Black and grey pencil drawing of a human skull with a death's head moth on its crown and a rose at its base, shown as a tattoo design on white.

Skull, death's head moth and rose design

Realism · Black and grey · Flash

A realistic pencil drawing of a human skull with a death's head moth resting on top and a rose in full bloom below the jaw. The skull and moth wings use fine shading and crosshatching, with strong contrast between the dark eye sockets and the lighter bone. The design is drawn in greys on a plain white background and centred on the page.

Realism Skull Moth Rose Flower

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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 Priya, you will say I have finally gone soft in the head, but I have had the skull out of the loft since the invitation came. The one we took from Mr Hartley's cupboard the summer we were fifteen. The moth came back to it last Tuesday. You remember the moth. It settled on the crown of that bone the night we buried the rabbit behind the sports hall, and it stayed there until the bell for first lesson, its wings opening and closing like it was reading something written inside the bone.

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I pressed a rose from Mrs Okafor's bed into the eye socket, the way we promised each other we would if we ever got to see the thing properly in daylight. The petals have gone the colour of weak tea now, but the stem still holds its shape. I keep thinking about the gap in the upper row of teeth, the one Danny Pryce used to make jokes about before he left Halden for good that autumn.

Then on Friday the caretaker rang me. He had found a ledger in the old biology store, and in it a line in Mr Hartley's careful hand: skull, donated, for the use of the school, with a name beside it that is not ours. The name is Danny's father's. I have not told anyone else yet, not even Ruth.

I am bringing the skull to the reunion in a carrier bag, wrapped in your old school scarf. Save me a seat near the window. I will put the rose on the table between us, and we can decide together who gets to open the bag.