Black and grey winged scarab beetle tattoo spread across a bare lower abdomen, beside the navel, in traditional style.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Winged scarab across the lower abdomen

Traditional · Other · Black and grey · Photo

A bare midriff with a black waistband and grey fabric in the lower frame. A large black and grey scarab beetle with fully spread wings sits across the lower abdomen, with feathered wing detail and shading. The lighting is warm and soft, and the navel sits above the tattoo.

Traditional Other Beetle Wing Insect

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 lamp at Scarrow Head had gone dark twice that winter, and Nell Ostler was sure it was the beetle's fault. It lived in the lamp room, a lump of green-black glass her grandfather had pulled from a sailor's sea chest in 1889, and it had a habit of rolling itself across the brass rail when nobody was watching. Her father laughed at her. He laughed less on the third night, when the wick would not catch.

Keep reading

She climbed the iron stairs with a tin of paraffin and a rag, one hundred and twelve steps, counting under her breath the way her mother used to. The gulls had gone quiet over the rocks. Through the glass the sea lay flat, and the sky above Scarrow was the colour of wet slate. On the rail the beetle sat with its wings folded tight, and when she tipped the tin it opened them slowly, the feathered edges lifting one by one like pages being turned.

She understood then what the sailor had carried. Nobody on the coast had ever asked where the sun went at night, and nobody had asked the beetle either. She knelt, set the tin down and held out her palm. The thing walked onto it, light as a seed, and she carried it to the lantern and let it rest on the warm brass beside the wick.

The flame caught with a soft sound, like a breath let go. Below her, the first boat of the night came round the point and its lamp answered. Nell wiped her hands on her skirt and did not tell her father what she had done, only that the light was lit, and that the beetle, for now, had decided to stay.