Four views of a full sleeve tattoo in realistic colour showing sharks, a diver, a manta ray and coral on the upper arm and forearm.

Underwater full sleeve with sharks and a diver

Realism · Shoulder · Colour · Photo

The sleeve shows an underwater scene with two sharks, a manta ray, a freediver swimming towards the surface, and a school of small fish. Coral reef forms and fish fill the lower forearm, while the blue water fades into lighter tones near the shoulder. The shading is smooth and detailed, with strong colour throughout and the four panels showing the sleeve from different angles.

Realism Shoulder Upper arm Forearm Shark Fish Coral Ocean

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

Dad painted the back of the booth himself, the year the fair limped into Penzance with a cracked generator and one lorry short. Blue first, from the bottom up, then a shark sliding out of the corner as if it had somewhere better to be. He called it the Deep Show. Sixpence to watch Mo Dekker hold his breath in a glass tank while the painted water rolled behind him. The water was a lie, but the breath was real enough.

Keep reading

Mo was a freediver from Bristol who had lost a bet and ended up with us. I carried his weights and counted seconds on a stopwatch with a cracked face. Each night he went down past the coral I had dabbed on with a sponge, past a stingray hung on fishing line, and came up grinning, bubbles leaking from his cheeks like a joke he was saving.

One night the generator died halfway through his dive. The tank lights went out and the crowd murmured. Mo kept going anyway, rising through the dark towards a surface I could barely make out. I swung my torch across the wall and caught the painted manta above him, its wide eyes pale and patient. For the first time they looked like something that might actually be watching.

He broke the surface to silence, then to cheers. I stopped the stopwatch at two minutes and eleven seconds, and the crowd, who had paid for a lie, clapped for the breath anyway.