White ink tattoo of a stylised winged figure across the upper back, with outstretched wings spreading over the shoulder blades.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

White ink winged figure on upper back

Back · Black and grey · Photo

A photograph of a pale white-ink tattoo on a bare upper back, showing a stylised winged figure with a long tapering form running down the centre of the spine. The wings are drawn with fine, stripe-like feather lines that spread symmetrically across the shoulder blades. The ink is white rather than black or coloured, so the design shows mainly as a raised, lighter outline against tanned skin, and the plain background is softly lit.

Back Wing Winged figure Spine Feather

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 blood pressure cuff on bed nine kept losing its nerve, so at three in the morning I was on my knees by the radiator, tucking the tubing where Mr Pargeter couldn't roll onto it. Nobody else was awake except the porter, Danny Hale, who had a biro behind each ear and a habit of drawing on the backs of observation charts.

Keep reading

Danny had a stick of white conté he'd bought off a market stall, the kind you use on black paper. He said the trick was that white only shows when the light falls at a slant, so you had to work it against the dark or it vanished. 'Like a moth in the wrong light,' he said, and then, because it was three in the morning, he showed me the sketch: a figure with wings spread like a pair of hands opening, and below it a long thin tail tapering down toward the floor.

I asked who it was for. He said nobody, that it was what the ward looked like to him after midnight, something lifting out of the bed rails. I thought he was being daft until the monitor on nine went quiet, then after a long pause found its rhythm again, and Mr Pargeter opened his eyes and asked for his tea.

Danny tore the sheet off the pad and folded it into my pocket. I found it at seven, when the day staff arrived in their clean shoes and their chatter. It was smudged white on grey paper, the wings still faint, and I pinned it inside my locker door, where it has stayed. On the quiet nights, when the corridor goes amber, I look at it and think how little you can see of a thing until the light comes in at the right angle.