Brown ink line drawing of a stick figure with raised arms and crossed legs inside a circle, on aged paper, shown as a tattoo design.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Stick figure inside a circle design

Black and grey · Flash

A simple stick figure with a round head, raised forked arms and crossed legs sits inside a thin outer circle, with an inner arc that curves behind the arms. The linework is uniform and drawn in brown ink with no shading. The figure is centred on a sepia, aged paper background with a faint square frame visible in the corners.

Stick figure Circle Figure Cross

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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 bell in the schoolhouse still rang at nine, though nobody had pulled the rope since the year the roof came down. Thirty-one came back for the reunion that summer, and most of them brought their children, who ran about the playground chalking hopscotch over the ghosts of the old lines. Old Mrs Tully, who had taught them all their letters, had kept one slate. She set it on the trestle table beside the urn and said nothing about it to anyone.

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On the slate was a figure drawn with a wet thumb: a round head, arms lifted high and forked at the ends like a bird's feet, legs crossed beneath it as if it were waiting for a bus. A ring went around it. Nobody remembered drawing it. Dennis Hale said it was the thing they had made up at break to frighten the new boy. Carol Ferris said it was nothing of the kind, that it was the mark her father had cut above the byre door, and the two of them argued until the tea went cold.

Mrs Tully listened, then asked each of them in turn what they had wished for in the playground when they were nine. Nobody had an answer. They looked at the ring, then at the raised arms, and found they could not agree whether the shape meant greeting or surrender, only that it depended on which side of the circle you stood. Dennis laughed. Carol did not.

By the time the urn was empty, the slate was blank again. Mrs Tully wiped it with her sleeve and said the children would want it for Monday, and nobody asked which children she meant.