Black and white photo of a large black and grey skull tattoo covering a person's back, with a dotwork star on the upper back and a portrait on the arm.

Skull and star back tattoo in black and grey

Dotwork · Back · Black and grey · Photo

A large skull fills the back, with a stippled dotwork star across the upper back and shoulders. The skull has bold outlines, filigree and flame-like scrollwork, and shaded teeth, with the upper back shown in fine dots. The image is monochrome with a dark background and even lighting that picks out the contrast in the ink.

Dotwork Neo-trad Back Upper arm Forearm Skull Star Filigree Flame Portrait Chain Geometric pattern

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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

The lamp is smoking again, and you have been cutting the same brow ridge for three nights because the yew will not take a curve it does not already hold. Outside the workshop the forest at the end of Hallow Lane has gone quiet, the way it does before the charcoal burners come down. Mrs Pyke has left a loaf and a lantern on the step without a note, which means her husband has not come home from the timber road.

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The commission is for the lych gate at Slade: a skull above the arch, flames curling off its brow like the scrolls on a bellows, and a five-pointed star worked small beneath the jaw so the gatekeeper can find it in fog. Your master always said a skull without a star is only a warning. You have learned to leave the teeth proud so the lamplight pools in the gaps and the grin seems to shift when you walk past it.

On the third night a knock comes, three soft taps on the shutter. You do not open it. Through the gap you see a hand holding a chain of tin medals, and you know the man is the one who walks the bounds and counts the graves. He asks whether the star is finished. You tell him the rays need one more cut. He says then cut it, and do not look down the path while you work.

You cut it with the door barred. At dawn the gate goes up, and Mrs Pyke's lantern is still burning on her step. When the cart rattles back along the lane with her husband sitting up in the straw, grey and blinking, you notice the skull is facing the forest, the way you were told to set it.