Large black and grey realism back tattoo of a warrior with a raised arm facing a roaring dragon amid lightning and clouds.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Warrior and dragon across a back

Realism · Back · Black and grey · Photo

A full back piece shows a warrior with long hair and a raised arm at the lower left, facing a dragon with an open jaw and bared teeth at the right. Lightning bolts and billowing clouds fill the background, with rocky ground beneath the figure. The shading is smooth and detailed in black and grey, with strong contrast between the dragon's scales and the cloud textures.

Realism Back Warrior Dragon Lightning Cloud Rock Scale

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 thunder started before the bread was out of the oven. Mother Haddon, who had seen three dragons come off the Scar in her lifetime, said it was the same grey weather, and that the lightning walked along the fell like a man looking for his hat. Nobody in the valley thought to argue with her. Tobias Wren had already put on his mother's blue coat, the only good thing she left him, and stood in the lane with his hair wet and his hands shaking.

Keep reading

Everyone knew the tale. Every seventh spring the dragon asked for something from Hollin: a sheaf of barley, a goat, once a boy who never came home. This year it asked for the bride, Ellen Marl, and the elders agreed the wrong way, by saying nothing. So Tobias went up the scar before the church bell, carrying his father's billhook and a loaf wrapped in cloth, because nobody had told him what else a man brings to a fight with a cloud.

At the top the rock was slick and the cloud came down so thick he could not see his own boots. The dragon unfolded out of the white with its jaw open, scales the colour of wet slate, and he understood there was no clever ending in his head. He raised the billhook anyway. Lightning split the sky over him and the whole scar rang like a bell.

When the cloud thinned he was sitting on the rock with his arm bleeding, and the dragon was gone, its last breath going out over the valley like smoke from a snuffed candle. Ellen stood at the bottom of the lane in her wedding dress, holding her skirts clear of the mud, and she was laughing. Mother Haddon said the bell could ring now. Tobias walked down to meet his bride with the loaf still in his hand, soaked through, and it was the first wedding in Hollin that started late.