Two greyscale skull tattoos on the inner wrists, one wearing a top hat and bow tie with blue splashes, the other with a red polka dot bow and purple splashes.

Two skull wrist tattoos with watercolour splashes

Neo-trad · Other · Mixed · Photo

The left tattoo shows a shaded grey skull wearing a black top hat, a moustache and a red bow tie, with blue watercolour-style splashes behind it. The right tattoo shows a similarly shaded skull with a red polka dot bow at the top and purple splashes around it. Both use smooth grey shading for the skulls, with colour limited to the accents and background washes.

Neo-trad Other Skull Top hat Moustache Bow tie Watercolour splash

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 pawnbroker on Tanner Row kept two skulls in a tray of blue glass, one in a top hat and one with a red spotted bow, and every night after the church clock struck twelve, the gentleman lifted his hat from its hook and the lady tied her bow straight in the cracked mirror. They went out by the coal chute, because the shop door had a bell and the bell had opinions.

Keep reading

They walked the city the way old married people walk, slowly and without talking much. Past the gasworks, where the flames turned purple in the fog. Past the fish market, where the gulls slept on the gutters like folded umbrellas. The gentleman carried a silver-topped cane he had won from a drunk sailor at cards in 1841, and he tapped it on the kerb to keep time. The lady hummed a waltz that nobody had written down.

At the Mermaid Hall the doorman looked at them, looked again, and stepped aside, because a doorman in that street had seen stranger things than a skull in a bow tie. Inside, the band played until the lamps went grey. The lady danced with the gentleman, and then with the coat stand, and then with the gentleman again, and she laughed without any sound at all, which was the best kind of laughing.

They were back in the tray before the first cart rattled over the cobbles. The apprentice came down with the kettle and found the gentleman's bow tie smeared with river-blue, the lady's bow a little crooked, and the two of them lying side by side as if they had never been anywhere in their lives.