Colour tattoo on a person's upper back showing two skull-faced portraits, a raised hand and red and blue geometric blocks, with a small hummingbird tattoo to the left.

Skull portraits and hummingbird on upper back

Back · Mixed · Photo

A central composition of two skull-faced figures, one in blue and grey and one in red and grey, overlapping a raised hand with a splash of dark ink. Red and blue geometric blocks sit behind the figures, with fine stippled dots at the edges. The skin is pale and the photograph is taken straight on, with a small hummingbird tattoo visible at the upper left.

Back Skull Portrait Hand Geometric shape Splatter Hummingbird Bird

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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 last up train is running late again, and Marsh has left you the kettle, the logbook and a cold sausage roll wrapped in greaseproof paper. Lever seven is for the platform, lever twelve for the goods loop, and you never trust the bell until the lamp in the window turns green. Beyond the bridge the rain has smeared the platform lamps into yellow coins, and a dog is barking at nothing in particular.

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At twenty to midnight two men come up the stairs from the subway. One wears a blue donkey jacket and has his hair combed flat with something that smells of pear drops. The other wears a red scarf and carries himself like a match just struck. Under the skin of their faces you can see the bone, grinning and patient, yet nobody on the platform looks twice. The blue one raises his hand, two fingers up, the way a man hails a cab on the far side of the world, and the red one turns towards the tracks as though the gesture were a bet he has already placed.

You pull lever seven. The signal drops with a clank that carries down the empty platform, and the two of them step to the edge of the concrete as if they have rehearsed it for years. The blue one tells you through the open hatch that they are not catching the train, only seeing it off. Behind them the sky over the goods yard has split into red and blue panels, and a spray of white dots drifts from the signal wire like sparks off a grinder.

The up train arrives at four minutes past, its headlamp sweeping over the empty platform. When the doors open there is nobody on it, only a folded red scarf on a seat and a blue jacket draped over the handrail. You write it in the logbook the way Marsh taught you: two passengers, no tickets, both on time.