Marc (Little Swastika) proves how much more wrecked you look when your black eyeball is combined with a black eye of the more common sort. I can not imagine the horror that would have been experienced by the ER room had he visited the hospital after his mishap!!!
Speaking of great custom implants by Arseniy Andersson of Total Ink Body Modifications in Saint Petersburg, I’ve been meaning to share with you this incredible miniature brass knuckle implant that he put in a customer’s outer conch flat six months before this photo was taken. I’m always amazed at the beautiful work that people have been doing in ears — it works so nicely because the thin tight skin shows fine detail better than nearly any other part of the body, and the fold of the helix makes for a very convenient place to hide the insertion incision. That said, it’s important to note that the ear is a fragile part of the body that is highly susceptible to infection — infections which become trapped manage to spread inside the cartilage can literally destroy the ear in a matter of days — so it is important that this type of implant be done by an experienced practitioner using high quality materials.
EDIT/UPDATE: I wanted to draw attention to Arseniy’s comment in which he mentions that for the first five months the implant was almost invisible. The skin settled down very slowly. He warns that with complex fine-detail ear implants you should understand it could be a year before your implant design is visible, and that it is possible it will never become that visible.
PS. It’s funny thinking back to the brass knuckles implant that Joe Amato did many years ago (posted almost seven years ago in fact) in a woman’s chest and how the viral internet went completely crazy over it. Even on BME it generated hundreds of comments, and across the internet it drove people into a ranting frenzy. I doubt this picture, which is arguably far more “extreme”, will do anything of the sort. It’s amazing in what a short period of time we’ve become used to (and numb to) body modification.
When cosmetic surgeons do cheek implants or jaw implants and things like that, they generally use cast implants that come in a few basic sizes and shapes. These are not exactly “one-size-fits-all” (or even “large-size-fits-all-large-heads”) and it’s not unusual for doctors to take these implants and carve them both for fit and aesthetic. It’s possible to do that in our body modification world as well, and that’s what Arseniy Andersson of Total Ink Body Modifications in St. Petersburg did for this customer, taking a set of Steve Haworth-manufactured implant rods and carving them into a custom shape for the forearm of this photogenic customer — a great way of using an implant with a known and proven high quality and turning it into something one-of-a-kind without the trouble of carving a block or the cost of casting a complete custom implant. This photo was taken a month and a half after the procedure.
I am occasionally of a mixed opinion on microdermals when they mimic piercings. For example, when I see cheek “piercings” that are done with microdermals, the sensible part of my brain says, “hey, what a great idea, that’s a lot safer and less trouble”, but the self-righteous part of me says, “you fucking faker!” …But then I see this microdermal cheek project by Joeltron (joeltron.com, firstblood.com.au), and everything’s all right and the Civil War in my head is officially in a state of truce. The neuroruins of my bombed-out brain officially thanks you.
Christiane and Havve (Wings of Desire/Pain Solution) are in Japan giving workshops and helping spread their expertise as always, and Christiane posted this amazing photo from a suspension demonstration at Vanilla Gallery in Tokyo last night. A beautiful and technically advanced example of the cutting edge rigging they’re known for — I really feel like this captures some space station art moment that should only be possible in the absence of the Earth’s damning gravity.
