Black smiley face with X eyes and dark star shapes on a shoulder, set against teal and pink watercolour splashes.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Smiley face shoulder tattoo with watercolour splashes

Shoulder · Mixed · Photo

A black ink smiley face with X-shaped eyes sits on the shoulder, with a row of dark star or arrow-like shapes trailing to the left. Bold, uneven black linework is combined with soft teal and pink watercolour washes and small ink splatters behind and around the motif. The photo is taken from behind and slightly to the side, showing the shoulder and upper back with a white off-shoulder top and pink hair.

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

Our Dez bet me a fiver the council would have it scrubbed off by Monday, and I said they'd need a wire brush and a stronger stomach than theirs. He had a tin of black gloss he'd nicked from his uncle's shed. I had a tray of cheap watercolour cakes from the pound shop on Clough Street. The back wall of the bus depot was the only clean thing left in Stallham, so that's where we went, the Thursday after the lights went out on the high street.

Keep reading

Dez did the face freehand because his hand was shaking from the cold and the Rizla. Two crooked eyes, the X's pressed in hard, then a grin that went wider on the left than the right. The stars were his idea. He trailed three of them down the side like someone had dropped them on the way home from the Working Men's. I did the washes with a jam jar of water and my spit, teal first, then pink where the paint ran out and I didn't care. When Dez knocked the tin off the ledge it landed on my trainers and sprayed the whole lot with black freckles, which he swore was on purpose.

Next morning there was a woman in a navy cardigan at the depot gate with a bucket and a mug of tea. Mrs Abbott, the office. She looked at the wall for so long the driver of the 7:40 gave up and parked. Then she said she'd bought the first tin of paint for that wall herself, in 1979, and nobody had ever asked her opinion of it since. She drank her tea, put the bucket down, and paid me the fiver out of her own purse. Dez still owes me the other one.

More like this

Back of a woman with a neo-trad style chandelier and two roses tattooed across her upper back, shaded in grey with purple and pink accents.
Chandelier and roses across a upper back
Black and grey dotwork tattoo of a crescent moon, a moth and a rose with leaves, running from the shoulder down the upper arm of a woman with pink hair.
Crescent moon, moth and rose on upper arm
Black and grey tattoo of Jack Skellington with bats and swirling lines across a woman's upper arm and shoulder.
Jack Skellington upper arm and shoulder piece
Black and grey sugar skull woman tattoo with teal hair accents and ornate swirling linework across the outer thigh.
Sugar skull woman with flowing hair on thigh
Black and grey botanical sleeve with peonies, roses and small flowers covering a woman's shoulder, upper arm and forearm.
Black and grey floral sleeve on an arm
Black and grey dotwork mandala tattoo with a central flower on a woman's shoulder, with a patterned fabric in the background.
Mandala tattoo on a shoulder
Soft, painterly red and pink cherry blossom branch tattoo with grey stems across the upper back, seen from behind.
Cherry blossom branch across a back
Black and pink nautical stars scattered across an upper arm and shoulder, with two larger black stars shaded in the centre.
Scattered stars on upper arm
Colour and black-line tattoo of four fluffy soot sprites with big white eyes holding small green, pink and orange stars, placed on the shoulder.
Four soot sprites with coloured stars on a shoulder
Forearm with a botanical tattoo of red poppies, grey foliage, black linework sprigs of berries and a grey cat, mostly in black and grey with red accents.
Poppies and a cat on a forearm
Full colour Neo-trad style sleeve tattoo on an upper arm and forearm, showing a Maleficent figure with green and purple tones and a princess figure above, with partial lettering at the wrist.
Disney character sleeve on an arm
Fine line sketch tattoo of a woman in profile with butterflies and teal accents running down a woman's upper arm and forearm.
Sketched woman and butterflies on upper arm

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