Black ink drawing of a unicorn mermaid with a flowing tail, surrounded by starfish, shown as a tattoo design on paper rather than on skin.

Unicorn mermaid with starfish design

Neo-trad · Black and grey · Flash

A seated mermaid with a unicorn horn and ears holds a starfish over her chest, with her long hair wrapping around her body and tail. The linework is bold and outlined, with fine hatching and stippling on the tail scales and hair, and several small starfish and seaweed-like swirls fill the surrounding space. The drawing is in black ink on white paper with no colour.

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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

You knead the dough in the dark because the sea has never once waited for the sun, and neither does the oven on Brine Lane. The flour is cold on your wrists. Out past the harbour wall the tide is drawing back over the sand with a sound like a broom, and the gulls haven't yet decided whether to begin.

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Ellen, who sells you eggs from her cart on Tuesdays, once told you the old fishermen here swore a sea creature came up the slipway to steal bread. Not for eating, she said, only for the crumbs, which it arranged on the rocks in the shape of stars. You laughed then. This morning the back door stands open an inch, there's a wet print of five long fingers on the frame, and a tangle of kelp lies on the step, combed through with something silver that might be a bent hairpin or might be the tip of a horn.

You leave the rye proving under a damp cloth and carry a tray of morning buns out to the step. Nothing is there but a heap of starfish, each one stiff with salt, each one warm as if laid out for someone to count. You pocket one in your apron. By the time you turn back, a grey line has come up over the water, and the wet fingerprints are already drying to nothing.

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