Split image of a upper back: on the left a black tribal tattoo, on the right the same area covered with a shaded lily and star design in purple and grey.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Tribal tattoo covered with lilies and stars

Botanical · Back · Mixed · Photo

The left panel shows a solid black tribal motif on the upper back, with bold, curling linework. The right panel shows a cover-up design of a large purple lily surrounded by smaller lilies, stars and swirling stems, with grey shading for depth. The image is a before and after comparison, with the cover-up filling the area of the original tattoo and extending beyond it.

Botanical Back Tribal Lily Flower Star Swirl Before and after

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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

The sun has been at the Starlight Motel sign for thirty summers, and by the time the Ostrander brothers hire you the black scroll above the office door looks like something burnt into the wall. Mr Ostrander wants it gone before the Route 9 coaches start stopping. 'Make it pretty,' he says, and hands you a tin of purple paint and a brush that has seen better decades.

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You start at the middle, where the old motif bunches like folded wings. Lilies go on first, three fat petals each, the big one in the centre the colour of a bruise going off. The black lines bleed through the first coat, so you lay on a second, then a third, until the desert wind has dried every stroke to a dull shine. Each evening the road hums with lorries heading west, and nobody asks what you are covering.

On the ninth day you climb the ladder with a fine brush and a jar of white, dotting stars around the lilies the way Mrs Ostrander's mother used to count them off on the ceiling. The sun drops behind the mesa and the paint turns almost black. For a minute the old shape comes back through the new colour, faint as a watermark, and you hold still and wait for it to fade into the dark.

When the last star goes on, Mr Ostrander stands in the gravel with his hat in his hands and says nothing for a long time. Then he flicks on the sign, the lilies glow lilac above the door, and the old scroll is gone, except where you know to look for it.