I wanted to show three separate dotwork designs this afternoon, each of them showing a slightly different approach to the medium. The first piece I want to show is by Kenji Alucky (blackinkpower.com), an incredibly complex strobing pattern with the bands flashing on and off in a series of overlaid reversals, all orbiting around a central sun.
Next, a gorgeous chestpiece by Argentina’s Nazareno Tubaro (nazareno-tubaro.com), heartshaped field of dotwork stripes with a pair of mirrored Maori curls in negative space, creating a simple, powerful design. This was done while doing a guest spot at Denmark’s amazing Skin & Bone (skinandbone.dk).
This last one doesn’t have remotely the technical precision or complexity of the first two, but I still like it a lot (and you know I’ve never felt that complexity is needed for a great tattoo). This spiral was created by Wayne Fredrickson of Zodiac Tattoo Studio in Moreno Valley, CA, machine-poked on the palm of his spiral. Wayne tells me that his apprentice couldn’t stay still, with his fingers curling and his arm lifting in reflex action beyond his control — I think the exact quote was “it was like tattooing on a rollercoaster”. It’s lucky this was a dotwork design, because if it had been anything else, it would have likely been scribble city, an impersonation of a John Callahan cartoon.
Speaking of small implants, another one I saw recently that really struck me was this little tiny martini-glass implant put into his fiancé’s ear by Brendan Russel of Tribal Urge in Newcastle, NSW, Australia. When I first saw it, I actually thought that it was a white ink tattoo, because that’s how it comes off in photos (I’m sure there’s a subtlety to the design that you can only see in person). The implant was hand-carved by Brendan, and is incredibly thin, just 1.5mm (a little smaller than the diameter of a 14ga ring), with the edges all carefully rounded to ensure it doesn’t irritate the sensitive skin of the ear — the only part of the body that you could put something this small into and still have it show.
And speaking of hand-carved martini implants, you may remember this piece which was featured in the ModCon book (so this is from the “early days” of implants). Because this was going in a much fleshier location than the ear, it’s much, much larger, and even at this size it barely shows in its healed state.
I really like this heart-shaped implant at the apex of Anka’s forehead, done by Chai at CALM Body Modification (calmbodymod.com) in Stockholm. Unlike most forehead implants — horns, ridges, and so on — which create alien or fantasy morphology, this implant is much more unique, creating more of an accent or character mark, the sort of thing one would more commonly see from a tattoo. The piece is a few years old in this photo, and was hand-carved out of silicone.
In terms of his body, the singular thing that should separate Adam (as in the myth of “Adam and Eve”) from all other humans is that he doesn’t have a navel, seeing as he was sculpted out of mud rather than being birthed of a woman. A navel of course is the scar that remains from the severed umbilical cord, proof of mammalian birth, something that every human other than the first man, created by the hand of god in his own image, bears. This makes the navel removal procedure interesting to me — metaphorically it disconnects a person from their “long chain of biological reproduction”, turns them into a being sculpted not by biology, but by “the hand of god”. In this case, the hand of god could be the body modification practitioner, or even the person themselves, so I really appreciate what the procedure says — that we are our own gods, dictating our own fates and morphology.
Of course, some people just like the way it looks, and I don’t want to attach meaning to other people’s mods — I just really enjoy the musing one can do about this rare piece of body art. There are of course many other tales and motivations one could attach to it (for example, “f* you mom!”), like any other procedure.
Above is a navel removal — click to enlarge — done by Samppa Von Cyborg (voncyb.org), one of the only people I’d trust to do this advanced procedure. The left photo shows it at two months into healing, and on the right side it’s at eleven months. Down the middle you can see photos from a navel removal procedure (on a different person, but the procedure is the same). As you can see, the basic steps are skinning the navel down to its base and then closing it with a combination of internal and external sutures. I think it’s very important to note that as “easy” as that may seen, this is an extremely difficult procedure. On an aesthetic level, it takes a profound knowledge of the way the body heals and the anatomy — an understanding of the navel’s structure and a detailed knowledge of the way the collagen fibers run so they can be appropriately bonded, plus the ability to apply that understanding the the significant difference from person to person — to do this procedure inside an acceptable margin of safety.
Without that knowledge the procedure will almost certainly simply replace the original “navel scar” with a different sort of scar, to say nothing of the health risk. The APP has in the past warned that “outie” navels should not be done because an infection could travel inward along the old scar to the liver (which the umbilical cord once attached to). I don’t share that analysis, but I do agree that an infection trapped inside a navel removal, perhaps due to incomplete excision of tissue (for example a hair follicle) or any number of potential mistakes, could easily become life threatening.
I’ve posted lots and lots of tattoos that move with the body, be it simple fluidity, tattoos that change their form or meaning with the body’s position, or even “animated” tattoos like the pussy finger gag tattoo from earlier today. This example though is done in skin removal scarification, by Natalia Carrascosa or Blue Tattoo Gava in Barcelona. The client, an exotic animal enthusiast, designed the piece (with a little fine-tuning by Natalia) to echo the eyes of a puma. The first photo is fresh (as if you can’t tell), and the second photo shows it on the left at just over a month into the healing, and on the right at just under a year.
Jester Mayhone (facebook.com/Jestermayhone) is one of those very rare individuals who has chosen to undergo a concept transformation — where the majority of his modifications all work together push him toward a new total-body artistic vision. Other well known individuals on the short list of those who’ve done include The Lizardman, The Enigma, and the late Dennis Avner. If you’d like to learn more about Jester and his art, both his body and his paintings, you can here’s an earlier more extensive post, but the short version is that he’s using tattoos and other body modifications to evolve himself into his vision of a jester.
Jester jokes that yesterday he had the “best Valentines day ever” as he headed down to see his friends at Tomah Tattoo who, after sketching various ideas on his face freehand (based on designs Jester had spent weeks drawing on photos of himself), decided to go ahead and set it in ink. Only the start of the linework is done now, but when it’s finished it’ll be colored in with random patches — the mock-up I drew is there to illustrate what it might become and is just a quick “what if” Photoshop job. For me the design brings to mind many themes — I see everything from Jester’s main theme to horror movie masks, patched-together scarecrow and ragdolls, and even a bit of Frankenstein’s monster!
Zoom in for a larger view. Once his entire body is done like this, he will be one of the most striking and uniquely tattooed creatures walking the planet.
These sorts of bulky, visually striking implants seemed more common about ten years ago, so when I first saw these awesome megaridges done at Adiccion Corporal in Zapopan, Jalisco, Mexico, at first I thought they were old pictures. This impressive forearm ridges are custom carved teflon bars (a harder material than silicone, but much easier to hand-carve), with the large one being 12.5cm long and the smaller one 9.5cm, in 14mm and 12mm diameters respectively. Even though they’re quite large, these are first-generation implants. In the first photo you can see what the bars looked like prior to implanting.
It’s fresh in the large photo, but Dustin’s tail-wagging black cat finger tattoo was done for him by Sean Holmes at Altered Image in Indianapolis about a year ago. The animated version is how it looks now and in motion. Admittedly, it doesn’t make a very convincing mustache, but I’m sure the pose leads to many vaguely inappropriate jokes about sniffing the pussy on his finger.
I’ve already talked a bit about new procedures that artists are developing to create both new stylistic options in ear pointing while also achieving more “realistic” or “natural” looking results. The latest procedure to be added to this world of fascinating options is one by Brian Decker. I asked him to describe it, and he explained,
“What I do is bisect each upper and lower section to eliminate the rebounding of the cartilage. Fold each section flat down and connect to the outer conch area. This is done with permanent internal sutures. The outer openings are then closed superficially with no tension. Because she’s from out of town, I used all dissolving sutures for the outer closing.”
Pictured below is the first set he’s done using this procedure, so he says there are adjustments he’ll make on the next one from what he’s learned by watching this one heal. In this group of pictures you can see the ear pointing right after it was done, then at about two and a half weeks in the middle picture, and finally at six weeks in the right picture. At six weeks it’s still healing to some extent, so expect the swelling to continue to reduce.
I should also mention that Brian is currently touring, and will be in Des Moines, Iowa from March 5th through the 11th, and then in Columbus, Ohio in mid-April, as well as London, UK in early May (including at the First International Scarification Convention), and then in Las Vegas in mid June. Get in touch with him via his website at purebodyarts.com.
Tonight (February 14, 2013) AMC will be airing a new reality TV show called “Freakshow”, all about the Venice Beach Freakshow. The cast member who may be of most interest to ModBlog readers is Marcus “The Creature” Boykin, tattooed head to toe and wearing a face-full of self-pierced metal. The name “Creature” comes with a double meaning — he’s not just a creature in the monstrous sense, but also “create-ure” in the sense of creating himself as an artistic invention, a body that is “all original, unlike anyone else’s”, in the hope that he’d be able to not just entertain, but inspire and let people know that no matter how impossible something seems, you can do it.
Here’s the official video profile of Creature from AMC. Following that is a brief chat that we had yesterday letting you know a little bit more about what makes Creature tick — but if you really want to see what he and the rest of Venice Beach Freakshow are all about, don’t miss the show, which begins tonight on AMC at 9:30, 8:30 CST.
** What made you want to move from being a kid into piercings to someone at the “freak end of the scale” — and how did your family react?
My family are hard core Christians, and my mom is still in disbelief, but my dad supports me to the fullest in the craze of body art and piercings. My inspiration came from historical pictures like the Great Omi… warriors receiving scarification, like the great Shaka Zulu, and slaves chastisement as they got whipped and scarred and burned — also Jesus Christ himself suffered out of this world piercings and was scarred beyond any recognition — it goes reallly deeeep…
** How did you get into the industry professionally?
When I was a kid I always was attracted to the arts, and now consider myself a multi-disciplinary artist. I was someone who was always into creatures — that’s why my name fits so well. I first got educated on the industry by going to the store and grabbing ink magazines. I saw the abnormal things featured in magazines like Tattoo Savage, and these influenced my young mind. Even as a kid, I always wanted to entertain, from the art of popping, locking, and breakdancing, and being a creature known as Gizmo and Raver Dayn, as Yoshi, and rebel dancing as him toooooo… I’ve always been into the strange and unusual, so I’m not surprised by my profession. I believe I didn’t choose it — it chose me.
** Why do you have so many piercings specifically on your face? Do you have issues with rejection?
I have a lot of piercings on my face because I want to fill it completely with surface piercings. Ear stretchings, lips, nipples… a lot of the mods just takes time. Of course I suffer rejection but that’s just a part of the game. I’ve been piercing my own face and tattooing it for years now, and things just keep on improving in the industry so there are endless possibilities. The future holds many new creations in my body mods. It won’t be done until I am dead.
Creature with one of his many young fans
** What are your future body modification plans? Are you interested in going for one of the “most piercings” type records?
As my mods go, I am still adding more and want to continue to lead African Americans in this art form and represent the endless possibilities of our body. That’s very important to me, and in addition to my facial work, I want piercings over my entire body surface. I already hold the record as the most tattooed and modified man in America thanks to my layers of ink, mods, piercings, and stretchings but I’m going for more — of course I will keep delivering the blow! Art has endless possibilities, and I express that through the body as the Creature.
** What can we expect from you on the show?
Before I started body mod I did body balance circus tricks and planking, part of a world-wide crew I started called “The Freakshow”, and advancing to the world famous LA Breakers, tattooing and evolving my skills and receiving mod work to advance my power. Now as a tattooed man, following in the footsteps of the Great Omi, famous in the sideshow, I love what I do because of the influence I can have on children, telling them to be themselves — that’s what’s it all about.
** Have is been difficult walking this path due to your ethnicity?
Yes. I believe there is a big separation in piercing for minorities versus whites. Blacks in particular, because in modern times they don’t generally do these things, is why I felt I had to lead and do it personally. I believe we as African Americans come from the first culture to do these things historically, especially in the extreme categories like head shaping, lip plates, septum expansions, plugs in ears, lips, upper lips, nose, and of course also scarification and branding… As Americans, blacks have had to walk a straight edge to get jobs, so mods are uncommon. We are forced to look acceptable to work…
** Have there been positive aspects as well?
All the movies I watched growing up were about being black and proud, and I want to express that through my ink. Like everyone, I have an inner warrior, and I found mine through needles of ink and piercing, as well as through modifying my hair… I had my face fully tattooed at age twenty-three. My race helps me with this struggle because there is no one leading in the mod world as a black male, and I wanted to be the real first extreme real black make in the body mod community.
In addition to being in the sideshow and inking himself, Marcus has also worked as a tattoo artist in a classic urban LA style. Here’s a collection of the ink he’s put on others — click to zoom in for a closer look. Don’t miss the cartoon in the bottom right which wears the same nose jewelry as Creature!
