Black and grey dotwork portrait of a woman's face framed by bold black outlines and a solid black band on the upper arm.

Stippled portrait face on an upper arm

Dotwork · Upper arm · Black and grey · Photo

A stippled black and grey portrait of a woman's face fills the centre of the design, with her gaze turned towards the viewer and her hair rendered in fine curved lines. Bold black outlines and solid black fields frame the face, creating a split, geometric composition across the upper arm. The shading is built entirely from dots, giving soft tonal gradation in the skin.

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

You are on your knees in the back room of the chandlery when the shutter gives way, its nails coming loose from the damp wood like old teeth. Behind it, where Mr Ferris always said there was only blank wall, a woman looks out at you. Her face is built from thousands of dots, so fine that from a yard away she seems lit from somewhere inside the plaster, and the hair above her ear falls in curved grooves like the lines a tide leaves on sand.

Keep reading

Nobody in Porthallow will say who painted her. The harbourmaster's widow thinks it was a sailor who came back from the Baltic with a box of pens and no money. The postman swears the shutter went up the year the boat was lost, which makes no sense, since the boat was lost in spring. You photograph her on your phone and send the picture to your sister in Plymouth, who replies with only one line: she's looking at you. You are not sure she is wrong.

The black paint on the shutter is still tacky at its edges, so someone has been covering her again, or has been doing it every few years for a reason nobody wrote down. You scrape a fingernail along the board and find a second layer, then a third, each one a slightly different black, like the ledger of a man who could never quite decide.

By dusk you have cleared the left half of her face. The right half stays under the paint, a black field with one clean edge, and you decide that part is hers to keep. You lock up, leave the shutter propped against the wall, and walk down the quay as the lamps come on, feeling her gaze settle between your shoulder blades the way the harbour settles at slack water.

More like this

Black and grey dotwork tattoo on the inner forearm showing a bald head with closed eyes held by a hand, with a second hand pinching a small object above it.
Hands holding a bald head on a forearm
Black and grey realism tattoo of a woman's face with snakes coiled around it, on a lower leg, with an open-mouthed snake head at the base.
Realistic woman's face with snakes on a calf
Black and grey tattoo on a forearm showing two overlapping female faces, one with a third eye, with arrows and flowing hair in a realistic shaded style.
Two faces and arrows on a forearm
Black linework tattoo of a stylised face framed by roses with red accents, on the inner upper arm.
Stylised face and roses on an upper arm
Black and grey dotwork tattoo of a stylised woman's face with a rose, rosebuds and leaves above it, on the thigh.
Geometric portrait and rose on thigh
Black and grey dotwork tattoo of two stylised figures embracing, with a large flower and leafy sprigs, on the upper thigh.
Two figures embracing with flowers on a thigh
Black fine line tattoo of a faceted geometric woman wearing a flower crown, with roses below, on the inner forearm.
Geometric portrait with roses on forearm
Black and grey traditional tattoo of a woman with wavy bobbed hair and a large stippled rose below her shoulders, on a lower leg.
Woman portrait with rose on a calf
Black and grey forearm tattoo of a raven head above a human face in profile, with a small red beak accent and a dagger with a red blade at the lower left.
Raven and face with dagger on a forearm
Black linework tattoo of a geometric faceted portrait of a woman wearing a flower crown, above a wreath of roses, on the upper arm.
Geometric portrait with rose wreath on upper arm
Black and grey linework and dotwork tattoo of a woman's face and a bird on the upper arm, with a blue sphere and orange crescent below.
Woman's face and bird on upper arm
Black dotwork and fine line tattoo of a songbird perched on a leafy branch beneath a stippled sun, shown on the forearm.
Songbird on a branch with dotwork sun

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