Black and grey realism tattoo of a snarling lion with bared teeth, surrounded by smoke and lightning, on the forearm.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Snarling lion with lightning on a forearm

Realism · Forearm · Black and grey · Photo

The tattoo shows a lion's head with its mouth open in a snarl, teeth and eyes rendered in fine detail. The lion is surrounded by swirling smoke and thin lightning-like lines that extend up and down the forearm. The work uses smooth shading and high contrast in black and grey on a blurred, neutral background.

Realism Forearm Lion Smoke Lightning Teeth Snarl

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 storm had already taken the east tower when you found the lion in the nettles, its mouth still open, its stone teeth furred with moss. Marta from the village had said the masons would come in spring to haul it back onto the gatehouse, but nobody had come, and the ruin of Hollin Keep had long since stopped waiting for anybody.

Keep reading

You knelt and brushed the grit from its brow. Lightning cracked over the moor, and for one white second the carved mane looked like smoke pouring off the stones, the way the old tellers said the beast had been made to look: a lion woken from the hill to guard the keep against the men who had burned it. Your grandmother told that story wrong on purpose, so you would correct her, and you never once let her finish it.

By dusk the rain had found the cracks in the lion's jaw. You wedged a plank beneath its neck and dragged it on a sledge of rope, swearing each time a stone shifted, until it lay heavy in the cart. Its eyes were blank, but the snarl was still aimed at the sky, as if daring the next bolt to come down and try.

At the gate you stopped to rest. Lightning touched the hilltop, and the lion's shadow leapt across the courtyard wall, enormous and furious. You laughed alone in the rain, lifted the cart handles, and told it that it could roar at the clouds all it liked, but it was coming home with you tonight.