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.

Tag: IAM Member

  • Little Yellow Boxes

    Written by

    Rob

    The world would be a much better place if everyone was able to express their own inner monologue via little yellow boxes.  Alas, that can’t happen, so we all have to live vicariously through the merc with the mouth, Deadpool.  In the 2009 Deadpool one-shot “Games of Death” our hero traveled to a mysterious island to participate in a deadly reality TV game show.  In addition to giving the fans a fun little tale, it also provided them with a fantastic cover by Greg Land.

    One of those fans is Exiled_Sun who is an apprentice at Nautica Tattoo Studio in Carrickfergus, Northern Ireland.  One of the resident artists at Nautica, Albert Connor was nice enough to give Michael a recreation of the cover art.  You can check out more photos of the piece in the cartoon and comic tattoo gallery.

  • In brightest day, in blackest night

    Written by

    Rob

    In brightest day, in blackest night,
    No evil shall escape my sight
    Let those who worship evil’s might,
    Beware my power… Green Lantern’s light!

    Some of you may have noticed that the cartoon tattoo gallery has been renamed to the cartoon and comic gallery.  In light of the rename, we’ll be taking a look at a couple of newer comic book related tattoos today.  First up is a tattoo of Alex Ross’ version of Hal Jordan that TheDarkKnight has as the start of his “Heroes of DC” leg.

    Mark Sawyer from Pushin Ink Tattoo in Cincinnati, OH is the artist behind this tattooed version of Green Lantern.

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    BMEtv – Rob Valenti

    Written by

    Rachel

    Rob Valenti is the owner and piercer at PolyMorph Body Piercing in Sydney, Australia as well as a long time IAM member. Check out his BMEtv interview.

    You’ll have to keep reading to see the full interview.

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    BMEtv – IAM: Nano

    Written by

    Rachel

    We did several interviews with people from IAM that we met along the way. We also talked to random strangers that we met on the street who had visible tattoos or piercings. Nano was the first of many more to come!

    To see the video of Nano’s beard being interviewed, you’ll have to keep reading.

  • It slices, it dices..

    Written by

    Rob

    It makes scar tissue out of ordinary flesh!  What is it you ask?  It’s the skilled blade of Anders the Piercing Guy.  Take a look below at just what his blade did to JakeMindsnared’s chest.

    The rhino scar on his abdomen is also by Anders and is 3 months old at the time this photo was taken.  You can check out more of Anders’ work in his BME portfolio gallery, and if you keep reading you can see a couple of shots from the procedure.

    The rest of the photos can be found in Anders’ gallery.

  • The BMEGirl Friday

    Written by

    Rob

    With the new year I’m going to try to bring back the old tradition of a BME Boy or Girl post on Fridays.  That doesn’t mean they won’t pop up during the week, but for those that look forward to the Friday hotness, consider your requests fulfilled.

    Today we’ve got a couple of pictures of Stembot, who can make standing around in a kitchen or laying on a couch so much more than a mundane activity.

    The octopus in the above photo was done by Ross Trimmer from True Tattoo in Richmond, VA

    There’s one more photo of Stem, but you’ll have to keep reading to check it out.

    See what I mean?  She’s jaw-droppingly gorgeous.

    There’s more photos of her in the BMEGirls gallery, as well as in several tattoo galleries.

  • Moving Forward

    Written by

    Rob

    One of the highlights of the BME NYE festivities was the suspensions that occurred on new year’s day.  We saw Britt’s suicide suspension earlier in the week, so today we’re going to take a look at a suspension that may or may not have caused a group of people to get something in their eyes all at the same time.

    In what was her very first suspension ever Janet, TrickyDick’s better half, went up in a lotus suspension.  What started as a simple suspension quickly turned into something emotionally powerful that everyone present felt lucky to be there.

    I e-mailed Janet earlier this week and asked her to describe the experience from her point of view.  After the break, you can read what she had to say, as well as check out a few more photos from the suspension.

    The suspension started out like any other, with Cere, Richard and ChrisB facilitating the hooks and the rigging.  Once in position and everything cleared, Janet was slowly lifted off the ground.  From that moment on, everyone watching became very still.  At first she was in pain, and we could all feel it.  Richard dropped to his knee (as you can see in the above photo), and spoke with his bride-to-be.  I didn’t catch much of the exchange, as it was a private moment between the two of them, but he was able to get her to bring her arms up into her lap, which helped relax her.

    With the initial uncertainty out of the way, Janet became much more relaxed, but was still a little hesitant about the experience.  That all changed the moment one of her dogs came to her side.  The smile that crossed her face at that moment will be with me forever.  We all knew at that moment that not only was she alright, but she was in a fantastic place.  I’m pretty sure it was around this time that quite a few people suddenly had dirt fly into their eyes, as a good number of them suddenly started to get tears forming.

    The only place to go from there was up, and as she was slowly raised high in the air, all of us on the ground could feel the joy emanating from Janet.  When asked later on about her experience, here’s what she had to say:

    “I honestly thought my first suspension would double as my last. Now that I’ve been up and come back down, I have no idea why I thought that way for so long.

    Lotuses are so beautiful and if I was going to suspend only once, I was going to make it count, even though the hooks were probably what I feared most. I had really had no interest in suspending until I saw pictures of a Lotus, and I told my fiancé, Richard, that I was going to do that one day, and mentally committed myself to try it… eventually. On NYE, after we left Rachel’s, I brought it up again in the car on our way to the hotel – that maybe I wanted to hang the next day – but I was so nervous about it that I debated back and forth until really the moment that I took my first set of hooks. I really wanted to start the year of with a bang, moving forward, and I had so many wonderful people around me who were super supportive and encouraging. The experience was amazing. The hooks were cake, especially compared to how I had imagined them, and once I was off the ground, I felt better than I ever have. And after hanging in the lotus for awhile, I decided I was done with the natural, self-containment of the lotus and that I wanted to cut my legs down and hang suicide. It didn’t go super smoothly and then it started to rain, but it felt great to allow my legs some freedom, even if it was just on my way back down to the ground.

    So, a huge thanks to Richard, Cere, Chris B. for putting me up! to Rachel for hosting the event! and to all the BMEers who were there and shared the experience! because it was really the Best. Thing. Ever.”

    As someone who was on the ground, I can safely speak for everyone there when I say thank you to Janet for allowing not only us to be present, but also for being willing to share your experience with the ModBlog readers.

    The photos were all taken by Jen, and you can check out many more of them in the BME BBQ and events gallery.

  • “Happy New Year Mom!”

    Written by

    Rob

    After the craziness that was the BME NYE bonfire, the next morning was a little more subdued, but that doesn’t mean we didn’t have fun.  You’ll be able to see photos of the festivities in the BME BBQ and events gallery as they’re submitted, but for today, lets look at the first suspension of the new year, Britt’s suicide suspension, where she got a call from her mom while up in the air.

    Keep on reading to see more of Britt’s suspension, as well as some of the other NYE revelers.

    Before anyone could suspend the tree needed to be trimmed, so who better than Mandic to grab some rusted tools to tear down the branches.

    Once the tree was trimmed, it was time to get Britt in the air.  The suspension was put together by Cere, ChrisB, and TrickyDick, who you can see below pulling Britt up into the air.

    Finally here are a couple more shots of Britt up in the air.  You can see Velo, Rome, Cere, McShady, and some guy with a beard looking on.

    These are just the tip of the iceberg for pictures from the event.  Keep an eye out for an emotionally powerful lotus suspension, as well as more videos from the rest of the day.

  • The Symbolic Scar

    Written by

    Rob

    Gabor is no stranger to getting ModBlogged, so when I saw that he had submitted a new crop of images to his scarification portfolio I knew we were in for a treat.  I’m not going to get into the religious significance behind the inverted pentacle, as it can mean multiple things to different people, instead let’s just check out an amazing large scale scar piece.

  • Out with the old…

    Written by

    Rob

    Happy new year everyone.  I hope everyone had a fun and safe holiday season.  Well, at least safer than some of the shenanigans at the BME NYE party.

    With the new year upon us, for some it is a time to rid themselves of a burden and take the time to start fresh.  Well for Subboez, so far this year he was able to finish up a project that he has been trying to complete for some time.

    After 25 years of contemplation, and months of planning and attempts, he was able to finally give himself the circumcision that he has wanted.

    Keep reading to find out how he did it, and a photo of the procedure.

    First, here is the diary that Subboez kept while performing this long procedure on himself.

    2011-01-02 08:15
    Just banded up again to give the circumcision another proper go. I’ve done several tries with the band for up to an hour or a little more since the last time I wrote, but never had any intention of going through with it. Today is a real attempt.

    2011-01-02 09:00
    Coming close to the hour mark and the pain is beginning to set in. From previous experiments this lasts for close to an hour before fading. The banded foreskin is numb now but has not changed into the dark colour as it did last time.

    2011-01-02 10:00
    Fully numb now and not hurting at all. Just tried poking the banded skin with a pin and I can go all the way through without feeling anything.

    2011-01-02 15:00
    Still banded. There is a little pain but I think this is from the skin around the band. Peeing is strange as I found last time. I cannot feel anything in the banded area yet I know there is fluid passing.

    2011-01-02 23:00
    The band is still in place and nothing much has changed since the last report. The only thing that I can sense is that the banded skin feels softer than I remember earlier. There’s no feeling at all as before and the colour doesn’t seem to have changed much either. The band has been in place for 15 hours now so everything that is banded must be dead by now so I assume there’s no going back now. I will report back in the morning.

    2011-01-03 08:00
    Didn’t sleep very well but I don’t think this was because of any discomfort. Probably more to do with the anticipation of what another 8 hours or so would change things. Some of the skin is getting much darker now which is proof that the tissue has no life left in it. I added another band, but this one is plastic coated metal wire which should clamp much tighter than the rubber band used so far. The only problem is the end of the wire which digs into anything nearby. That’s more painful than the actual band itself. I poked a needle right through the skin in lots of places this morning and there is no blood (or pain).

    2011-01-03 08:20
    Just tried slicing the skin with a razor blade. That was interesting! It cut into the skin really easily. I cut all the way through about 1cm wide. The inside doesn’t look a lot different to the outside skin apart from the fact that it is wetter. No blood at although I stopped short of a blood vessel that was uncovered. I’ll wait a while before trying to cut through that.

    2011-01-03 10:47
    Ok. It’s done. I’ve just spent the last 5 minutes cutting the banded skin off. The blood vessels taht I was worrying about were no problem at all. It was only the left-over blood in then that I could see. I tried a small one first and once this proved to be no problem, decided to cut as much skin off as I could without (hopefully) risking the bands coming off before the blood vessels are fully healed. I expect this to happen over the next few days so still need to look after things

    And here is then end result after the cutting is complete.

    When it comes to DIY procedures like this, it’s always best to be extremely cautious as it can result in serious and permanent injuries.

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