Black and grey dotwork tattoo on an upper arm showing a skeletal animal, a crescent moon, a large flower and dotted geometric lines.

Skeletal animal, moon and flower on upper arm

Dotwork · Upper arm · Black and grey · Photo

A large black and grey tattoo covers the upper arm and shoulder, with a skeletal animal in the centre, a solid crescent moon above it and a large flower near the shoulder. The animal skeleton is drawn in fine outline with stippled dotwork shading, and the flower uses layered line work. Small stars, diamond shapes and dotted lines fill the background and frame the central figure.

Dotwork Botanical Geometric Upper arm Shoulder Skeleton Animal Flower Crescent moon Moon Star Diamond Dotted line Geometric

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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

Dear Nell, the rain has finally stopped, so I can tell you what Mr Ferrier has been doing in the east tower since Michaelmas. He has laid the fox out on the flagstones in the order it died, which he says is the only honest order. Every rib he lifts with a bone hook and sets on a square of waxed linen, numbered in pencil. Then he sits with his lamp and a pot of ink so fine it looks grey, and dots. Dots for the shadows, he says, because a shadow is only a crowd of small absences.

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I held the lamp for him four nights running. The chapel end has no roof, so when the moon is up it lays a silver crescent across the floor, and he insists we work right to its edge. Last night he stopped mid-dot and asked me to count the stars showing through the broken slates. I counted thirty-one, and he wrote them in the margin with a tiny cross beside each, as though they were owed a receipt.

This morning the fox's skull was gone from the linen. I searched the tower and found it in the well bucket, scrubbed white, with a sprig of lavender tucked into the eye socket. Mr Ferrier says the fox asked to be finished properly, and that a drawing is only a promise kept until the bones are ready. He has pinned the new plate above the hearth and will not let me touch it.

I think I will stay another winter. Burn this when you have read it, or keep it with the others. The moon is climbing over the broken wall now, and he is already reaching for the ink.