Full Metal Alchemy Implant

Posted on March 5, 2013 by Shannon Larratt

While most implants are still basic shapes or “flash” selected from a limited portfolio (skulls, spiders, biomech ribs, and so on), these days it is possible to get cast custom implants made at a reasonable price and within a reasonable timeframe. Because of that, interesting new markets are starting to evolve that haven’t really existed until now — for example, the person below is a customer of Hugh Mattay’s (fb/hugh.mattay) who has no tattoos and no piercings — just implants! Hugh had already done a finger magnet on him as well as a pair of circular implants on his forearms, but this time he came in with something more complex, a printout of the Fullmetal Alchemist logo (a Japanese manga and video game series), which he wanted to have capped with an eye containing a magnet. Hugh got in touch with Max Yampolskiy (fb/max.yampolskiy) who created this and just three weeks later the customer was getting it implanted in his chest.

I really love that these days people who don’t enjoy the look of tattoos, scars, or piercings — the traditional forms of body art — have this 3D sculpting as a viable alternative. I’m really looking forward to seeing what other projects Hugh and this customer are going to get up to — for example, they’ve discussed stretching his lobes, but using internal implants, without piercings! Below are the Fullmetal Alchemist implant, right after draining 46ml of fluid (eww) (Hugh figures the unusually high amounts of fluid buildup are due to the difficulty of placing the complex shape), and also a picture of the client’s forearm implants.

400 Hook World Record Suspension

Posted on February 24, 2013 by Shannon Larratt

It used to be that when you thought of insane over-the-top implementations of body modification and ritual, South Americans couldn’t be beat. But lately when it comes to bringing the crazy, it’s been impossible to the Russians, what with things like freefall suspension and now this four hundred hook suspension, facilitated in part by Modblog regular Maxim Yampolskiy, who is perhaps best known for his creative and innovative silicone implant work.

400-hook-suspension--title

The idea was born in mid-December 2012 in the mind of Artem Kovalenko (of Krasnodar’s ArtMod Team) who went on to do the suspension. After reading about a 220-hook world record suspension (which I haven’t seen, but you may recall the 178-hook suspension I posted back in 2006, and the 296-hook suspension from later that year), he decided not just to break it, but to completely shatter it. He contacted Max (of Moscow’s Brutal Forms Group) and Renat Khalitov (of Astrakhan’s Blood Brothers Team) and since Max already had a hundred small hooks ready to go that he’d been hoping to use on something like this, he bought three hundred more and a plane ticket. They all got together in Krasnodar on February 13th, 2013, and because of time limitations on when they could use the space, Max and Renat began throwing hooks about two hours after their flights landed!

Having seen some issues with previous high-hook-count suspensions, Max looked at this as a technical challenge, eventually deciding on placing the majority of the hooks in Artem’s back and then more on his legs. Four hundred hooks means four hundred piercings, which is a gruelling thing to go through with or without a suspension — it wasn’t that long ago that four hundred needles would have been enough to land a play piercing world record! The piercings were done like a duet, with Max doing the piercing with the needle, and Renat instantly inserting the hooks, the two of them acting “like a punching machine”. They took occasional breaks, but managed to get all the hooks placed inside six hours. Rigging, using 200 meters of fishing line laid in parallel to save time, added three or four more hours of work.

Unfortunately by the everything was finished, Artem — to say nothing of Max and Renat — was pretty wiped out so the suspension itself was fairly brief (although it went well). When Artem came down, the hooks came out very quickly, being removed within half an hour. To celebrate their success and record breaking, they took off a couple of days to go snowboarding (Krasnodar is not far from Sochi, where the 2014 Olympic Winter Games will be held). Artem was none-the-worse-for-wear and the suspension experience didn’t limit his ability to enjoy the slopes.

The sharp-eyed may have noticed the white rigging plate. Unlike the metal rigging plates that are commonplace, Max has been developing rigging plates and even Gilson safety hooks using very hard and strong industrial plastics. When I saw them I asked Max whether he had concerns about safety and what their breaking point was, and he told me he figures these places are capable up to at least 3.5 tons — in his testing the metal components break before the plastic fails! Contact Max via his Facebook page if you’re interested in getting custom plastic suspension equipment.

Mutated Hand

Posted on January 26, 2013 by Shannon Larratt

Here’s a great example of combining implants with tattoos. Hugo Ferreira of BIOTECH in Toulouse, France has taken some of Max Yampolskiy’s ring implants and put them into Noss’s hand, augmented with red tattoos that not only match the implants but his knuckles as well. I should add that the tattoos were there before the implant, making Hugo’s job much more difficult, but as you can see he lined them up beautifully.

noss-hand

Power Button Hand Implant (and more)

Posted on January 17, 2013 by Shannon Larratt

You may have seen this multi-level power icon implant before (designed and fabricated by Max Yampolskiy), but I wanted to post an updated picture of it as it’s now well over a year old and looking just gorgeous — the stepped height of the design is incredibly effective. In the bottom photo, which is actually an older picture, you can also see the implant design and the complex base that Max creates, intended to maximize both the detail level and the adhesion of the implant.

And I must confess a mini-crush on the model as well, who has a plethora of intense modifications and rare, advanced piercings including subclavicals and vertical lowbrets. Although I don’t know of anyone ever having serious complications from them, I can’t tell you that subclavicals are safe or recommended on any level, but wow, I just love them… One of the most hardcore piercings that exist.

While I’m mentioning Max’s implant designs (he both performs them and retails them to other artists), another one that I like quite a lot and is similar on a design level is this “Iron Man” chest implant, four months old in this photo. There’s a good chance that in time the centre indent may pull down and become defined and that the middle circle (of the three) will start to show, but you can already see nice definition in the rest of it.

PS. You may also remember the space invaders implants that Max did.

The Eyeball Tattoo FAQ has been updated

Posted on November 21, 2012 by Shannon Larratt

I’ve updated the eyeball tattoo FAQ today with lots and lots of new information, including some discussion of risks information that backs up doctor’s warnings that eyeball tattoos could lead to blindness. After meeting someone whose ink migrated into the inside of the eye, into the vitreous humor, and then after a year of floating around in their vision attached itself to the optic nerve, I collected more information on both this issue (which is probably rare) and on intraocular press and ocular hypertension (which is probably common). Short version of the story is that eye tattoos increase the pressure in the eye, which is connected to glaucoma and blindness, and this risk seems to get worse in time, so it’s possible that we may see the “perfect nightmare” of eye tattooing thanks to people not waiting and everyone wanting to jump on the boat and get it done too before the longterm risks were established… imagine if in fifteen to twenty years the incidence of blindness in those with eyeball tattoos is way higher than it should be. Not one bit of fun there.

Anyway, the FAQ is updated and has a fun animation of Pauly Unstoppable added to it for the version 1.1 title. As always, all new information has been highlighted in a red font so you can quickly find it and only read the new stuff if you’re already familiar. Here’s the link: Eyeball Tattoo FAQ – http://news.bme.com/2012/10/18/the-eyeball-tattoo-faq/

Brief excerpts from the updates:

There has been at least one case where over-injected ink has migrated through the sclera and into the vitreous humor. In the case where this happened the eye didn’t seem to want to easily accept the ink, and what did go in seemed not to spread as normal. The other eye was tattooed in the same session without any complications, but three days after the procedure the person had what they described as the worst headache of their life including blurry vision and extreme light sensitivity. Intraocular pressure was increased, and for the next year the person saw black specks in their vision as these ink particle floaters tumbled through their vision. These particles appear to have now migrated to the optic nerve, which is their current location. The optometrist that examined the eye believes that glaucoma are likely and expects some degree of vision impairment or even blindness. It is also possible in this case for alternate complications to have arisen, and perhaps most importantly it is essential to understand that while experience and skill can mitigate this risk, it can not be eliminated and it can happen even to the most experienced artists (but is much, much more likely to happen to those who don’t have years of experience working on hundreds of eyes). Finally, I again want to emphasize that if anything abnormal is observed during the procedure it should be immediately aborted.

…complications from the tattoo may lead to blindness in the future due to damage to the tissues of the eye and/or optic nerve. Beyond acute injury leading to blindness, the most likely types of blindness related to eye tattooing are believed to develop slowly, perhaps over several decades. It is also likely that eye tattoos amplify preexisting conditions, for example a familial predisposition toward eye diseases such as glaucoma, and that it will be difficult to determine the degree to which the eye tattoo is responsible for the vision loss.

At some point soon the FAQ will need a rewrite because it’s getting a little jumbled and there may be some repetition as well…

I also wanted to show three tattoos that have been done recently, all by different artists, that I like visually quite a lot. From top to bottom they are Purple Haze eyes done by Russ Foxx (done with an utter minimum of ink, which all other things being equal increases the safety level), , next a pair of cyan eyes with a magenta iris outline (this type of design should be treated with the utmost of care due to its proximity to the corneal limbus and iris/lens muscles, as discussed in the FAQ) by Max Yampolskiy, and on the bottom, a set of psychedelic rainbow eyes by Chance Davis.

By the way, I assume this goes without saying but I need to make clear that just because I post a picture doesn’t mean that I endorse or recommend the procedure or the people involved… The risks on this procedure are still being discovered, and they may be quite significant. As much as I love the way these looks, it makes me beyond uncomfortable seeing how many people are getting it done, and how many new practitioners are not just diving into the procedure, but diving right into the deep end. Please treat this procedure with the utmost of care. It has more potential to severely damage someone’s live than just about anything else out there.

Large First-Gen Forehead Ridges

Posted on October 11, 2012 by Shannon Larratt

Here’s an amazing set of first-generation forehead implants — this is probably about the farthest one would want to push a first gen forehead — looking superb on day seventeen, just past the initial phase of healing. These implants were custom made (if you’re curious, click here to see them pre-implantation) for Jenny by implant artist Max Yampolskiy and then expertly installed by Arnulf Ragnar Schmitz at Stigmata Inc in Cologne, Germany. It’s funny, as I was working on this post, Caitlin looked over at my monitor and said — jokingly, I think — “Why are you always ogling girls with bumpy foreheads? Would you like me better if I got implants?”

I will leave it to you to wonder whether my fingers were crossed when I said, “No, of course I love you just the way you are!”

All kidding aside, Jenny was quite pretty to begin with of course, but I do think this implants are just wonderful and a big “improvement” — although improvement isn’t really the right word… I think that this is something more profound than what you’d get with a nice haircut. It’s not just an improvement — it’s an evolution.

Scalp-Crown Demon Ridges

Posted on August 13, 2012 by Shannon Larratt

While the vast majority of people choose the classic “horn” style forehead implant first made popular by The Enigma, there are an infinite number of ways horns and ridges can be applied to the skull. Some are very natural, some are aesthetically challenging, some are aggressive and hostile, others are alien and serene. I am definitely partial to this nice high set of ridges, a pair of triple half-beads, that Moscow body artist and implant maker Max Yampolskiy (FB/max.yampolskiy) created for his first “demon” client, photographed here at 23 days. They almost remind me of Swirly Wanx Sinatra’s ridges, but pushed much further up on the forehead, which gives them an appearance that works perfectly with the shape of the client’s face. They really look remarkably natural, as if he was born with them, which I think is a sign of aesthetic success.

demon1

In this second photo you can get a clearer view of the exact shape they’ve used.

demon2