Christine Philippa, a mother of three from New Zealand, designed the tattoo with a friend and was delighted with the initial result.
The illustration showed a naked woman from behind, surrounded by flowers. However, she hadn’t considered how it would look when a short-sleeved garment covered part of the design.
The problem was that the figure’s buttocks were left right in view and, without the rest of the body, looked like male genitals.
“I’ve had a pair of testicles on my arm for five years, and now it’s time to fix it”, she joked on TikTok.
Determined to correct the effect, she went to a tattoo artist who completed the design with new flowers and added her children’s birth dates.
Christine was delighted with the result. “Isn’t it absolutely beautiful? I’m obsessed”, she commented as she showed off her arm.
However, some social media users weren’t as convinced.
Although the tattoo now has many more details, several people said they could still make out the same figure she had tried to disguise.
What began as an elegant artistic design ended up becoming a funny optical illusion.