Fish scales

Scales cover the animal without stopping it moving: it's armour that gives. That's exactly what the motif means in Polynesian tattooing, and it's why it reads differently from shark teeth, which speak of a more head-on kind of protection.

It's used a great deal as a filler across large surfaces —a shell, a pectoral, the inside of a manta— because it generates texture without competing with the main elements of the piece.

Done well, the scale pattern is one of the few that improves with the years: as the ink settles, the curves soften and the whole thing breathes better than it did on the day.