Black and grey shark tattoo in a sketchy, stippled style on the upper back between the shoulder blades.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Shark tattoo on upper back

Blackwork · Back · Black and grey · Photo

A shark swims diagonally down the centre of the upper back, showing its dorsal fin, pectoral fins and curved tail. The linework is loose and sketchy, with stippled dots and short strokes shading the body and tail. The design is rendered in black and grey against pale skin and fills much of the frame.

Blackwork Dotwork Back Shark Fish Sea creature

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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

Brother Eumenes, the grain fleet has lain becalmed three days off Cape Pachynus, and the men have started saying the water is cursed. You always said I exaggerate, so this time I have drawn what I saw on the spare board I am sending with this letter. Mind the charcoal, it smudges.

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On the fourth morning a shark came up beside the hull, as long as the mainmast is tall, its back fin cutting the glass like a knife through oil. Hipparchos swore it was the sea's messenger. I counted its side fins spread wide and still, like oars held against the current, and saw the tail sweep once, slow, and the whole ship rock. Nobody would touch the bronze hook until old Crates said what a sensible man says: if it wanted us dead, it would have done it in the night.

We baited with the salted tunny from the bottom of the amphora. It took the hook at noon and ran so hard the line burned Demas's palms through his gloves. We did not haul it in. We cut it loose when the tail flung up against the rail, and it went off into the blue trailing a dark smear like soot on wet slate. I pricked dots along its flank to show the scars, the way you dot a wall to show where the rain got in.

The wind came back before sunset. Hipparchos says the shark called it, and I have let him keep the story. Show the board to Lysa and tell her the nose is wrong, I know it is. My thumb still carries a grey print of the charcoal, and Demas says that is a fine thing to bring home from Sicily. Keep the board by the hearth until I return.