camera, with the word SELFMADE tattooed in capital letters across the four fingers of each hand, one letter per finger segment. The letters have bold, shaded outlines in dark ink with teal highlights, and red floral tattoos are partly visible on both forearms. The background is a dark top and a blurred grey patterned surface, keeping the focus on the hands.

Lettering Hand Forearm Lettering Knuckle Finger Fist Rose

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

The rain came sideways through the gap at Kettering Street market, and by ten the tarpaulin over Mrs Okafor's fish boxes was sagging like a hammock. I had my easel under the arch of the old Co-op, lettering shop fascias for anyone who paid in cash. Teal was my colour for shadows, because the man who taught me said nothing looked real without a cold edge to it.

Keep reading

Thaddeus Brill came at noon with his hands held out flat over my board, like a man showing cards he didn't trust the dealer with. He wanted letters across his knuckles, not a fist and not a name. "Something that says I didn't get handed anything," he said. I asked what it should say. He thought about it for a while, watching the water pour off the awning. "SELFMADE, all one word. The two halves never got on."

I drew the letters with a ruler and a stick of graphite, the serifs flared like a tailor's shears. For the outlines I used black ink, and for the shading I pressed in the teal with a sable brush so each stroke caught the light the way wet pavement does. He didn't flinch once, though the rain got under the awning and into my tins and the paint went thick and sulky in the cold.

When the sky cleared near four, he came back holding his fists up like a boxer and asked me to fix the last E, which had a bead of ink sitting at the foot of it. I told him to leave it. Every sign I had ever painted on this street had a drip somewhere, and the drip was the only part anybody believed.