Shaded scorpion with Scorpio lettering on ribs
Realism · Ribs · Mixed · Photo
A shaded scorpion with a segmented tail curled upward and claws open, drawn in black and grey with soft gradients on the body and pincers. The word Scorpio sits above the tail in blue blackletter script. The tattoo fills the frame against pale skin, with a dark background at the edge of the shot.
Find an artist for thisTake 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
Brother Anselm had been warned that the scorpion was the one sign he must not get wrong, because the abbot's patron had been born under it and would notice. So he drew it three times on scrap vellum before he dared touch the gold. The first was too fat in the tail, the second had its pincers splayed like a crab's, and the third looked, he thought, rather like a small black ship with a sting.
Keep reading
The scriptorium smelled of tallow and oak gall. Outside, rain had fallen since Lauds, and the brothers in the cloister had given up pretending to chant over it. Anselm dipped his pen and turned to the lettering. The abbot wanted the word written in the broken hand the northern houses used for charters, and blue, because the ultramarine had come all the way from Venice at a price that would make the treasurer weep. He wrote SCORPIO in letters that leaned against one another like tired men.
On the last evening of the month, when the ink had dried and the candles were guttering, a novice came in with a wet cloak and a question. Why, he asked, did the scorpion curl its tail up over its own back when every other beast in the book lay flat? Anselm studied the drawing for a long time. Then he answered honestly: the creature had been drawn by a man who had spent too many hours watching one under a stone, and it had never once lain flat for him.
More like this
From the plentytattoo archive, uploaded by a user. Is this your work? Ask for credit or removal.