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.

Category: ModBlog

  • Googly Eyes FTW

    Written by

    Shannon Larratt

    I’d say 100% of the time when I see microdermals added to the eyes of a tattoo, it transforms the tattoo from something potentially tough looking into something hilariously goofy. I’d say 99% of the time, that is not at all the intended consequence, and the wearer is blissfully unaware that they’re a little silly looking. The wonderful thing about this example, pierced by old BME friend Joeltron of First Blood (firstblood.com.au) and tattooed by Naepier “Kooky and Spooky” Jenkins (naepier.com), is that for once the whole thing works — and works so well — and is actually supposed to be in that wonderful self-aware 1%.

    Click for the big uncropped version.

    joeltron-vs-tattoo

  • Inverted Forehead Pull

    Written by

    Shannon Larratt

    I’ve posted some beautiful tripod beach suspensions from the 8th Italian Suscon, but it was such an incredible gathering of talented and inspired individuals that I’m sure you know, even if you haven’t done much gallery browsing, that there were many amazing suspensions that happened.

    One that really stood out to me was Alice Tancredi and a recent but dear friend, Martini Col Bivio, did together. There are two main ways to do a multi-person suspension (not including lifts) — tandem suspension, where one person hangs from another, or a suspended pulling, where people suspend separately, and are then connected by separate flesh hooks and ropes. This is what Alice and her friend did. They both did an inverted seated suspension, already an unusual setup, and then connected to each other with a forehead pull. I’ve done forehead pulls, so I was able to relate to the unique experience they offer — you can really get pulled into the other person’s psyche and even though you’re in public, it can become a very private event.

    invertedforeheadpull-big-2

    invertedforeheadpull-big-1

  • Tattoo healing failure, fixed

    Written by

    Shannon Larratt

    David Newman-Stump, owner and artist at Skeleton Crew Tattoo (skeletoncrewtattoo.com) in Columbus, IN, sent me in some photos to help out in my mission to show people what they should expect from tattoo healing (mostly brought on by this entry). The previous post I made showed color tattoo healing, but this one is black and grey shading.

    The picture on the left is how the tattoo healed after being done by a generally talented and respected artist with a solid clientele. Fresh it probably looked great — I imagine quite similar to how it appears in the middle photo. Unfortunately tit didn’t heal well, and the client was left with an undefined, faded ghostly tattoo. Thankfully there was nothing wrong with the fundamental shape of the tattoo so it wasn’t terribly challenging for David to go over the tattoo and put the ink in properly. However, if I left you with just his fresh tattoo, not only would I be misleading you about what a tattoo looks like, but you’d also have no way of knowing that the same thing didn’t happen again. So four months later — completely healed — the picture on the right was taken. Now, it is true that a tattoo will continue to degrade from sun damage and skin aging over the lifetime of the wearer, 90% of the change happens in the first month, so this client can be secure in the joy that their tattoo has been successfully repaired.

    You should definitely click and zoom to take a better look at the details.

    portraitset-small

  • A Loving Mom, With A Gun

    Written by

    Shannon Larratt

    Usually when someone gets a tattoo capturing love between a child and their mother, it’s usually the child getting a “Mom heart” (just like Bart Simpson did), or maybe the parent getting a portrait of their kids. And of course pretty much 100% of the time some person unrelated to the relationship performs the tattoo. Abril Ferrario’s mom recently tattooed this very sweet note on his arm — “I love you son, [from] Mama”. She did it freehand, and it was the first tattoo she’d ever done.

    te-amo-hijo-mama

  • Chain Corsetry

    Written by

    Shannon Larratt

    Mike Grant of Maple Ridge, BC’s XZOTIKMODZ did a leg play piercing corsetry photoshoot, but instead of using de facto ribbon (for example like this beautifully realized example by Shorty) he uses gold chain, which works quite nicely as an “alternative” lacing material (I was not sold on the police tape corset for example). Very nice photo as well. By the way, if you like corsetry piercing pictures, BME has a gallery of them with well over 15,000 photos.

    Click to see the photo uncropped

    xzcorset-crop

Latest Tattoo, Piercing, and Body Modification News