A fresh black line anchor tattoo on an upper arm, in the Fine line style, being worked on by a tattooist wearing gloves and holding a tattoo machine.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Small anchor tattoo being inked on upper arm

Fine line · Upper arm · Black and grey · Photo

A small black anchor with a ring at the top and a curved stock sits on the skin of an upper arm. The lines look bold and even, with a little ink smear and blood around the outline, suggesting the tattoo is fresh. A gloved tattooist holds the machine at the lower right of the frame, while a grey sleeve covers the top of the arm against a dark, out of focus background.

Fine line Upper arm Anchor Tattoo machine Glove

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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

Mrs Pruett kept the back parlour of Gull Rest free on Thursdays, because the needle man came up from Coldharbour with his case and his kettle, and the sea air made a poor job of anything inked in the open. He never gave his name. The village called him Mr Tallow for the candle smell of his gloves.

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The Renn boy came in the week the Morwenna went out for herring. He wanted a small anchor, the sort a man could hide under a cuff. 'Draw it true,' he said, 'or it won't hold.' Mr Tallow pressed the stencil down, wiped it clean, and set the machine going. The lad's breath came short at first, then slowed to the hum of the needle. A bead of red rose along the stock, and Mr Tallow blotted it with a square of muslin and did not hurry.

Nobody in Coldharbour believed in charms, but the Morwenna came home that Friday in a fog so thick the quay lamps were only smudges. She came in on the tide all the same, steering by the one bell the boy had been told to listen for. Mrs Pruett said afterwards that the anchor had held, though she could not say what it was holding.

Tobias came back the next Thursday, asking whether the ink would fade. Mr Tallow told him the sea would take the colour long before it took the man, and that a line drawn true never needed the sea to hold it.