Colour realism tattoo of a white lotus with green lily pads and orange koi on a person's upper back, with a stone Buddha face blurred in the background.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

White lotus and koi pond tattoo on the back

Japanese · Back · Colour · Photo

A large white lotus flower with a pink centre sits at the centre of the design, surrounded by green lily pads and a pond with rippling water rings. Orange and gold koi fish swim beneath the surface, drawn with soft shading and fine detail. The palette is muted, with pale yellows, greens and warm oranges set against the skin, and the design spreads across the upper back and shoulder blade.

Japanese Realism Back Lotus Koi

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 pond had silted up the winter after Margaret died, and by April the lily pads had gone to brown paper. Tom waded in with a rake and a bucket, swearing at the heron that had taken three of the orange fish in the night. Under a flat stone where she had hidden things years back, he found the old lotus tuber, wrapped in a damp sock and forgotten.

Keep reading

The nursery in Faversham said it would never flower in a pond this cold. Tom planted it anyway, in the deepest corner where the water kept its heat longest, and fed the koi from a tin of pellets because the stone bowl by the back door had never held anything but rainwater. All through May he watched nothing happen. The fish drifted under the surface like coins someone had dropped and not bothered to fetch.

In July a single bud broke the water, pale as a candle wick, then opened over three days into a flower the colour of weak tea with a yellow heart. Tom sat on the bench with his tea going cold and counted the rings it made when a dragonfly touched down beside it. He had always thought Margaret was the one who noticed things.

That evening he tossed a crust onto the water. The biggest koi came up slow, gold flank turning, and took it beneath the lily pad. The rings spread out to the edge of the stone and came back, and he stood there until the light went, letting them reach his feet.