Black and grey photo of a bold tribal swirl tattoo on the neck behind an ear, with a small stud earring visible.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Tribal swirl behind the ear

Neck · Black and grey · Photo

A close black and grey photograph of an ear with a solid black, flame-like tribal swirl tattooed on the skin behind it. The bold, tapering linework is set against soft grey skin tones, and dark hair is pulled back at the edge of the frame. The composition is tight and centred on the tattoo, with a small silver stud earring visible in the lower left.

Neck Tribal Swirl Flame Ear

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

Sit yourselves down on the damp sawdust, the lot of you, and mind the guy rope, because this tent is older than your mothers and it doesn't forgive a careless foot. Now. You want the story of Tobiah Quill, who ate fire for the Halloran Brothers' Grand Travelling Marvel when there was still a Grand and still a Marvel. He could take a torch in his mouth and blow a flame as long as a fishing rod, and the crowd in every market town from Carlisle to Crewe would go quiet as a church.

Keep reading

But the Marvel was sinking, the way old shows do. The lions had gone to a sanctuary in Wales, the bearded lady had married a bus conductor, and the Hallorans were selling the big top by the yard to pay the coal man. Tobiah had one trick left that nobody had paid for: a flame he could draw up the length of his arm in one unbroken curl, like a wave lifting its lip, and let it sit on the skin without a mark. He called it the sickle. Nobody ever saw it through to the end, because the lamps always went out first.

On the last night in Dunmere the wind got under the canvas and the poles began to groan. Tobiah stood alone in the ring with a single torch, and he did not blow. He drew the sickle slowly up his arm and held it there, a dark curl of fire, until the whole tent went black around it and the crowd could see nothing but that one bright stroke. Then he pinched it out with his fingers, walked out into the rain, and was never seen with a torch again.