Traditional-style colour tattoo of a muscular bearded sea god holding a trident, with a red lightning bolt and stippled clouds, on a person's upper back.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Trident-holding sea god on upper back

Traditional · Back · Colour · Photo

A muscular, bearded male figure holds a trident over one shoulder and flexes his other arm, standing before radiating rays and a blue backdrop. Bold black outlines define the figure, with shaded skin tones, a red and green patterned sash and a red lightning bolt beneath him. Purple and blue stippled clouds frame the central figure, and the composition fills the upper back.

Traditional Dotwork Back Trident Lightning bolt Cloud Ray

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

The sign over the door of Brine House had lost most of its paint to three winters of salt, and Mrs Ansell wanted it done before the Whitsun lodgers arrived. Her nephew Dennis climbed the ladder with a tin of red and a brush worn down to a stump, while the sky over Weymouth Bay turned the colour of a bruised plum. The old god on the board stood with one arm flexed and a trident over his shoulder, rays fanning out behind him like the spokes of a wheel.

Keep reading

His grandfather had painted that figure in 1952 and had told Dennis, the first time he held a brush, that a sea god had to look like he was standing in a storm, or nobody would trust him to bring the boats home. Dennis had never understood that until now, with the wind pulling at his overalls and the lightning bolt beneath the god's feet fading to pink where the sun had got at it. He worked the red back into the sash, then the green pattern, then the bolt, going slowly so the lines stayed sharp.

Irene Vosper came out with a pot of tea and two cups, the way she did every evening, and stood at the foot of the ladder watching him. She had taken the back room in April and said little, though she often looked at the bay. When the first thunder rolled over the headland she laughed, a short sound, and held up a penny. Paint the coin into his palm, she said. My husband always carried one. Dennis climbed up again, found the god's open hand among the blue shading, and pressed the copper flat into the wet colour.

Rain began to fall as he finished the last stroke of the bolt. Out past the harbour wall, a small trawler was nosing in under a heavy sky, its lamp swinging. Dennis looked from the sign to the water and back, and the god seemed to be pointing the trident straight at the boat.