Black and grey tattoo of a shaded winged ball with feathered wings on the upper back, near the shoulder blade, with dark curly hair falling over the shoulder.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Winged ball tattoo on upper back

Realism · Back · Black and grey · Photo

A woman is photographed from behind, with dark curly hair and a black top, showing a tattoo on the upper back near the shoulder blade. The tattoo is a rounded ball with feathered wings spreading to either side, drawn with fine linework and soft grey shading that gives it volume. The plain pale wall behind softens the background and keeps the focus on the tattoo.

Realism Back Wing Feather

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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

The thing got loose off the Bristol Channel, somewhere past the Lundy light, when the cook's boy opened a tin box he'd been told to keep shut. It was no bigger than a plum and the colour of old brass, and before anyone could grab it, it had two wings out and was buzzing the galley like a wasp that had read the rulebook and decided to ignore it.

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Cookie Dunn swore it was a bird that had been pressed flat. Skipper Haddow said it was a toy from a fairground in Cardiff. Nobody agreed, and for three days the whole crew of the Maud Ellery spent their watch below chasing it through the hold with fishing nets and bread rolls. It never once let anyone close. It hung above the winch with its wings blurred, as if it were waiting to get bored of us.

On the fourth morning, off the Azores, I stopped running. I sat on a coil of rope with my palms up and a mug of stewed tea going cold beside me, and I waited. The ball came down out of the rigging, circled twice, and settled in my hand as light as a moth, its wings folding flat against my knuckles. It was warm. I did not know then that a thing like that only lands once it has finished being chased.

We made Lisbon with it sleeping in an empty tobacco tin on my bunk. I still have the tin. When I open it at home the wings give a small stir, like something dreaming of open water, and I close the lid and leave it be.