Black tribal-style lion head design with bold, spiked mane and solid black shading on a white background.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Tribal lion head design

Blackwork · Black and grey · Flash

A front-facing lion head with a spiked, flame-like mane, drawn in bold solid black shapes and sharp linework. The eyes, nose, whisker dots and open mouth are picked out in negative space and simple black forms. The design is shown in black on white with no colour and no body placement visible.

Blackwork Lion Lion head Mane Tribal Face

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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

Brother Anselm has taken the lamp from you again, and you are still standing in the cold of the scriptorium with a page of vellum half ruled and your fingers stained with oak gall. The abbey is quiet except for the wind working at the shutters. Somewhere below, the lay brothers are banking the kiln for the morning.

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The lion over the chapter house door was carved by a mason nobody remembers, and you have spent three winters trying to copy his face. He gave the beast a mane that rises like flames from a grate, each tongue cut into the stone with a chisel that never stopped to be gentle. The eyes are two hollows, the nose a dark wedge, the open jaw a row of teeth. Anselm says the mason was a pagan who was paid in bread. You think he was simply tired of making things that stayed still.

Tonight you do not draw him. You take the knife from your sleeve, the one you use to cut quills, and scratch a single flame into the margin of the Psalter beside the initial. It is the wrong shape, too round, and you feel your face go hot. Then the lamp comes back up the stairs with Anselm's shadow leaning on the wall, and he stops in the doorway and looks at the page for a long time.

"Leave it," he says. "The lion has been waiting longer than either of us."