After a personally difficult legal dispute over BME, I’ve had to face the potentially insurmountable reality of being massively in debt, and I have chosen to transfer the business to Rachel (the details of this deal are sealed, so please don’t ask). Within the month my role at BME will come to an end, and new staff (made up largely of people who’ve been working on BME for some time as well) will be taking over. I will no longer be writing online about body modification, although I will be maintaining my regular blog and other projects of course, as well as working on several body modification book projects which I am eager to complete.

It’s definitely a very strange and mixed set of feelings, having run this site from the very beginning, over nearly a decade and a half. On one hand I’m very much looking forward to having the opportunity and time to paint and tackle new adventures, and on the other hand I will very much miss both the people and the subject in general that I came to know through BME. That said, when I grew up and fell in love with body modification — and later built BME — this was a very different and much more “outsider” culture, so maybe now, as not just tattooing but body modification as a whole enjoys unprecedented levels of popularity and acceptability, it is a good time to pass the torch on to a new generation. It’s my hope that they maintain the site in the spirit that it was begun, while taking on the challenges of a new environment.

I have very much enjoyed being a part of BME and I leave it with good memories. Thank you to everyone who’s been a friend of the site, and everyone who’s helped bring it to this point. I hope you’ve enjoyed my contributions — I know I’ve enjoyed yours — and I hope that you continue to enjoy what BME brings in the future.

See you in hell! :P

         Shannon
         snowrail@gmail.com
         zentastic.com

Yes, things are not looking good…

Click the review for the matching tattoo…

You don’t need to watch it

I really think that without a doubt one of the most truly stunning, unique, striking, exotic, and beautiful women in the body modification scene is Argentina’s La Negra, photographed here by Eduardo Baez for Tatuarte en la Piel magazine at Danny Yerna’s event in Mexico. More photos continue after the break.

Read more…

Biohazard has this great sleeve of a full roster of different types of scalpel blades, tattooed by Chris Sabo at Marked For Life tattoos in Warren, Michigan. Previously.

OpenVein (John C. Worsley) zombie art, tattooed on blackandblue by Xris at Reactive Ink here in Toronto, after her first sitting with him on this project.

Photo by Prince Clare.

The Shock Of It All sends in a photo (taken by Leanne) of Beki B and her great spots tattoos, someone I haven’t seen in a long time! I do however have those same spray cans here…

Dave, tattooed by Ron at Adrenaline in Montreal explains,

Hand wash, warm water. Do not bleach. Drip dry. Do not iron.
“A friend suggested these, but decided not to go through with them. Now if ever I’m found unconscious on the sidewalk by a sumptuous brunette, she’ll know exactly what to do with me.”

Ah, Montreal… A place where you can find a sumptuous brunette to drip you dry just by lying unconscious on the sidewalk. I love French girls… Ah hell, French guys too — Dave didn’t specify a gender. [Edit: I ignore gender].

Please don’t think that the title is a play on words.

John Blake (in the blue shirt) forwarded me some more pictures of himself, Cutthroat (red facial tattoos), and Josh (totally blue eye), who all have eyeball tattoo work by Howie (LunaCobra.net), along with Andrew S from Swingshift (last photo). Each experienced quite a bit of spreading after the injection.

Eyeball tattooing has got to be my favorite new mod… I don’t know if it’s got universal appeal (but who’d have thought tongue splitting, also decried as completely nuts, would take off like it did). My eye tattoo is now almost one year old (along with Josh and Pauly’s). Here’s some closeup photos of how it’s doing.

As you may recall, it had some problems with a cyst-type structure developing (which was examined by eye injury specialists and ultrasounded, with no complications other than the obvious being found). While it definitely made me nervous for quite some time, it appears to be stable at this point. I’m definitely looking forward to continuing this work, and I’m always thrilled to see more of these admittedly gnarly, mutated-looking zombie-like eye experiments!

Previous entries on eyeball tattooing on ModBlog and eyeball tattooing on my blog.

This is Meg and Samantha from Akron Ink (Akron, Ohio). Samantha (left) did their tattoos, and Meg says, “We are quite serious about pinky swearing at our shop.”… Apparently!

See more in “Hand Tattoos“ (Tattoos)

Because his computer was ripped off, CutThroat hasn’t been able to post a picture of his black eyeball tattoo by Howie (LunaCobra), but I snagged this one from some candid shots that Wiket took at APP this year… If you didn’t already see it, be sure to check out Josh’s amazing completely blue tattooed eye.