Close-up of a fine dotted line tattoo ending in a small star on a forearm, in black ink, placed near the wrist.

Small dotted line and star on a forearm

Fine line · Forearm · Black and grey · Photo

A fine dotted line runs diagonally up the forearm and ends in a small star near the middle of the arm. The stippled linework is in a single dark ink and looks crisp against the skin. The shallow focus blurs the grey background, leaving the arm, a hand wearing silver rings and part of a grey top in clear view.

Fine line Dotwork Forearm Star Dotted line

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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

Sit yourself down by the range, duck, and mind the cat, she's been sulking since Tuesday. You'll not have heard of Tobias Ransome. Nobody did, not properly. He came up the steps of Gull Rest in the October of the big wind with one trunk, a brass sextant with a cracked glass, and a habit of pricking holes in everything he touched.

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He pricked holes in the chart on my hall table, every night at nine. A line of tiny dots ran from the harbour mouth out into the grey, one pinprick every half inch, neat as stitching. My late husband said he was plotting the way to Norway. I said nobody needs to sail to Norway with a needle. Tobias would only laugh and tap the end of the line, where he'd inked a little star with the nib of his pen, and say that was where he meant to stand when he was done.

The turn came in March. Ivy Harte, the lighthouse keeper's girl, rowed out to the breakwater in a squall to fetch him back from the rocks, where he'd gone to take readings. They found the sextant on the shingle, the glass unbroken for once, and the trunk still packed. The chart was on my table, and past the star there was one more dot, pricked so lightly it had nearly gone through the paper.

So I never did learn if he was lost or only finished. Some nights, when the tide's making and the wind's come round to the north, I take my lamp to that table and count the dots. There are two hundred and twelve of them. Beyond the last one there's nothing but blank paper, bright as a new coin, waiting for somebody with a steady hand to decide where the line goes next.