Black and grey dotwork tattoo of a stag with antlers wearing a suit and tie, across the inner forearm.

Stag in a suit on a forearm

Dotwork · Forearm · Black and grey · Photo

A stag's head and neck rise from a tailored suit jacket with a collar and tie, drawn front-on with branching antlers above. The face and antlers are built from fine linework and stippled dot shading, while the jacket is rendered in stippled tone with crisp outlines. The design is in black ink and grey only, centred on the forearm against a dark background.

Dotwork Forearm Stag Deer Antler Suit Tie Jacket

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 stag arrived at the petrol station at Saltbush Wells just after the heat broke, which is when things out here generally turn up. He stood by the air pump with his antlers brushing the canopy lights, wearing a charcoal suit that had been pressed by someone who cared about it. The collar was crisp and the tie was a dark, deliberate stripe. I was on the till with a crossword I had given up on, and I remember thinking he looked like a man sent to read the water meter.

Keep reading

He wanted a lift to Barstow, he said, and he asked politely, the way you'd ask a bank manager for an extension. I told him my little hatchback had a dodgy back seat and a boot full of tyre irons. He said that was no matter. He folded himself into the passenger seat with the care of a man getting into a hearse, then sat with his hands on his knees and watched the road as if he were counting the mile markers.

We drove an hour without a word. Somewhere past the dry lake he said he had a meeting in the morning, and that the last deer he'd dealt with had signed away his grazing rights for a bag of salt and a promise. He had not come to take anything back. He had come, he said, to make sure the paperwork was clean.

At Barstow he climbed out, straightened his jacket, and handed me a card with a single dot printed on it. On the back, in neat pencil, it said: Your turn at the gate. I still have it. Some nights the road hums under the tyres and I check the mirror for antlers.