Two lower legs in black boots show traditional tattoos on the calves, including a swallow, a black heart with an eye, a ship's wheel with roses and a small line of script.

Traditional leg tattoos with swallow and ship's wheel

Traditional · Calf · Mixed · Photo

Two lower legs are raised against a plain pale wall, both wearing black lace-up boots. The calves carry traditional flash-style tattoos in bold outlines and solid fills, including a swallow, a heart with an eye shaded in black and grey, a ship's wheel decorated with red roses and green leaves, and a banded ring. Colour is used on most pieces, while the eye heart is rendered mainly in black and grey, and a small line of script sits between the designs.

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 swallows came aboard off Spurn Point, three of them, worn flat by the crossing and twittering as if they had paid for the passage. Bosun Eli Varley said it meant the sea had finished with them, and nobody argued, because Eli had worked the Baltic for thirty years and his opinions carried the weight of ballast.

Keep reading

Tom Ferriday had a heart and a rose inked onto his shin in a back room off Scale Lane the week before the Marigold sailed. The artist, a woman with reading glasses pushed into grey hair, had shaded an eye into the heart so it would keep watch over the water and bring him home. Eli squinted at the fresh work over breakfast, grunted, and said the eye was facing the wrong way. A sailor's eye should watch the land.

In February the wind backed north-east off the Dogger Bank and the Marigold lost her steering twice in one night. Tom and Eli fought the wheel together, its spokes slick with spray and its painted roses bright under the lamp, while the swallows, which should have been long gone south, clung to the lamp housing and shivered. When the rudder finally bit, one swallow lifted and flew straight off the bow, due west towards the lights of the Humber, and the other two followed it like stitches pulled tight.

They docked at dawn. Eli said nothing for an hour, then pressed a shilling into Tom's palm and told him to buy his mother a loaf before she heard the ship had been in trouble. Tom went up Scale Lane with the coin warm in his fist, the eye on his shin turned towards the river, and for once he did not mind being watched.

More like this

Two bare lower legs raised in burgundy boots, showing traditional tattoos of a bow, camera, rose, ship's wheel, playing card and small script on the calves.
Traditional tattoos on both calves
Two legs in black canvas trainers covered in colourful traditional style tattoos of roses, birds and flowers on the calves and lower legs.
Traditional leg sleeve with roses and birds
Two raised legs in red Converse trainers show bold traditional tattoos on the calves, including a butterfly, a rose, a spider and a ship's wheel.
Traditional leg tattoos with red Converse trainers
Traditional-style rose tattoo with a partly visible clock motif on a calf, with black platform boots and striped socks.
Rose tattoo on a calf above black platform boots
Black and grey dotwork and traditional tattoos on a forearm and hand, including a large bee, planets, a dotted constellation and crystals.
Bee, planets and crystals on forearm and hand
Two lowered-view legs in satin pointe shoes show black and grey tattoos on the calves, including a raven, a lightbulb and a cluster of roses in traditional and dotwork style.
Raven, roses and lightbulb on legs in pointe shoes
Portrait tattoo of a woman with a hair bun on the lower leg, in black ink with small red details, beside a black lace-up boot.
Woman portrait tattoo on a lower leg
Two legs in denim shorts and black sneakers covered in colour neo-traditional tattoos, including an owl, a raven with roses, a fox and a rabbit.
Full leg sleeve of colourful neo-traditional tattoos
Fine line black and grey tattoo of a cat in a striped jumper standing upright on a lower leg above black peep-toe heels.
Cat in a striped jumper on a calf
Two legs raised against a pale wall, covered in traditional tattoos of daggers, a rose, an eye, a pocket watch and a whale, with a black and grey flower on one knee.
Full traditional leg sleeves with white high-tops
Black and white photo of a fish skeleton tattoo on one calf and a stippled trout with lettering above it on the other, both worn with black leather shoes.
Fish skeleton and trout on calves
Two raised legs in black platform sandals show traditional tattoos of red roses, a skull and a sun on the thighs and calves, against floral wallpaper.
Traditional tattoos across both legs

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