Black and grey realism tattoo of a skull with ornamental swirls and outlined petals across an upper arm.

Skull and filigree swirls on upper arm

Realism · Upper arm · Black and grey · Photo

A shaded skull sits at the centre of the upper arm, with fine scrolling filigree curling over its crown and across the top of the shoulder. Outlined petal shapes surround the skull and extend down the arm, with the outlines left mostly unshaded. The ink is black and grey, with soft tonal gradients on the skull and lighter, sketchy linework on the surrounding forms against the skin.

Realism Botanical Upper arm Skull Swirl Filigree Petal Flower 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

The skull came down off its nail the night the floorboards gave way, and nobody at Hollin Mere could say whose it had been. Old Ada Pell swore it was a ram's, its horns worn to scrolls by a century of hands. Her grandson swore it was a dog. Either way, the fiddler Silas Wren had hung it above the stage so the dancers would have something to look up at while they turned.

Keep reading

Mab Tennant danced every Saturday with a sprig of rosehip pinned at her collar, and every Saturday she counted the petals that dropped from the paper garlands onto the boards. Eleven one week, nine the next. She counted them the way her mother counted stitches, because counting was a way to keep your feet under you when the fiddle went wild. Wren played faster as the night wore on. He said the skull liked it fast.

On the last night before the hall was to be pulled down, the fiddle stopped mid-reel and the skull did not fall. Wren climbed up and lifted it down in both hands. Wedged in the eye hollows he found a bundle of pressed petals, pale as old wedding paper, and nothing written on them. He turned the skull over twice, then hung it back on its nail himself.

They knocked the hall down in spring. The skull went into the new one, and the new one has a tune they still play at closing, slow at the start and quick at the end. The old women say that if you stop talking, you can hear the petals drop.