BME: Body Modification Ezine

A black-and-white photo of a person mid-air in a Superman-style body suspension pose, supported by multiple hooks in their back and legs, smiling joyfully toward the camera. They are suspended horizontally in a large indoor space with high ceilings and visible rigging. A group of onlookers—some seated, some standing—watch with expressions of admiration, amusement, and support. The atmosphere is lively and communal, capturing a moment of shared experience and transformation.

Tattoo, Piercing, and Body Modification News, Events, and Culture

  • Real men get MANroes

    Written by

    Shannon Larratt

    Perhaps you have always wondered how burly masculine fellows can stomach getting an off-centre upper lip labret piercing, since all their proper names are girlie — “Monroe”, “Madonna”, or the largely archaic “Chrome Crawford”. Adam Richins of Warlock’s Tattoo and Body Piercing in North Carolina solved that problem when he did these on Brad Smith, starting nice and big and strong at lucky 7mm, and dubbing them MANROES. Works for me. But Adam, what were you thinking giving him PINK jewelry!?!? All that manly progress put at risk!

    manroes

    PS. If you’re especially sharp-eyed, you can see Brad’s original off-centre lower labrets, which were also large gauge.

  • A touch of purple

    Written by

    Rob

    Kim “Skin Seamstress” Hutchinson (IAM: zombieprincess) has a long history of appearances on ModBlog, and with good reason.  She’s a skilled piercer that often assists photographers and models through play piercings, corsets, etc.  This shoot in particular was of Laura’s first corset, with photography by Sally Anderson.  What I like about it is that it’s reminiscent of wedding photos, specifically the bride getting ready.  While I don’t know the specific reasons behind the shoot, I do know that the end result was some great photos of a beautiful woman.

  • Seeing Tattoos For The First Time

    Written by

    Shannon Larratt

    Here is a joy kids growing up in the West these days with our bod-mod-saturated media will never be able to experience (or at least remember, since it happens to them when they are babies) — seeing tattoos for the very first time! Tracy’s good friend Christopher just joined the Peace Corps and is teaching math for the next two years in Namibia. The kids reacted with complete amazement not to his white skin and blond hair like we stereotypically hear in old Victorian explorer stories, but to his colourful fully tattooed sleeves, something that just doesn’t exist in most of rural Africa, so it was a real treat for them. Rachel and I were in Windhoek, Namibia almost ten years ago, but since we never went into the rural areas other than to go on a (quite wonderful, but very touristy) safari, mostly we were being glared at by snooty wanna-be-aristocrat German expats. Christopher’s encounter is much more charming.

    christopher-in-namibia

    PS. If this entry gets you thinking, here’s a map of all the places you can go if you join the Peace Corps — peacecorps.gov/learn/wherepc/ — much better opportunities for international adventure than joining the Military War Corps, I would say, plus the odds of getting your limbs blown off are much lower, and you’ll be helping people, not killing and oppressing them. They’ll excitedly poke at your tattoos, rather than cowering in fear and shooting at you.

  • And now I lay me down to rest

    Written by

    Shannon Larratt

    Well, I know it’s barely even dark out, but I think today I’m going to call it an early night and go read and rest. I figure this suitably sleepy looking pictures of the remarkably black Stevie Banks of Exeter, Devon works very nicely for a day that’s featured some very interesting information on the possibilities of tattooing over black. Stevie’s extensive coverage and the tattooing over black meme of course both remind me of Lucky Diamond Rich, who was the first person I saw to experiment with this method. If you don’t remember him, be sure to click here for one of my first posts about him before you yourself call it a night.

    steviebanks

    Oh heck, if you’re feeling insomnia tonight, let me give you one more thing to amuse yourself with, this fascinating video called “Feeling Blue” (“Some People Are Born Freaks. Jim Hall Turned Himself Into One.”), about Jim “Bluecomma” Hall, a retired Baltimore civil servant who has tattooed himself with a full-body swirling mix of blue and black. Even though it sure does seem like it sucks most of the time, people like Jim remind me that the world is a wonderful place full of bright sparks of character that give it vibrant life.

  • The Flying Supervan

    Written by

    Shannon Larratt

    I am so jealous of Håvve Fjell and Wings of Desire for their amazing new suspension van, the ultimate guerrilla suspension vehicle. Those with keen memories may remember me planning on building something similar on top of my monster truck for bridge suspensions — just drive onto a bridge, swivel the arm over the side, and boom, you’re ready to go — back in the winter of 2003, but like so many of my projects, it never happened. Well, Håvve actually made it happen!!! So awesome. Here are some pictures of it being taken for a test flight, photos by Helene Fjell. Don’t forget to order their amazing new book of suspension photos, Learning To Fly — watch for details on how to get your copy at wingsofdesire.org.

    supervantop

    supervanbottom

    That last photo is the view from inside the van by the way!

  • ce n’est pas un suspension hook!

    Written by

    Shannon Larratt

    You might be thinking, why is Shannon posting a boring old picture of a suspension hook? I’ve seen that a gazillion times and BME’s got enough galleries for me to see it a gazillion more if I wanted. But no! This is actually an incredible piece of tattoo realism by T-DAN Tattoos out of Russia. Check out his stunning portfolio which has this and more here: tdantattoos.com/portfolio/ (thanks to Roo and Ala for the tip).

    thats-no-hook

  • White Linework Over Blackwork At Two Years

    Written by

    Shannon Larratt

    Following up on the earlier post about tattooing colour over solid black tattoos, Sara Martin, a tattoo artist at Sacred Images in Bozeman, Montana showed me this tattoo, white linework over black. Actually, to be precise, it started as a red tattoo, which was covered up by a solid field of black, over which white linework was done. The black and white photo is the tattoo immediately after the white lines were done back in 2010, and the white lines are of course quite solid and opaque since it sits on the dead surface skin as well as the “mixed ink” living permanent skin layer that all the tattoo ink sits in. The photo on the right, the colour one, was taken today, about two years later. As you can see, the white linework has held up remarkably well and actually looks quite similar to scarification over black. Sara says that in parts of the white you can see the original red, but that it’s difficult to see that in the photo (and it may be something where you can only see it if you know where to look).

    Click the picture to see it at higher resolution.

    white-over-black

  • Arlecchino

    Written by

    Rob

    While this isn’t a traditional Arlecchino mask, it’s pretty clear that it’s some form of harlequin that fits perfectly on to this young man’s skull.  IAM: RAFAEL is the artist behind this skull piece.

  • Tattooing colour over black tattoos

    Written by

    Shannon Larratt

    If you are a part of various social networks there’s a good chance that today you saw this crazy coverup by Tim Beck of Freedom Ink Tattoo Co in Peoria, IL as it went viral today. This isn’t surprising, because most people would assume that you couldn’t do a tattoo this bright — and this light — over solid black. There’s been some debate on how this is going to look healed, with some people saying it’s going to disappear completely, even though Tim swears he’s done others and although they do darken a little, overall he feels that he can successfully tattoo new art over solid black.

    coloroverblack1

    Steve Truitt of Ascension in Albuquerquer, who is no stranger to ModBlog had one of those typical “piercer arms” tattooed solid black. However, instead of scarring over it or leaving it all black like many do, he had Roman tattoo a bold biomech piece over the solid black, with no laser removal or other preparation in advance. Here is how it looked right after they tattooed it.

    coloroverblack2

    And here it is healed, a month later. As you can see, it did get a bit darker, but overall it is still bright and bold, and you’d never know that it was over black. Now, I should point out one important thing — tattooing over solid black is very different than tattooing over a tattoo image. When it’s solid black, you have a regular canvas — the way the inks combine across the tattoo is going to be consistent, rather than having to compensate for the variations below it. So the counter-intuitive truth may be that in some cases it’s actually easier to tattoo over solid black, rather than doing a “normal” coverup!

    coloroverblack3

  • Sweet Release

    Written by

    Shannon Larratt

    I don’t read Portuguese very well, but I will do my best to translate for you what it says under this photo of Filipe Espindola. It says, “Largo do Machado, todo dia às 19h30 entre o laguinho e a floricultura, laboratório de performance e corpo comático,” which I believe means, “here I am right as the laxative starts to work, about to take the world’s biggest dump.” A picture is worth a thousand words.

    heeerrreeeeeiiiiittttcccccoooommmeeeesssss