Black and grey fine line tattoo of a sleeping baby elephant with large ears on the outer thigh, shown on skin against white towels.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Sleeping baby elephant on a thigh

Fine line · Thigh · Black and grey · Photo

A cartoon baby elephant with large ears sits curled up with its eyes closed and its trunk tucked toward its body. The outline is thin and crisp, with soft grey shading on the head, ears and body and a lighter area beneath it. The design is in black and grey ink and sits centrally on the outer thigh, with white and blue towels in the background.

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

Hush now, the big drier's still going round, and Pim won't settle till it stops. Mrs Pyke had said this every night for forty years, long before the wash-house on Dock Lane had a second machine, and the child at her knee could count the thumps by heart. Pim was a baby elephant who had come off a cargo boat with a crate of tea and nowhere to be. He was too small for the hold and too loud for the quay, so the stevedores carried him up the lane and left him with the laundry, where the steam was warm and nobody minded a trunk poking through the back hatch.

Keep reading

Pim could not sleep. The gulls shrieked, the pier bell clanged, and the foghorn sounded like a cow lost in fog. So each night the washerwomen folded the towels, blue stripes and white, into a nest beside the boiler, and Pim curled inside them with his ears spread like two wet sails. He tucked his trunk under his chin and let his eyes drift shut. The drier turned, and turned, and at last the room went quiet enough to hear him breathe.

One winter the drier broke and stayed broke. Frost furred the windows and the towels sat damp in the sink, smelling of the sea. Pim lay awake in the cold and, for the first time, tried to sleep without the noise. Mrs Pyke pulled an upturned bucket close, sat down, and hummed the old tumble tune, badly, out of time with nothing at all. Pim listened to her off-key humming until his ears drooped, and he decided that was enough.

The drier was mended by spring, but nobody switched it on after dark again. When the child asks why the blue towel is folded so small and square, Mrs Pyke says a sleeping elephant needs only a corner of the world to keep warm. Then she turns the lamp down and tucks the last towel around the little grey shape by the boiler, the way she always did.

More like this

Small black and grey shaded triceratops tattoo on the side of the ribs, with a lace edge of clothing visible above it.
Small triceratops tattoo on the side ribs
Black and grey outline elephant with soft shading and blue flowers with yellow centres, on the outside of a lower leg above the ankle.
Elephant and forget-me-nots on a lower leg
Black dotwork tattoo of a sitting dog looking up at a spider hanging on a thread, on the inner forearm of a person wearing dark clothing.
Dotwork dog and spider on forearm
Fine line black ink tattoo of a small puppy outline with a curled tail and a small arc above its head, on the inner forearm near the wrist.
Small puppy outline on wrist
Black linework tattoo of a sitting cartoon elephant raising its trunk toward three outlined hearts, with pink and teal watercolour washes, on an upper arm.
Sketchy elephant with hearts on an upper arm
Black linework tattoo of a faceted geometric giraffe head with hatched shading and solid black spots, sitting on the upper arm.
Geometric giraffe head on upper arm
Blue line tattoo of a figure in profile with closed eyes on the upper back, drawn in a simple outline style.
Blue outline figure on upper back
Small cartoon elephant tattoo with sketchy black linework and blue and purple watercolour splashes on the forearm.
Sketchy elephant with watercolour splash on forearm
Black and grey realism tattoo of an elephant spraying water from its trunk, with birds flying above, on a person's upper back near the shoulder blade.
Elephant and flying birds on a back
Black and grey traditional tattoo of a cartoon elephant wearing a decorated blanket, on the inner forearm.
Elephant with patterned blanket on a forearm
Small black and grey shaded rabbit tattoo on a forearm, with the rabbit seated and its head turned to the side.
Small shaded rabbit tattoo on an arm
Colour tattoo of a cartoon white cat face wearing a pink bow, placed on the inner wrist.
Cartoon cat with pink bow on wrist

From the plentytattoo archive, uploaded by a user. Is this your work? Ask for credit or removal.