Realism tattoo on an upper arm of a large skull over crossed bones, with a draped red cloth and a second skull below.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Skull and crossbones with red cloth on upper arm

Realism · Upper arm · Mixed · Photo

A large realistic skull sits at the centre of the design, with crossed bones running diagonally across it and a draped cloth wrapped around them. A second skull and swirling ornamental scrollwork fill the lower part of the piece. Fine grey and brown shading gives the bone volume, while areas of red ink accent the fabric.

Realism Upper arm Skull Crossbones Bone Swirl Ornament

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

Brother Anselm had the bone-house to himself the winter the abbey's roof came in, and it was there I learned that the dead do not mind being rearranged so long as the order is kept. Every October the monks lifted the older burials from the chapter yard and stacked them under the nave, skulls facing the altar, the long bones laid crosswise like the spokes of a wheel. My task was the scrubbing. I worked with a stiff brush and a bucket of lime water, and I was not to speak above a murmur.

Keep reading

On the feast of Saint Dunstan, the prior sent down a length of madder-red cloth, the old altar frontal that the damp had ruined. He wanted it wrapped about the lowest shelf so the bones would look less like a rubbish heap and more like a reliquary. I tucked it around a skull with a cracked brow and found, beneath the folds, a pair of finger bones tied together with a thread of gold. Someone had sewn them there on purpose, a small hand pressed flat against the shelf.

I asked Anselm, who had been there forty years, whose they were. He only shrugged and said the monastery had never kept a list of its brothers' bones, only a list of their prayers. So I put the cloth back and left the gold thread where it lay. When the prior came down at vespers to check my work, he stood a long time before the shelf, then crossed himself and said, that will do.