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.