Torso of a person lifting a white shirt, showing a winged figure, a spider and red LOCALS ONLY lettering in traditional-style tattoos on the stomach, with a sleeve on the upper arm.

Winged figure and spider on torso with arm sleeves

Traditional · Upper arm · Mixed · Photo

A bare torso with a winged figure at the centre of the stomach, a black spider to the left and an anarchy symbol lower down. Red lettering reading LOCALS ONLY sits beneath the wings, and the outlines and shading are bold black with some grey. A white shirt is lifted to the chest and a hand holds a microphone at the upper right, with a sleeve of tattoos visible on the raised arm and a green patch on the upper arm at the left.

Traditional Upper arm Forearm Other Wing Spider Lettering Sleeve

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

You are the one who has to decide, at ten to four on the wedding day, whether the lads from the flats above the chandlery can come up the hill to the Harbour Hall. They are standing at the gate with a carrier bag, a tin of car spray paint, and an envelope addressed in capitals to the groom, who was one of them once, before the fishing boats and the mortgage and the ring.

Keep reading

You open the envelope because nobody else will. Inside is a drawing on the back of a takeaway menu: the boathouse wall as it looked twenty years ago, the winged figure rising over the slipway, a black spider crawling down the brickwork towards a red sign that says LOCALS ONLY, and an anarchy A scratched in the corner by a hand that was sixteen and certain. Someone has added, in pencil, a little tide line and the words STILL THERE?

The groom comes out in his good suit with his tie already loosened, looks at the drawing, and laughs so hard he has to hold the gatepost. He says the wall is under the ivy at the back of the boathouse, and the paint must be pink by now. You walk down the path with all of them behind you, past the bunting and the bridesmaids holding their shoes, and the sun is low enough to show the edges of the wings through the green, faded but still there, waiting for the tide to go out.