Solid black tribal tattoo of a winged figure with a sweeping, flame-like tail on the upper back.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Tribal winged figure on the upper back

Back · Black and grey · Photo

A bold black tattoo shows a stylised winged figure with outstretched, jagged-edged wings and a central body. A long, flowing tail curls down and tapers at the bottom of the design. The work uses solid black fills and heavy outlines with no shading, and the design fills the centre of the back.

Back Wing Winged figure Bird

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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 lift has been out since Tuesday, so you take the stairs with the shopping bag cutting into your fingers, counting landings the way your nan counted rosary beads. On the ninth the stairwell smells of bleach and somebody's Sunday chicken, and the window at the half-landing is cracked in a star. Mr Okonedo from flat 41 sits on the step with his head in his hands, and he doesn't look up when you pass.

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Up on the roof the wind is the only thing moving. Below, the estate is a grid of lit windows and the motorway hums like a note nobody has let go of. The pigeons have gone. In their place, on the parapet, stands a figure made of old railings and soot, its wings two ragged sheets of corrugated iron bent into feathers as sharp as lightning, a long tail of wire and bin-bag plastic curling down the brickwork toward the car park. You know it isn't a bird. It's somebody's idea of one, left behind by the kids who sprayed the stair doors.

It turns its head toward you. You expect it to speak, and it doesn't. Instead it folds its wings and drops off the edge, and you run to the parapet with your hands out, certain you'll see it broken on the tarmac. The car park is empty. Only the tail is still there, lifting past your fingers, warm as a palm.

Back on the ninth floor Mr Okonedo is standing now, reading a letter from the council. You tell him the lift will be fixed by Friday. You don't tell him what you saw, because you aren't sure you saw anything, only that the stairs feel, for the first time since you moved in, like they lead somewhere worth climbing to.