Eye tattoos by Rafael Leão Dias

Posted on February 22, 2013 by Shannon Larratt

One of my favorite thing about eye tattoos is that in many cases, they look different from day to day and from photo to photo. This is in part because of the way the ink is suspended over a nearly white backing and under a transparent “laminate” (unlike a “normal” tattoo, which is mixed into almost opaque tissue underneath a later of genetics-tinted translucent skin), and in part because the pigment particles are floating between these two layers, not locked in place, and slowly move around due to a variety of factors (for example, gravity, pressure from eyelids, or rubbing from fingers). For example, click this photo of Rattoo’s over-the-top blue eyeballs (done by Brazil’s Rafael Leão Dias of Dhar-Shan Body Art Tattoo & Piercing) to see a collage of fifteen different photos of his eyes over the last month or two. I should also mention that the tongue split he’s showing off was done not long ago (I think a few weeks in this photo) by Rafael.

Rafael by the way is arguably the most prolific eyeball tattoo artist in Brazil, if not in South America as a whole, and has done quite a few interesting people and well-known body modification microstars — for example, Rodrigo Musquito (first line of photos below, with the full-face skull tattoo), pro MMA fighter Danver Santos (second line of photos below), and mega-modded-couple Victor Peralta and Ana Diabolick (who you may notice flanking Danver in the final photo). Danver fights with Team Nogueira, under heavyweight Minotauro Nogueira, and when I chatted with him about the eye tattoos about a month ago, he told me that his black eyeball tattoos were driving crowds completely crazy and had fans clamoring for photos! They do look amazing, but my only worry is that eye tattoos can be damaged by pressure and I’m not sure eye tattoos are entirely compatible with MMA — time will tell. Click the photos below to see them at full size.

A new method for large-scale tattooing?

Posted on November 6, 2012 by Shannon Larratt

As those of you who are BME members who’ve spent a lot of time exploring the saline injection galleries already know, one of the tricks that people figured out to make it more amusing is that you can add food colouring to the saline solution — and let me preemptively say that this is risky both because food colouring is not generally safe to inject, and because it compromises the sterile saline by adding a non-sterile component and thereby increases the risk of post-procedure infection. Anyway, when someone does this, it tints the inflated tissue quite evenly — the photo below shows it having been done in a penis. When the saline is absorbed by the body, is starts breaking down and removing the food colouring, and the tissue rapidly reverts to it’s normal tone.

Ever since seeing stained deep tissue from eyeball tattooing procedures (where the face becomes stained via ink leakage into subcutaneous tissue), I have been thinking that it’s likely that if instead of using food colouring one could use tattoo ink or India Ink — India Ink is generally more biocompatible and may be safer, but it’s a guess — to tint a large area all at once. Imagine being able for example to tattoo a penis solid black (or whatever) in a single relatively pain-free procedure. After all, we’re talking about a single pinprick rather than thousands. And of course saline isn’t just for wieners — we’ve all seen the so-called “bagelheads” where foreheads are inflated, but cheeks and lips and even the tongue can be done as well. Could one tint the face in a single pain-free procedure? What if different colors were added at different points? It’s quite likely that they would blend and combine in ways impossible to achieve with traditional tattooing. It’s also possible that because subcutaneous tissue is being tinted that appearance impossible to achieve with a tattoo machine could be done.

Of course it’s also possible that because of the way the ink is introduced, and the way the body needs to deal with it, that there are significant and perhaps even deadly side-effects. I do think this technique merits further exploration — and to the best of my knowledge this is the first serious proposal of this method — but I hope that if someone does go ahead with it, and not just research the risks, but they start on a very small scale to explore the results carefully. I have to admit I’m half tempted to try it myself. If I end up with a bright blue scrotum to match my eyes, I’ll be sure to let y’all know. Please let me know if you try it as well.

The Black Eyeball Club

Posted on October 10, 2012 by Shannon Larratt

I like this club so much more than the Sacred Order of the Black Toe.

Howie (Lunacobra), the most experienced eye-tattooer, who has been performing and fine-tuning the procedure for longer than anyone else out there, has been doing some very exciting new work that I’m dying to share with you but that is going to have to wait until another post because in this one I’m featuring a set of people with black eyes. First is my friend Marc (little-swastika.com) in Radolfzell, who just had his second eye finished by Howie after having just the one done for quite some time. In the photo on the left he looks like some sort of deranged elf-creature rearing up out of its supernatural lair, don’t you think?

All the pictures in this entry can be zoomed.

Next on my list is this customer of Emilio Gonzalez’s (mithostattoo.com) — all of his heavy mods (implants and split tongue) as well as the eye tattoos are by Emilio, and as I may have posted before, this is one of my favorite forehead implant projects.

Finally, Roni Lachowicz, whose eyes are self done, and finally has her website up at x-roni-x.com. You’ll actually find a gallery of her eye tattoos (as in work on customers, not on herself) there that’s made up (at least as of this writing) of almost exclusively black eyes.

Pauly’s eye tattoo, plus before/after

Posted on September 12, 2012 by Shannon Larratt

Pauly Unstoppable just posted a new picture of his eyeball tattoo. Along with me, he’s one of a tiny handful of people with a partial eyeball tattoo. On the frightening day when Pauly, Josh, and myself sat with Howie debating who would be the first person in almost a hundred years to offer. Pauly, who already had extensive work by Howie, stepped up to be sacrificed to the mod gods first. This also meant that his eye was done with a traditional tattoo needle, rather than injection. Not long after doing it, we could see that most of the ink was coming right back out of the pinprick holes, and Pauly wasn’t going to be walking away with much of an eyeball tattoo that day. First to go under the needle definitely, but he would have to wait for a later encounter to add some more ink via the now-verified injection method. Unlike mine, which looks like a strange diseased lump, Pauly ended up with something that’s more like a flower or a purple cloud of troll fart gas depending on your point of view. Deceptively beautiful either way, and I think it is about five years old in this photo.

Click for an uncropped version.

I wanted to add some trivia as well while I’m talking about Pauly. A while back one of Pauly Unstoppable’s fans had some well-meaning fun in Photoshop attempting to edit off his body modifications. There’s something a little strange about how it turned out, although it is a passable amateur shop-job. But there’s something about it that doesn’t feel right.

pauly-shopped

It’s not quite “cover-up makeup” or anything but Pauly just posted a picture of himself with a facial mudbath (deep cleansing blue corn mask to be specific) or in preparation for his job as a mime or something. I’m sharing it here for those who are curious as to the impact that the facial tattoos and piercings have on the aesthetic of his face. Unlike with the Photoshop job, it’s easier to hide his tattoos than his cheek scars!

pauly-the-mime

Orange Scleral Tattoo

Posted on August 16, 2012 by Shannon Larratt

This awesome totally gonzo bright orange eyeball tattoo was done by my friend Emilio Gonzalez of MithosTattoo.com fame while visiting Hawaii on his bro Kalawela Kaiwi. Of course I also love the black eye tattoos, but I just love the way the bright coloured ones look. I’m still very worried about the long-term implications and consequences of eyeball tattooing and hope that it proceeds with caution on people experienced in heavy mods — as Kalawela obvious is — but gawddamn I do love scleral tattoos!!!

orange-eye

Eye Tattoo Update — Josh

Posted on April 28, 2008 by Shannon Larratt

132

Following up on the last eyeball tattoo photos, which I have to admit looked a little photoshopped and I had my suspicions that they looked “too good to be true”, Shawn Porter snapped this photo of Josh‘s incredible now all-blue eye tattoo. It is too good AND true! There are now around a dozen people in this community who’ve tattooed their eyes to one extent or another (I’m dying to see Cutthroat’s all-black eye) — will this snowball like tongue splitting, although thought to be a potentially terrible idea, did in 1998?

This tattoo was done by Howie (LunaCobra) of course, using eight to ten injections using two colors of blue ink to get the effect… He tells me tomorrow he’s doing an eye using a mix of red and black ink to do a “demon eye”… Damn!

Matching Tattoos and Wedding Tattoos

Posted on February 14, 2008 by Shannon Larratt

They say that if two people get the same tattoo, or that if you get a tattoo of someone’s name, you’re destined to break up — my partner and I have had matching tattoos now for I think seven or eight years and while there have most definitely been bumpy patches, there’s been absolutely no manifestation of the curse (the opposite, really). In this entry I wanted to share a collection of matching and wedding tattoos… The majority (although not all) of the folks are unaffected so far.

These first very pretty bands were done by Hanama.

Lots more continue after the break.

Above on the left is a pair of binary star systems by Jay Brown at Falling Moon in Moscow ID, and on the right are a pair of matching infinity tatttoos on a married couple by Jerry at Celebrity’s in Lakewood. Below left, the kanji says “love without a reason” by Chad at In Your Face Tattooz in Beaver Dam, WI, and on the right are my friends Barry and Jen, tattooed at Santa Cruz Tattoo.

Next are some matching hearts. I’m not sure who did the ones on the left, but the ones on the right are by Nate at Red’s Tattoos in Providence, Rhode Island, having been done right before her husband left for his new Air Force base assignment.

The matching tattoos below left are by Heidi at Millenium in Fort Collins, CO, and the ones on the right (artist unknown) are matching Trees of Gondor from JRR Tolkein’s Lord of the Rings.

The “Infinitas” tattoos on the left below (on Repeating) are sadly — or maybe fortunately? — ones where the curse did come true (done by AJ at Skin Tight). The matching cubes on the right are by Eric at Liberty Tattoos in Atlanta, Georgia.

The matching stars are by Bill Claydon at Bill Claydon’s World of Tattoos in Fayetteville, North Carolina, and the matching “Amour” tattoos were done by Al B. at Lion’s Den in Salem, NH.

Matt Ellis at Way Cool Uptown in North York (Toronto), Ontario, did these matching “PUNX” inner lip tattoos on a couple that’s been together for three years and says they don’t believe in the curse. The hearts on the right are also to celebrate a three year anniversary (of their wedding, not of dating).

The matching music love notes are a home tattoo done on this couple, and the tattoo below right – “No day but today” – is also musical in nature. They got it done right before they saw RENT.

The matching 8-8-3 diamonds below left were done by Steve at Addictive in London, Ontario, and the matching Sanskrit “Om” tattoos were done on a married couple by Laurie at Jetty Road Tattoo in Glenleg, SA.

Girlgamer and her husband got matching mobius strip tattoos done by Cooper at Solid State Tattoo in Salisbury, MD, and Kevin and Ashley got the tattoo below right instead of wearing wedding bands.

Eyeball Kid and his wife Kimberly got their wedding bands (below left) by Johnny at Hanky Panky in Amsterdam, and Moony‘s wedding ink (featured previously) was done by Luc at Evolution Ink in Winnipeg, Manitoba on the day of the wedding.

Below left, Bena and Evil_Lina‘s wedding tattoos are Sanskrit for “Love”. The wedding stars on the right are by Tommy at Triple Seven Tattoo in Alhaus, Germany.

The wedding bands — “J” and “A” — on the left were started by an artist in Whitby, ON, but then finished by Jamie (the “J” in the tattoos), and on the right the wedding tattoos are the wedding and anniversary dates, done by Scott Norick at S and J Tattoo in Lancaster, CA.

The Celtic wedding bands were done at Krazy Kats Tattoos in Kettering, Ohio, and the wedding tattoos below right were done at Rite of Passage Tattoo in Victor, New York.

Matt (“M”) and Tabitha (“T”) had their wedding bands, below left, inked by Elijah of Slingin’ Ink in Scranton, PA, and the wedding ring name tattoos below left were done by Smiley in Long Beach, California.

Finally, the wedding bands below left were inked on the engagement day, and the wedding band tattoos were done Silver City Tattoo in Elmsdale, Nova Scotia.

Here’s to the power of love breaking curses!

Glowing UV power light tattoo

Posted on July 17, 2007 by Shannon Larratt

Gimpie-Modo‘s neck glows when he’s ~~turned on~~ under a blacklight… This UV ink tattoo was done by Jo at Spunky Monkeys in Newport Pagnell, UK. By the way, Josh (who you know from the eyeball tattooing) is considering trying UV in his eyes!

Green Eyes, Blue Iris

Posted on March 5, 2013 by Shannon Larratt

I’ve seen more than enough eye tattoos to make me wish the new surgery that may one day be able to give us more functioning eyes to tattoo was available for humans (currently only tested on tadpoles)… As much as I love the effect we’ve achieved on my eyes and wouldn’t change it, as I’ve always tried for a mix of “extreme yet subtle” with my mods, seeing amazing examples like Rasta Fabian‘s bright green eye tattoos make me very jealous. It’s also a good example of how important it is to take into consideration the iris, because the interplay between the new surrounding color and the iris will define a lot of the end effect. It should come as no surprise that this was done by Howie (LunaCobra.net), the most experienced eyeball tattooist this side of Arrakis.

As always, don’t miss the eyeball tattoo FAQ, and if you’re interested in more info, check out the video interview from just before my eyes were re-done in October.

Black Dahlia Smile Brands

Posted on February 21, 2013 by Shannon Larratt

Cut in half and thus first believed to be a store mannequin when discovered, the body of Elizabeth Short, better known as The Black Dahlia, was found in a truly horrific state. Quoting from Wikipedia,

Short’s severely mutilated body was severed at the waist and completely drained of blood. Her face had been slashed from the corners of her mouth toward her ears, creating an effect called the Glasgow smile. Short also had multiple cuts on her thigh and breasts, where entire portions of flesh had been removed.

I mention this before posting a picture of Kenny Wagner’s new brands, done by Jeremy Pauley of Modern Relic Modifications, so you don’t jump to the conclusion that he’s a Joker (as in Batman‘s nemesis) superfan. Kenny tells me that he’s been long fascinated by the look of an expanded smile with “a darker twist to it” and after coming across images of the Dahlia cuts in horror movies the idea became set in his mind. The horror twist works especially well due to his black eyeball tattoos (the left done by Jeremy who did the brands, and the right by Chance Davis) — although he does admit it gets a little annoying having to constantly hear about Heath Ledger (“…but I’m quite polite most of the time, or sometimes even act like I’ve never even seen the movie!”).

dahlia smile brands