BME: Body Modification Ezine

A tattooed person suspends from hooks, laying flat, one leg higher than the other. Their head is back, and they seem to be smiling, dark hair dangling like an anime character.

Celebrating body modification culture since 1994.

Author: Shannon Larratt

  • A Good Afternoon via Implants and Scars

    Written by

    Shannon Larratt

    Two days ago I posted a neat set of star-shaped horns (placed impressively precisely underneath preexisting tattoos), but I wanted to follow up with another star implant, this one by Matias at Rata Body Art in Buenos Aires, Argentina. It’s fresh in the photo — as you already know if you noticed the incision tucked away at the hairline. As great as this looks, I don’t think I would personally want a temple implant — even lightly resting my finger on my temples makes me feel like I’ve got a killer headache coming on. I’d hate to find that I’d implanted something on top of a pressure spot that slowly drives me insane! Oh wait, I started that way. No worries then, I shall do it.

    m-matiastemple

    Speaking of Matias, I’ve also been meaning to show you this nice oldschool sailor-art Gypsy girl portrait that he cut over top of a black field of ink. I think it will work especially well due to the stars that sit in the negative space surrounding the canvas of the scarification.

    m-ratascar

    And while I’m on the subject of scarification, I wanted to also show you this superb collar-piece “art scar” that Azl Kelly of Mtl Tattoo created as part of a “aesthetic beheading performance”. There’s a lot to be said for really pure designs. There’s a school of thought among many writers that the less words you can use to completely and effectively describe something, the better. Now, I’ve never been particularly good at that — I’m so redundantly wordy and repetitive that you could Swiss-cheese a print out of my essays with a machinegun and effectively understand what I was saying from the tatters that are left. Azl on the other hand has figured out how to speak volumes with a single incision.

    m-azlscar1t m-azlscar2t m-azlscar3t

    And, well, since I’m doing the “this things reminds me of this thing” game with this long entry, let me add two more implants, both swastika implants under a black tattoo, which visually makes them “pop” even more because of the way the light hits it. The one on the left, in the forearm, is the work of Samppa Von Cyborg, who you know well of course. The one on the right, the implant on the top of a hand, is by an artist you may not know quite as well, Hugo Ferreira of Biotek Toulouse in France. The arm is fresh in the photo, and the hand is about a month old.

    m-swasimp1t m-swasimp2t

    PS. I apologize for the crap image quality in this entry — I accidentally overcompressed. I’m really having “one of those days” as the old saying goes.

  • A Mask of Diamond Lines

    Written by

    Shannon Larratt

    What a knock-out piece this is, just boom, stamped on with such strong impact — interesting change from Freak Garcia’s (of Ink Karma Nation, inkarma.wordpress.com) normal undulating and flowing style that almost looks like the patterns on an oil slick turned into blackwork. Anyway, I especially like the treatment of the ear, both front and back — second time today I’m posting a facial tattoo that pulls onto the ears, to say nothing of how closely the linework style echoes Kike’s illusion skull from earlier today as well. I also like the way that it fades behind the preexisting tattoos, not just abruptly ending, but dithering to a lighter level. I’d love to see this piece extended in time, so that it wraps all the way around his head and is mirrored on the other side.

    faciallines

  • Facial Linework Radiation

    Written by

    Shannon Larratt

    I really like the new linework that George Karakioulafis of Dildo Studio (dildostudio.gr) in Greece (who just sent me a super-cool package of swag from his shop, including some obscene shirts that I can just barely get away with wearing in public) just had done on his cheek, radiating out from his ear, as well as the lines that mark out across the geography of his ear itself.

    georgeface

    PS. You may remember a while back there was a case of facial tattoo copying in which Morgan Dubois got his facial linework cloned almost exactly. I just wanted to point out that in George’s case, even though the tattoo is similar (and perhaps even inspired), it’s obviously a distinct design and sufficiently different that he can truly call it his own.

  • Tattooed Starfish Implant

    Written by

    Shannon Larratt

    A while back (in February) Kayla VanFleet had Shawn O’Hare implant one of Steve Haworth’s starfish-shaped implants in the top of her hand. Now that it’s well healed, she had it tattooed by Kenny Morris last week, and wow, that really tops it off beautifully. Of course some implants stand nicely on their own, but in a great many cases implants — and hands are a good example — can look like out-of-place lumps. Interesting and unique, certainly, but not particularly connected to the person’s overall anatomy. Kayla’s tattooed implant is a great example of using tattoo augmentation to make an implant so much more of a contributing part of the whole — compare the difference between how it looks now to how it looked before getting tattooed and I think you’ll agree what a good decision this was.

    kayla2

    kayla1

  • A Good Deed Never Goes Unpunished

    Written by

    Shannon Larratt

    Tam Mayer (of Bells Ink Tattooing & Body Piercing in Victoria, Australia) has managed to get herself in some hot water, all because she tried to do the right thing. As a part of a fundraiser for a local boy — in which they raised $3,000 to help him (the whole event raised $15,000) — she tattooed her friend Luke Coleman with this image of Buddha. At first everyone was happy, and thought they’d done something really special, and I’m sure they were even happier when some of the big tattoo rebloggers picked it up, featuring it because it’s unusual to see a tattoo like this on the sole of a foot (and I have to admit I have some doubts about how it will heal). Anyway, the problems began when Thai Buddhists saw the tattoo and took offense at the tattoo’s location — that someone was walking on the face of Buddha, which they thought was deeply disrespectful. Immediately the comments changed from congratulating Tam for a unique tattoo and more importantly, raising $3,000 for a child in need, to threatening to murder her if she ever showed her face in Thailand. Comment after comment insulted and berated her. Did Tam make a tactless mistake? Perhaps, by some interpretations of Buddhism. But by other interpretations of Buddhism, she did something wonderful. To my way of looking at it, this is just another example of extremist interpretation of religion poisoning everything. As far as I’m concerned, Tam’s got nothing to apologize for. If Buddha and Jesus existed, I’m sure they’d give her a high five for helping others, and then punch the religious radicals in the nuts for spreading hatred in their name.

    buddhafoot

    Edit: I wanted to add one other thing — as soon as Tam found out that what she’d done was potentially offensive, she apologized profusely to anyone she might have offended (as did Luke), and said they wished they’d known in advance so they could have avoided the situation. It was very clear that they’d acted only with the best of intentions — and I want to be clear that the above comments are mine, not hers.

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