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.

Pointing versus Shaping

I wanted to highlight and contrast two very different procedure styles of getting “elf ears” from two talented artists. In the ear on the left, done by Brian Decker (purebodyarts.com) you’ll see a traditional ear pointing procedure pushed to it’s max, giving quite a radical point — very long and pronounced. The end result is quite alien and very striking — if you want to see a well-healed result, look at Tye’s ears which are featured in the last Modified World video I posted. The other ear was done by Samppa Von Cyborg (voncyb.org) — you saw the customer’s other ear last week — and involves a complete top to bottom reshape of the ear. The lobe is removed, the contour is reshaped, and a more subtle point is formed. This also results in a slightly smaller ear because of the tissue removed — I’ve tried to put the two ears roughly to scale.

I don’t have particularly strong feelings as to which one of these ear styles I prefer — I like each for different reasons. The one produces a far more extreme appearance, and the other is more “natural” looking for lack of a better term… I think there’s space for each of them and I don’t one procedure replacing the other — it simply broadens the palette available. After the break you can see a larger photo of the ear by Samppa as well as both of the ears of Brian’s customer.

Comments

4 responses to “Pointing versus Shaping”

  1. Anarchy45 Avatar
    Anarchy45

    Those are my ears!! 😀

    My cartilage is very rigid and Brian had a helluva time working on them. This is the second time I’ve had them done – he did them the first time, last November. They loosened up a bit, which I expected … and I do not expect them to remain this pointy, but to round out some. Brian put in extra stitches along the top of my ears as well, to help them hold shape better. There are also two stitches in the back of each ear to pull them closer to my head, since the way they are now, they stick forward a bit. I prefer the look of the cut-and-fold method to Samppa’s. His looks more natural, but this makes my ears look more pointy 🙂

    Healing has been uneventful so far, they don’t hurt at all unless I touch them.

    Cool to see myself on ModBlog 😀

  2. Anarchy45 Avatar
    Anarchy45

    Those are my ears!! 😀

    My cartilage is very rigid and Brian had a helluva time working on them. This is the second time I’ve had them done – he did them the first time, last November. They loosened up a bit, which I expected … and I do not expect them to remain this pointy, but to round out some. Brian put in extra stitches along the top of my ears as well, to help them hold shape better. There are also two stitches in the back of each ear to pull them closer to my head, since the way they are now, they stick forward a bit. I prefer the look of the cut-and-fold method to Samppa’s. His looks more natural, but this makes my ears look more pointy 🙂

    Healing has been uneventful so far, they don’t hurt at all unless I touch them.

    Cool to see myself on ModBlog 😀

  3. MJ Avatar
    MJ

    I was wondering, how much does the ear reshaping procedure by Samppa Von Cyborg cost?

  4. MJ Avatar
    MJ

    I was wondering, how much does the ear reshaping procedure by Samppa Von Cyborg cost?

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