Realistic biomechanical tattoo on a forearm, showing torn skin peeled back to reveal grey metal pistons and mechanical parts.

Torn skin revealing mechanical parts on a forearm

Realism · Forearm · Mixed · Photo

The tattoo shows torn, peeled-back skin on the forearm, revealing grey metal mechanical components such as cylinders, pistons and a central rod. The metal is rendered with smooth highlights and deep black shadows, giving a three-dimensional, realistic effect. The flaps of skin are shaded in warm brown and red tones, and the design runs diagonally from the upper forearm down toward the wrist.

Realism Forearm Biomechanical Metal Piston Torn 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

The engine had been dead for three winters when Marek finally pried the bonnet off the old Thornycroft in the yard behind the fairground's winter shed. Nobody in the travelling show knew what it had powered before the company bought it for a song from a bankrupt colliery. Marek only knew it sat in the corner like a sulking animal, and that the pistons were seized with rust the colour of dried blood.

Keep reading

He worked on it through the frost, bent over a paraffin lamp, scraping and oiling while the wind fingered the tarpaulin. Each evening he found the cylinder walls a little brighter under his rag. Each morning the rod was a little further out of its housing than he had left it, though he was certain he had not touched it. Old Nell, who swept the caravans and talked to the goats, said metal remembered its last job and went looking for the next one.

In March the fair came back to life and the Thornycroft went on the back of the wagon, rumbling under a canvas sheet. On the final night, when the rides stood silent and the ground was mud, Marek pulled the sheet away. The pistons rose and fell in the lamplight, slow and sure, and the steel plates of the casing split open along the seam like the bark of a tree in spring. Nobody needed to tell him what was underneath. He stood back and watched it run.