Two arms covered in traditional-style tattoos, including a panther head, a feathered headdress, a skull, a snake and roses, placed on the forearms and upper arms.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Traditional sleeves with panther, skull and snake

Traditional · Forearm · Mixed · Photo

The arms are covered with bold traditional-style tattoos, including a snarling panther head, a feathered headdress figure, a skull, a stars and stripes motif, an eye in a triangle and a wolf or lion head. The linework is heavy and outlined, with solid black shading and grey wash. Red and pink accents on the headdress, snake and roses add colour against the dark ink, and the photo is framed closely on the arms with a filtered, faded finish.

Traditional Forearm Upper arm Panther Headdress Skull Star Stripe Eye Triangle Wolf Lion Snake Rose

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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

Gather in, gather in, and mind the broken step, because this castle has been falling down since before my grandmother's grandmother was a notion. Sit where the wall still has its roof. I'll tell you about the tinsmith's son who climbed this hill with a sack of needles and a kettle of ink, because he had a wager with the old Earl and meant to win it.

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The Earl kept a black panther in the north tower, a cat with a voice like a rusted gate, and he swore no painter in the county could put a living thing on a man's arm that would stay put. So Tom Coyle sat down on the cold flags and began. He started with the panther at his wrist, snarling for the fun of it, then a skull above the elbow with its jaw wired shut. He coiled a red snake round his forearm and inked a bunch of pink roses for the girl in the village who had turned him down. Above them he drew a triangle with an eye in it, a chief in a feathered headdress, and a wolf whose howl seemed to come out of the ink itself. Last of all he set a row of stars on a field of stripes, because Tom had never crossed the sea and thought it sounded like a fine place to lie about.

The Earl came up to look on the third night. He stared at the eye for a long time, then laughed until he coughed, and he paid the wager in silver and a promise never to keep a cat again. Tom walked down the hill with his sleeve rolled up and his arm throbbing like a drum, and the story goes that the panther followed him all the way to the village gate, still wanting its portrait.

Mind, I'm not saying it's true. But look under the ivy by the gate and you'll find his initials cut into the stone, and the ivy is always green there.