Small black and grey swallow tattoo in a realistic style on the upper chest, near the collarbone.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Small swallow tattoo on upper chest

Realism · Chest · Black and grey · Photo

A small swallow in flight is tattooed on the upper chest, angled towards the right with its wings swept back and forked tail extended. The bird is rendered in soft black and grey shading with fine detail on the head and wing feathers, and a little lighter tone on the underside. The skin tone is warm and the background is softly blurred, which keeps the focus on the bird.

Realism Chest Swallow 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 swallow got into the ticket hall on the Tuesday the 8.14 was late, and by the time I'd found the step-ladder it had knocked itself against the clock face twice. Mr Gedge from the signal box said it would calm if I kept my voice low, so I kept it low and talked to it about the price of coal, the way my mother used to talk to hens.

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Hollin Cross had two hundred people and one platform, and every April the swallows came back to the goods shed rafters as if they held the lease. My brother Len swore they knew the weather better than the Met Office. When they flew low over the allotments he'd pull his cap down and say we'd want the umbrella by teatime. He had been dead four winters that March, and I still checked the sky before I pegged the washing out.

I caught the bird in my good cardigan. It weighed less than a folded letter, and its heart went like a sewing machine against my palm. I carried it out past the newspaper trolley and opened my hands on the forecourt. It didn't go up at first. It sat on the sill of the lost property window, shook itself, then dropped off the edge the way they do, straight down, until the wings caught the wind.

It swept off over the level crossing with its tail forked like a pair of scissors, banking towards the mill chimney, and I watched until I couldn't tell it from the smoke. The 8.14 pulled in twelve minutes late. Mr Gedge asked if I'd got the bird out. I said it had gone to find Len, and he laughed, and then, when I didn't laugh with him, he stopped.