Fine line black outline of a small bow tattoo on a finger of a fist, with leopard print nails, against a pale background.

Small bow outline on a finger

Fine line · Hand · Black and grey · Photo

A close photograph of a hand held in a loose fist, showing a small bow tattoo drawn in a single black outline on one finger. The linework is thin and even, with no shading, and the bow has two loose looped tails. The pale, warm-toned background keeps the focus on the tattoo and the hand, which has leopard print nail varnish.

Fine line Hand Bow Ribbon Outline

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

The hull lines on the Tallow Reach had not been replaced since the third generation, so Maud spent her shifts with a spool of cable across her knees and her grandmother's voice in her head. Pull the loop, not the tail. Every splice on the ring was a bow to her, two loops that anyone could undo if they knew which end to draw.

Keep reading

On the ninth day of the cold watch, the number four seam began to weep. Frost bloomed along the join like something breathing out. The engineers wanted to cut the section and vent it, which would have cost forty people their quarters. Maud climbed the spine with a tool bag and a fistful of sealant and told the bridge she could hold it with a bow.

Nobody believed her except old Teodor, who had watched her grandmother tie the same knot on the outer rings before the bells were melted down. He held the lamp steady while she worked, her fingers numb, looping the cable through the wound and drawing it tight. The tails she left long and loose, the way her grandmother always had, so the next crew would know a person had made the join and not a machine.

The seam held through the long dark. When the lights came up again, a girl from the nursery crawled up the spine with a stub of chalk and traced a ribbon shape on the plate beside the join. "What's that for?" she asked. Maud looked at the two loose tails and said, "So you can find where to pull."