Black and grey dotwork tattoo on a forearm of a suited figure whose face is replaced by peonies, roses and chrysanthemums, with a hair bun at the top.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Suited figure with flowers for a face on a forearm

Botanical · Forearm · Black and grey · Photo

The tattoo shows a figure in a suit jacket and tie, with the head replaced by a dense cluster of peonies, roses, a chrysanthemum and leaves. The bold outlines are combined with stippled dotwork shading on the jacket and hair, which gives the piece depth. It is rendered entirely in black ink and grey tones and sits on the forearm, with the flowers filling the upper part of the design.

Botanical Dotwork Forearm Figure Suit Tie Flower Peony Rose Chrysanthemum Leaves Hair bun

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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 bottom step, it has a cracked tread and a grudge. Now, you want the clerk of Vellmere, the one who kept the tallies for the Queen of Thorns. He had a plain face once, as plain as bread, and the Queen did not care for plain. She sent him to the Counting House with one instruction: write down every debt in the kingdom and never look up. So he didn't. Years went by in ink and frayed cuffs.

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Then one spring a seed blew in through the open casement, caught in the crease of a ledger, and the clerk, who had never once watered anything in his life, pressed it into the margin with his thumb. By the week's end there was a peony where his cheek should have been. He told nobody. He ate his bread through the petals and went on counting. A rose came up behind his ear, then a chrysanthemum, heavy as a church bell, bending his collar toward the light.

The Queen sent for him at the turn of the year. She stood at the top of the stair with her hands folded and studied the blooms for a long while. 'Read me the debts,' she said. He opened his mouth, the petals parted, and out came every sum in the realm, sweet as clover and correct to the farthing. Nobody in Vellmere had ever heard figures sound like that.

They say the Queen bought the house with the high window and never again asked him to stop growing. The cellars filled with damp ledgers and the debts forgave themselves each spring. If you go to Vellmere today, mind the step, and ask the greengrocer which clerk you mean. He will point you to the garden wall, where something tall and sweet-smelling leans out over the street, still reading the sums aloud to anyone who stops to listen.