I swear, every time Evil_Emil sends in a new photo, I think it’s somebody new. With his new haircut, Emil once again is unrecognizable, even though the rest of his modifications remain the same.
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The Ghostly Daughter
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One night Tristan had a terrible nightmare that he was being chased by a ghostly girl, and after pursuing him endlessly through the halls of a derelict asylum, getting closer and closer, he found himself pressed up against the wall of a dead end. Frozen in fear, he could not turn around, but the chill was obvious and he could sense a cold ethereal hand reaching out toward him. At the moment it slapped onto his back, the icy burning sensation where the hand touched him on his shoulder woke him up, drenched in sweat. He wasn’t able to sleep again that night, and when he got up in the morning his shoulder still ached. And this is what he saw when he looked at his reflection in the bathroom mirror…
Ok, so that’s not the true story, but it’s what I’d tell people when they ask me dumb questions at the beach. Truth is that he had his good friend Patrick Kielty of Body Alter Body Modification in Worksop and Chesterfield, UK brand a hand print of his own daughter, a wonderful little girl that Patrick also loves as if it was his daughter too. This is the brand nicely healed of course.
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Bulbous Gout Spider Tattoo
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Oh, I remember now why I enjoyed writing here so much — it’s for the wonderfully whacky messages that I’d wake up to in the morning. Today’s message came to me from my friend Wayne Fredrickson at Fastlane Tattoo in Corona, California. At first I thought it was some sort of implant/tattoo combination, but no — after making sure that he was healthy enough to get tattooed, a 51 year old man with gout came to Wayne to get tattooed (his first tattoo by the way). He had a huge swollen elbow from the goat, and they converted it into the bulbous body of an oldschool spider. My nine year-old daughter absolutely loves this and isn’t grossed out by it in the least, so I’ve got to say that what this old guy did is just brilliant and charming — he’s transformed himself from a stereotypical “gross old man” to someone with a mirthful sense of hilarity about his body, and turned something disgusting into something comedic.
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You call that a needle? THIS IS A NEEDLE!
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I’m quite fascinated by the experimental ultra-wide needles that experimental art tattooists Cy Wilson and Caro (see the blog skintraces.blogspot.ca for an engrossing view into their avant garde world of ink). Check out these monstrosities:
If you’re wondering what sort of strange art you might create with such a contraption, here are three guniea pigs they’ve experimented on with them, using them to do strange calligraphic brushstrokes that would be almost impossible with a traditional tattoo tool — the only other thing that could easily create such a pattern are some of the hammer-like hand-tattoo chisels that some polynesian tatu masters use. In the past people have experimented with similar needles to speed up black filling, but here they’re being used more creatively. Click to zoom in on these images:
Again, do check out skintraces.blogspot.ca — whether you love it or hate it, it’s a fascinating look at the borders of the tattoo artform, where it intersects with modern art.
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Odd Helix-nub Piercing
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Tye Olsen (who I think most BME-regulars have known for years) of Tyetanium in Waterdown, Ontario, had a girl come to him with a funny little bump on the back of her helix — note that this is natural, not the scarred result of a piercing or anything like that. She’d gone to every piercer she knew and had been turned down, but Tye decided to do it for her for just the cost of the jewelry since he couldn’t guarantee it would be anything but fun… And she loves it, as does he!
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Only Windex-drinkers have ears that big
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Tim Casey, don’t think your wearing a safety vest makes you any less of a terrible influence on children.
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This spirit is home grown
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You don’t get to see big beautiful Celtic work much these days. As blackwork goes, it’s been almost entirely pushed out by neotribal, dotwork, and geometric tattoos. So it’s always a treat when you get to see it done right, like in this gorgeous backpiece (and then some — it’s basically a full-body tattoo) by Colin Dale. I know, maybe I’m pushing things classing it as Celtic in the traditional tattoo sense of the word, since it’s got much more of a Scandinavian or Viking sensibility about it, but it’s a beauty either way. I was even more pleased when I realized that Colin is a fellow Canadian, from Saskatoon, although now working at Skin and Bone in Copenhagen. Be sure to click and look at this stunner at full size.
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Ba-booooom!
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Oh man, this is triggering for anyone who’s had way too many people in their life do this to themselves literally… I’m reminded of our friend Cory in highschool who was having trouble at home and was going to move in with us to get some distance from his abusive father. About a week before that happened, he got home and walked in on his father banging his (as in Cory’s) girlfriend in the middle of the living room floor. They both just looked at him and laughed and kept going at it… Already in bad shape, Cory walks into his room in a daze, puts a twelve gauge shotgun to his skull and pulls the trigger. The so-called “punch line” to the story is that his family was mad at him, so to punish his friends they had an open casket funeral even though there was no possible way for any reconstruction to be done on what was essentially a headless corpse. Ah, growing up in a small town.
Anyway, this morbid masterpiece that’s already winning awards was done by Robbie Coventry at b>Inky G’s on piercer Mac “Doctor-Evil” Mccarthy of Punctured.
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Mixed Tribal Influences
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I absolutely love the mix of indigenous influences in this stunning backpiece by artist Phil Cummins of The Antahkarana (website coming soon to Theantahkarana.com). Obviously the Samoan and other Polynesian motifs are the most obvious, and you can see a very large Haida-like animal totem covering the entire lower back, and that’s only scraping the surface of it. Phil’s work is some of the best neotribal out there right now, and it’s always a great pleasure to see the latest coming out of his studio. Some people might find it offensive to mix these traditional designs into something new, but I think that not just carrying forward this art and culture, but respectfully blending it into something that represents our new global culture, is a very forward thinking way of celebrating humanity’s past traditions.
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Necro-Ear
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The result of getting your buddy who learned to pierce by “watching videos” to work on you in his kitchen… is that you’ll eventually end up getting yourself repaired by someone who is actually based out of a reputable studio. The famous and notorious “Autoclave Cookbook” (this really does exist) aside, you should not be able to cook a proper supper in a body modification studio. This ear repair was done by Papacho Body Art and Christian Moron of 316 Tattoo Studio in Caracas, Venezuela. I will never get used to looking at necrotized ears. That is only permissable if you are a zombie or otherwise a member of the undead — and even then it’s completely undesirable.
