Black and grey tattoo of a snarling tiger head with bared fangs and bold shading, photographed on skin.

Snarling tiger head tattoo

Black and grey · Photo

The tattoo shows a tiger's head facing forward with its mouth open and fangs bared in a snarl. Bold black outlines and heavy solid black areas define the fur, with lighter grey and bare skin left between the stripes and mane. The image is a close, straight-on view with the design filling most of the frame against a pale skin background.

Tiger Big cat Snarl Fangs Mane Stripe

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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

Mind the step, it's worn by better feet than yours. The snow was up to the lintel that winter, and the brothers had bolted the gate and told each other stories about the tiger that had come down from the high forest. Brother Tenzing said it had eaten a goat whole. Brother Pell said it had eaten a goat, a boy and a bell rope. Abbot Ruan said nothing, which was how you knew he was frightened.

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Old Anselm kept the lamp in the gatehouse, because he was the only one who did not sleep. One night, with the wind cutting across the courtyard like a blade, he heard a scraping at the postern. He lifted the lamp, and there it was on the other side of the bars. Its face filled the gap. The stripes ran down its cheeks like soot on a kitchen wall, its mouth was wide, its fangs white as candle wax, and it made a sound like a cart rolling over stones in a dry gully.

Anselm did not run. He set the lamp on the threshold so the light fell across the snow, and he told the animal, quietly, that the bread was hard, the brothers were fools, and there was nothing inside worth the trouble. The tiger looked at him a long time. Then it lowered its head, turned, and went back into the trees. In the morning there were prints the size of dinner plates leading towards the ridge, and beside them, small and deep, the prints of a cub that had sheltered in the lee of the wall all night.

So the brothers never agreed on whether the tiger was dangerous. Anselm only ever said it had been guarding something, and that a snarl is just a mouth that has decided to be honest. Now go on, your cup is empty.