Back of a man showing a large black and grey realistic tattoo of a veiled face with lowered eyes, with colourful biomechanical tattoos on both upper arms.

Veiled face back piece with biomechanical sleeves

Realism · Back · Mixed · Photo

A large back piece shows a veiled female face with downcast eyes and a folded cloth draping over the head and shoulders, rendered to resemble carved stone. The shading is smooth and highly detailed, with soft gradients across the cheeks, nose and fabric folds. The back piece is in black and grey, while both arms carry full sleeves of colourful organic, biomechanical-style designs.

Realism Back Upper arm Forearm Face Portrait Biomechanical Sleeve Back piece

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The alcove on the third floor of the old Eastwood wing had held the stone woman for longer than anyone on nights could remember. Dennis, the senior porter with the bad knee and the retractable key reel, said she had come from a convent that closed in the seventies, bought by the trust at a sale along with the wrought iron gates. Tonight, at ten past three, Maya Okafor pushed an empty trolley past her and saw the crack.

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It ran from the fold of the veil, down past the left cheek, a hairline that had not been there at handover. Maya had nine minutes before the bloods on bay four were due at the lab. Behind her the ventilators clicked in their steady rhythm, the machines keeping Mr Pell breathing, and the sound made the silence in the corridor feel attentive. The stone woman kept her eyes lowered, as if she had heard something rude and decided not to answer.

She fetched a tub of wall filler from the maintenance cupboard by the lifts and pressed it into the crack with a plastic spatula, smoothing it with a damp thumb. Her hands smelled of alcohol gel. The filler dried a shade greyer than the stone, and she knew it would show by morning. Dennis would blame the cleaners, as he blamed everyone.

At half past five the light came up pale through the window at the end of the corridor. The woman still looked down at her folded hands, lips almost smiling, now with a small patch she had earned on nights. Maya signed off the sheet, pulled on her coat, and on the way past the alcove she gave a short nod, the way you might to a colleague who had also stayed late.