Three-panel collage of a winged cartoon cat tattoo: a purple stencil on skin, a gloved tattooist working on the outline, and the finished blue and black cat on the upper arm.

Winged cartoon cat on the upper arm

Forearm · Colour · Photo

The collage shows a winged cartoon cat with large round eyes and a open-mouthed smile, first as a purple stencil on skin, then being outlined by a gloved tattooist on the forearm. The finished tattoo on the upper arm uses bold black outlines with flat blue fill, white highlights on the belly and eyes, and small white wings. The composition places the design centrally against plain skin, with the tattooing process in the bottom-left panel.

Forearm Upper arm Cat Cartoon Wing Stencil Outline Cartoon cat

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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 Ballroom at Saltergate shut at eleven, and by half past I had the mop bucket out and the lights turned down to their cheap amber, which is when I found the cat. It was drawn in violet chalk on the sprung maple floor, just past the rail where the dancers stood. A round-headed creature with ears like two folded envelopes, enormous eyes, and a grin wide enough to hold a secret. Two little wings sprouted from its shoulders, as if it had been on its way somewhere and had stopped to look back.

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Oskar, the drummer with the Midnight Pelicans, swore on his mother that he'd never drawn it. He had a quiff you could have parked a bicycle in and a habit of tapping his sticks on anything that stood still. "Chalk doesn't grow wings, Mr Haddow," he said. I told him the floor had been waxed that morning and nothing had been on it since. We stood there while the last couple waltzed past us, slow and careful, and neither of them looked down, as if the cat was a private matter they had agreed not to mention.

On Monday the council man came with his clipboard and asked what the violet was. I said it was nothing a damp cloth would shift. He wrote something down and didn't ask again. By Friday the cat had a blue wash inside its outline and a white belly, and nobody could tell me who had coloured it in. I stopped trying to mop it away. Some nights I still find the bucket full and the floor dry under the rail, and the cat sitting there, grinning at the empty hall as though it has finally got somewhere to go.