Author Archives: Shannon Larratt

Sophie’s ear notching (and unalome scar)

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Speaking of unusual ears, Sophie Lacroix just had this beautiful unalome cut on her cheek by Efix Roy (efixroy.com), but while the skin removal scar is very nice, what really caught my eye was the wonderful notch she has cut into the rim of her helix. This was also done by Efix, first four years ago and then again last winter to fine-tune the shape, using a scalpel cut-and-suture technique, with the sutures being removed a week later and the healing going quickly after that. Only the one ear was done, with the main reason being a love for unique aesthetics and unusual procedures. Most people she knows aren’t that into it, or assume it’s an injury or the result of an infection from a piercing gone wrong, but it’s for her not for them. She says, “all my modifications make me feel better, and I’m not a crazy girl who doesn’t like herself — I just love the way modifications make you different and beautiful. People don’t like what they can’t understand and I deal with that. My ear was pretty normal, then I cut it, and I love it — it’s that simple.”

Click to zoom in for a closer look.

Daith on Atypical Anatomy

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Ash Bagwell, piercer at The Machine Shop Tattoo Studio in Conroe, TX just got the rare opportunity to do what is I think best described as a daith piercing, but it took really taking a hard look at the anatomy to be certain of that. It’s not 100% clear from the photo so I’ll clarify that this is an actual piercing through an unusual fold of cartilage, not a ring wrapped around a free-floating bridge of tissue. Ash did the piercing using a 16ga needle which she slightly curved, into a receiving tube. It’s always a treat when people don’t try and hide their unique anatomy, but instead glorify it with a piercing or other modification!

A new use for line weight

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I’m sure everyone knows what halftoning is, if not by name — it’s creating a photographic image by using a pattern of dots, with the dots being different sizes to represent different levels of darkness. Like how newspapers print photos. What you may not know is that you don’t have to use dots — lines are commonly used (and in fact are a built in feature in most photo editing software), but this is the first time I’ve ever seen a tattoo take a common geometric swastika pattern and mix it up with halftoning techniques to represent a photographic image through variance in the line weight of a geometric tattoo. I suspect though it’s no surprise that this Buddha comes from London’s Divine Canvas (divine-canvas.com), tattooed by Delphine Noiztoy as a design collaboration with Myoshka. If you’re thinking the skin of the tattoo looks a little annoyed, that may be because it was done over a single brutally long eleven hour sit. I’m thrilled though to see people finding new ways to express geometric tattooing, because after a while it starts to all look the same — no one is going to say that about this one though!!! Click the cropped photo to see an uncropped version.

The Sleeper Has Awakened

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Over five years since tattooing a small part of my eye blue in the very first set of eye tattoo procedures — the day that opened Pandora’s Box and launched perhaps the riskiest but most exciting body mod procedure to date — Howie (LunaCobra.net) has done the next and perhaps final stage of my eye tattoos. As you may know, my blue eyes are at least in part inspired by the Eyes of Ibad that the Fremen of Arrakis (ie. Dune) get due to their constant exposure to the powerful drug melange. Normally when Howie does an eye tattoo, the wearer is looking for a solid color — although there are obvious exceptions like Pauly Unstoppable’s unbelievable “cosmic eyes” which involve complex gradients. In my eyes we went with the “less is more” theory, using the fact that ink injected in the eye spreads dramatically to create a hazy, cloudy effect that looks different from every angle, mostly quite subtle, but almost blue-black in a few deeply saturated spots. The eye is both subtle and extreme, in an effect that’s completely alien, yet maintains its humanity and is almost even normal — I’ve noticed in public that people seem unsure what they’re seeing, whether it’s natural, or a trick of the light, or something induced.

The effect will probably continue to change somewhat over the next several months. These pictures in this entry were taken on day three, about 48 hours after the procedure, and at that point all swelling and irritation was already long gone — in fact it was gone 12 hours later, or when I woke up the next morning. I believe this is in part Howie’s experience, and in part how light we went with the procedure. I truly believe that with eye tattoos, it’s important to err on the side of going light — you can always add more in a few months (or in five years) if you went light, but if you go heavy, well, you’re going to have to live with it.

Remember, if you are interested in eye tattoos, these are a high-risk procedure that should only be attempted by those with significant experience and training. Please begin by reading BME’s Eye Tattoo FAQ.

More tattoo mastery by Gerhard Wiesbeck

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At the start of September I shared some work by the German blackwork master Gerhard Wiesbeck of Time Travelling Tattoo (timetravellingtattoo.com) in Landshut (near Munich). Today I want to share a few more of his incredible pieces. I enjoy Gerhard’s ability to tastefully integrate dotwork with bold solid black, fields of geometry with organic flowing designs, and the sacred with the psychedelic. I’ll tell you though, the thing I often am reminded of when I see these incredible large scale pieces is the advice I always give people about their first tattoo — wait until you’re 110% sure, and then go at it full-throttle, and err on the side of “huge”. Too many people get a small tattoo — and often a very nice and meaningful one — that ends up marring future large scale creations. I know so many heavily tattooed people that I am quite certain wish that they were completely un-tattooed so that they could allow a master like Gerhard Wiesbeck to fully transform them without having to worry about the scars of previous work throwing off the aesthetic.

A few great self-mods

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Speaking of Yann Brënyàk of Body Temple (londonbodytemple.com), another in his growing arsenal of modifications is this scar on his leg, totally self performed, which is always very impressive to me even though there’s no shortage of self-blading in this world. The core swastika heart design is great, and I like the way that he’s mixed heavy bands of skin peeling with find detail scarwork with the swastika geometry background pattern. Another nice touch is the random slashing around the border, which if you know Yann’s facial tattooing, is a motif that is echoed across his identity.

Those with long memories may recall way, way, way back in 2007 Hugh Mattay, now modifying people at 119 Tattoo (oneonenine.com.au) in Sydney, had his batwing eyebrow tattoos posted here. Since then he’s had a lot of tattooing added to his forehead, with the stripes exploding out over his temples being perhaps my favorite of the bunch. But he’s also been piercing himself this week, adding first the medusa piercing, and now a pair of cheek piercings. I’m always impressed when people do their own labrets or medusas because it’s so hard to judge one’s own facial symmetry, and it only takes being off my a millimeter to look wrong.

Yann’s New Ears

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Yann Brënyàk of Body Temple in London (londonbodytemple.com), already heavily modified with abstract and artistic blackwork tattooing, has undertaken a project to complete and transform his body, with a great deal of work planned. One of the most recent additions is tattooing on his ears by shopmate Made Max, who has decorated them with a combination of black lines and dotwork, as well as text in white. Follow his transformation at facebook.com/BodyIllusion.

PS. For a full shot of Yann, don’t miss the suspension wallpaper posted in August.

Implants to match forehead tattoos

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Earlier this month Matias Tafel (of Rata Body Art in Buenos Aires, Argentina — ratabodyartstudio.com.ar) posted a set of custom implants that he hand carved for his friend Gaby Peralta — you can see one of the matching set inset in the photo below. Well, they’ve since been installed and doing well, and in this picture are two weeks old. As you can see, the implant was carved to match the blackwork swooshes on her forehead, although it won’t be clear exactly how well the two work together until more time has passed and the implant has more definition. I think on an aesthetic level too this photo might be misleading, as the implant probably looks very different with her hair down, since it changes the flow when the implant ridge apparently flows back onto the head under the hair (even though it doesn’t), versus just being a triangle. I’m sure this will look great in six months to a year when it’s fully settled in. Zoom in for a closer look.

Mr. O and Mr. R got nothin’ on this

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The Monsters of Schlock, Burnaby Q. Orbax and his brother Sweet Pepper Klopek, just rigged up a tattoo machine to run on battery power and brought it onto the PNE’s big — and very shaky — wooden rollercoaster and tattooed a lizard logo onto Sweet Pepper’s leg. Photo by Syx Langemann (click to zoom), and there was lots of HD video shot so don’t be surprised if you see more that just this quick teaser video in the future on television.

Yes, yes, I know, this is an insult to everything you hold sacred. We’re all very offended.

For the first time in recorded history, a man has been tattooed on a running roller coaster. That man was none other than Sweet Pepper Klopek, one half of the world’s most extreme two man circus sideshow comedy magic extravaganza known as the Monsters of Schlock. His brother, and other half of the daredevil duo, the great Orbax, performed the tattoo. As a matter of fact it was the first time he had EVER tattooed!

The wild stunt took place at the PNE Playland fairgrounds in Vancouver BC Canada on Oct 24th 2012 on the wooden roller coaster. Two successive trips around were required, totalling in just under four minutes of track time covering a total distance of 1732 m. At points the coaster hit 47 mph, took a drop of 75 ft and pulled 2.2 g’s.

The tattoo itself was a lizard face, the logo of their long time sideshow friend and coworker, Erik Sprague, the world famous Lizardman. As the coaster hit the first incline, the five time Guinness World Record breakers proclaimed ‘One small tattoo for man, one giant leap for douchebags everywhere!’.

The Monsters of Schlock have performed skilled, daring and dangerous all over the world but this, by far, they claim to be their stupidest.

Rolf and Stelarc at the Oslo Suspension Symposium

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I met and interviewed Stelarc back in 2004 at the Transvision transhumanist convention here in Toronto, but while he was already planning it, he had not yet implanted the ear in his arm. He’s in Oslo right now, as part of the amazing 2012 Oslo Suspension Symposium (these events just keep getting more and more amazing), and Rolf Buchholz — and incredible artist in his own right — just posted a nice picture of the two of them together showing off their amazing transformation. Zoom in and get a nice big look.

In addition to collecting an incredible number of piercings, Rolf also takes an incredible number of just wonderful images from suspension events around the world — he is the best traveled suspension enthusiasts I can think of, perhaps by a wide margin, and it wouldn’t surprise me to find out that he holds a world record in suspension as well as piercing. In any case, here are two photos he took at the happening-right-now 2012 Oslo Suspension Symposium. Stunning artistry, as I had expected. The first photo can be zoomed in.