Colourful traditional tattoos of pin-up women, cartoon characters and stars cover a man's forearms, upper arms and chest.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Traditional cartoon and pin-up sleeves on arms

Traditional · Forearm · Colour · Photo

A shirtless, bearded man, cropped at the chin, presses his arms together so that both forearms and upper arms are covered in tattoos. The designs include pin-up women, Betty Boop, Miss Piggy, a Disney villain, stars, a rainbow and a banner, drawn with bold black outlines and flat colour fills. The ink is predominantly colourful and the tattoos fill most of the frame against a plain light background.

Traditional Forearm Upper arm Chest Pin-up Star Rainbow Banner Cartoon character Bird Heart Ball

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Mo kept the flash in a biscuit tin under the counter, and on Saturdays he let me do the stars, because stars were the first thing an apprentice learned and the last thing anyone regretted. The rest of the sheet was his private liturgy. Betty Boop went top left, Miss Piggy in her frilled purple gown bottom right, and a Disney queen, all cheekbones and green-black eyeliner, lurked in the margin as if she was waiting to be paid.

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The commission came in on a wet Tuesday in March, brought by a woman who said she was getting married in June and wanted her favourite things on one pair of arms. "Nothing that goes out of fashion," she said, tapping the rainbow. "I want it to look like a party that never ended." Mo laughed so hard he had to sit on the stool. Then he drew the banner himself, PINK LADIES in a curl of red, because he said every good party needs somebody shouting the name of the night.

It took three sessions. Her fiancé sat in the chair for the second, drinking stewed tea and reading the flash aloud in silly voices, and by the third the heart had a swallow perched on it, which Mo swore was not his idea. On the wedding day a photo arrived on the shop's phone: the arms raised at the reception, a splash of champagne on one cuff, a dance floor blurred behind.

Mo never kept a copy of that sheet. He said a design belongs to the person it lands on, and that his had gone home with them, still a bit tacky. The week after, I found the tin empty except for one star, cut neatly from the corner of the paper, left on the counter with my name scrawled across it.