Lucky FTW Rich

Over the past while I’ve been updating you on the latest layer of tattooing that Lucky Diamond Rich — see “Unblacking the Blackest Man” — has been adding onto his incredibly saturated inkflesh. Most recently he’s had Terry Baker from Jinxproof Tattoo in Geelong add a nice big FTW in big black Old English letters outlined in white to the mix. I wonder if there’s an upper limit to the number of times he can retattoo himself? I suspect that there’s no limit at all, and he can just keep on redefining himself until the end of his time — and I never would have suspected such a thing if it wasn’t for Rich proving it to me.

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A Loving Mom, With A Gun

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.

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Hanya Skin Removal Backpiece Update

Over five years ago I posted a photo of this incredible full-back hanya mask skin removal scarification by cross-spectrum body modification master Thorsten Sekira, then at Modified World in Munich, Germany, but now at Silver Studio (silverstudio.at) in Vienna, Austria. As is not surprising, the piece has healed evenly and without complication. Given the chaotic nature of the background, it’s impressive that it stands out as well as it does — and if you compare the picture posted in 2007 with these two pictures (posted a short while apart, as you can tell because the one on the right has additional tattooing), the wearer has been slowly filling in the background with ink, keeping the hanya mask as negative space so the scar will continue to grow more prominent as their body art evolves.

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I’m only giving you a tiny glimpse into his large body of work, but another related scar that Thorsten did is this Kirin (a deer-like dragon for lack of a better introduction to its rich and complex mythology which you can search out for yourself), on untattooed skin this time, and using more traditional cutting rather than heavy-lined skin removal. In these photos it is of course healed, and again, you can see that it is nice and consistent, even though it’s on skin that experiences significant movement and abuse and can be quite difficult to get ideal results on.

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As I mentioned, Thorsten is one of those guys that’s capable of anything — piercings, suspension, implants, ear reconstruction, scarification, and even tattooing. I say “even” tattooing because it’s not uncommon to find piercers who are into other mods, but most of the time there’s a real line between the tattoo world and the rest of the modification world. To be honest, it’s probably one of our biggest problems as a subculture. On that note I want to finish off with a silly little tattoo he poked — I’m sure it’s obvious, but this is German for “right” and “left”. For those forgetful, always-getting-lost sorts I suppose? Unfortunately it only works in sandals with carefully chosen strap designs. Oh, and I like the subtle typographical touch of slightly deviating the baseline of the text so as to make it look like it’s been shaken (or stomped) a bit out of place.

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Splattered

To wrap up today’s look at the artists of Tattoo Temple, we have something by the shop’s founder, Joey Pang.  As I’ve mentioned in the past Joey has years of training in Chinese calligraphy under her belt, which she combines with her natural artistic flair to created works of art that you won’t be able to find anywhere else.  Every brush stroke is carefully considered both in terms of the character being depicted, as well as how it will fit on a person’s body.  While anyone can walk into a shop and get some form of Kanji flash off of a wall, when you go to Joey you know that what you’re getting will mean exactly what you want it to.

At least the one is funny…

Admittedly there are a lot of stupid forehead tattoos out there — Oddee posted a list of their “15 stupidest” a while back — and I’m sure many of you remember the old “STUPID” forehead tattoo from years ago and that tattoo is the very first thing I thought of when Pip showed me this idiotic forehead brand of stupidity… Getting “racist” tattooed on your forehead is pretty much the same thing as writing “small minded” across it. It’s embarrassing. I feel incredibly sorry for this guy and anyone who has to be seen with him. Yikes. Good example of someone trying to look tough, but just coming off looking like a moron.

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Brushed and Bronzed

I think Joey Pang is expanding her talents from tattooing and calligraphy to include genetically engineering flawless bodies.  If we know anything about her, it’s that everything Joey touches ends up looking exquisite.  She just needs to work on perfecting the tan line subroutine in her bio-engineering pods.