Black and grey tribal tattoo with spirals, chevrons and bold geometric panels covering the upper back of a muscular man, seen from behind.

Tribal back piece across the upper back

Back · Black and grey · Photo

A large tribal design covers the upper back, centred on the spine and spreading across the shoulder blades. Solid black fills alternate with grey shaded panels, with bold spiral curves, zigzag lines and a sawtooth border framing the composition. The figure is shown from behind against a plain grey background, with the arms raised to the sides.

Back Tribal pattern Spiral Chevron Zigzag Geometric pattern Back piece

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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

Sit close, the tide is still making and the stories go out with it if you stand. You want to hear about Teuira and the reef that wasn't on any chart, the one with the teeth.

Keep reading

She was fourteen when her uncle took the outrigger past the breakers to fish for the big tuna that run in the cold months. Nobody on the shore liked the look of that sky, but he had the old steering in his hands and he laughed at them all. The water out there was flat as oil, then all at once it was not. Beneath the hull the current began to coil, slow and wide, a spiral that turned the boat around like a dog chasing its tail.

Teuira did not shout. She had watched her grandfather cut the same curling line into every paddle he made, the swirl that means water is turning over stone. She laid her palm on the gunwale and felt the pull. "Left," she said, "then keep the sawtooth on your right hand." The jagged line of the reef showed white where the swell broke, a row of teeth in the grey light.

Her uncle obeyed without asking why. The spiral loosened, the teeth fell behind, and they came in at sunrise with eleven fish and a boat nobody had to bail. Her uncle still tells it wrong, saying the sea gave her the knowing. It did not. Her grandfather gave it to her one carved line at a time. Go home now, before the lamps are lit.