Ear Pointing and Ultrablack Eyes

Posted on January 22, 2013 by Shannon Larratt

In my recent post about Samppa’s ear pointing technique, I commented that his style is nice because it’s so stable — the ear isn’t healing under pressure or tension, so the healed result pretty much looks like the ear fresh in terms of shape. The more traditional method, at least in cases where more radical results are desired, changes a great deal during its healing period. However, these changes — the way it stretches the tissue into a new shape — allow for results that are unique to that procedure, so I don’t see the technique being superseded any time soon. These examples on a customer of Moscow based Pavel Chernishov (vk.com/pavel_keek, ANGEL studio) show just how much things can adapt in the healing process.

Speaking of Pavel’s work, this picture of a customer whose tongue he split and eyes tattooed has to be one of the blackest-of-black eye tattoos I’ve ever seen done. I actually lightened up the picture like crazy to see if it had been photoshopped, but no, it’s really this wild looking.

Getting closer and closer to Vulcan ears

Posted on January 17, 2013 by Shannon Larratt

There’s an oft-retold story about the early day of Star Trek that Samppa got me thinking about (as has watching four or five Star Trek movies in the last couple days as I’ve been feeling especially ill). When Leonard Nimoy played Spock on the original Star Trek he had to come an hour earlier than everyone else and stay later as well to get his pointy prosthetic ears applied. To make matters worse, he had extremely sensitive skin, so this process was quite painful — to say nothing of his ears looking quite different from period to period as different makeup artists created them. Producer Robert H. Justman actually suggested to him that he get plastic surgery to create the ears permanently (and revert them in the future if needed), and Nimoy actually jumped at the opportunity, only to find out that Justman was pulling his leg and the procedure was not possible at the time.

We’re still some way from really being able to create a true lengthened Vulcan ear (since all of those procedures are “subtractive” in nature, unlike prosthetics, which are fundamentally “additive”), I was thinking that Samppa Von Cyborg’s (voncyb.org) current style of ear rebuilding is the first procedure that could actually almost do what they were talking about. Unlike the first generation of ear pointing, done by folding the corner of the ear into a point, Samppa’s procedure fully reshapes the ear rather than trying to squeeze it into a new form and hoping it adapts. While some last beautifully longterm, with first generation ear pointing, it’s not unusual for the ear to open up over time (not into a wound, but stretching the “point” into more of a flat curve), to slowly lose their point as the ear’s elasticity forces its way back to its original form. But because Samppa’s procedure relieves that pressure with much more radical re-sectioning of the tissue, the procedure is far more predictable and stable. That said, it’s unlikely that it could be reversed — at least not in a way that restored the same ear that was started with.

Here is the latest very impressive ear that Samppa has done.

Second Generation Ear Pointing

Posted on November 1, 2012 by Shannon Larratt

At the start of October I posted about an ear pointing that Samppa Von Cyborg (voncyb.org) had done and included some fresh photos. I’m thrilled today to be able the healed result today, and it’s truly incredible. It’s not just an ear that’s been folded into a point at the top. It’s an ear that’s been completely rebuilt to give the illusion of having grown naturally into this form.

You may recall the ear pointing trainwreck posted about a month ago. It’s important to understand that the more complicated the procedure gets, the higher the risk of failure, both in terms of full-on failure, and aesthetic mistakes. This is very much the case with advanced ear pointing like this. I’ve been sitting on these pictures for a while, because I don’t have explicit permission to post them, so I’m cropping them more than I want to in order to hide the person’s identity (and really pointing fingers is not my goal), but they show an attempt to do this procedure leaving a customer with an ear that to me looks like the sort of thing a caveman might have after battling a sabretooth tiger. It’s definitely not as gnarly as some procedures-gone-wrong, but it falls far short of what a person should expect — for starters, in addition to the technical aspects of the procedure looking amateur, the aesthetics and angles are nonsensical, and the two ears don’t come close to matching.

I really want to urge clients to only go to people for work that they can show you multiple healed examples of in their portfolio. And practitioners, there is absolutely no excuse in today’s world for blindly copying procedures you’ve seen more experienced artists post online. Training is available. Take advantage of it. Take it slow. It’s better to be responsible practitioner than to be something akin to a jackass in a comment forum yelling “first”. You don’t want the weight of needlessly messing people up on your conscience. Just remember you’re playing with people’s lives. Do it for them, not for your ego.

Stapleface

Posted on October 18, 2012 by Shannon Larratt

You know I was thinking that with all the oohing and ahhing and freaking out over eyeball tattoos, we sometimes forget another modification which is almost equally rare and unusual, and far less likely to blind you — flesh staples. First invented by Samppa Von Cyborg in the late 1990s as an improvement on pocketing technologies, the technology is now mature and mass-produced flat-bar staples are available from Samppa (voncyb.org). This particular example was done by the folks at Calm Body Modification (calmbodymod.com) in Stockholm. In addition to the sideburn staple, I also very much like the unique microdermal placement.

Edit/update — I wanted to add a longer shot to put it into context.

Pointing versus Shaping

Posted on October 10, 2012 by Shannon Larratt

I wanted to highlight and contrast two very different procedure styles of getting “elf ears” from two talented artists. In the ear on the left, done by Brian Decker (purebodyarts.com) you’ll see a traditional ear pointing procedure pushed to it’s max, giving quite a radical point — very long and pronounced. The end result is quite alien and very striking — if you want to see a well-healed result, look at Tye’s ears which are featured in the last Modified World video I posted. The other ear was done by Samppa Von Cyborg (voncyb.org) — you saw the customer’s other ear last week — and involves a complete top to bottom reshape of the ear. The lobe is removed, the contour is reshaped, and a more subtle point is formed. This also results in a slightly smaller ear because of the tissue removed — I’ve tried to put the two ears roughly to scale.

I don’t have particularly strong feelings as to which one of these ear styles I prefer — I like each for different reasons. The one produces a far more extreme appearance, and the other is more “natural” looking for lack of a better term… I think there’s space for each of them and I don’t one procedure replacing the other — it simply broadens the palette available. After the break you can see a larger photo of the ear by Samppa as well as both of the ears of Brian’s customer.

Metal-esque Freehand Forehead Scar

Posted on October 4, 2012 by Shannon Larratt

I hope no one is upset with me for being a bit of a Samppa Von Cyborg (voncyb.org) fanboy and posting a good percentage of his creations, but I really do believe he’s one of the most important body modification artists working today, and everyone ought to have their eye on him. Here’s a freehand scarification, designed by Kali and cut by Samppa — forehead work always looks great, and I particularly like this piece because of the way it dances with the scalp tattoo that it echoes. I will have to keep an eye on this and make sure it’s eventually the subject of a “Friday Followup” on ModBlog.

One year old 3rd gen transdermal closeup

Posted on October 2, 2012 by Shannon Larratt

Samppa von Cyborg (voncyb.org) has just post a nice closeup of a one year old implantation of three of his third generation transdermal implants — you may remember that we documented them in detail in an article posted in July (read that if you haven’t already). As you can see, even in this troublesome placement, with long hair around them, the healing is superb, showing only minor dryness around the exit points. I’m quite sure that the more time that passes, the more vindication these design improvements will experience.

gen3closeup

Fish-Eye Implant

Posted on September 27, 2012 by Shannon Larratt

Samppa Von Cyborg (voncyb.org… and oh my god, I can’t believe I just “got” his URL now… I just thought it was a short form… I feel so dumb) did this amazingly cool and vaguely creepy implant popping out the eye of a tattooed sea creature. This was done about a year ago while he was touring in Brazil.

fisheyes

Ear Pointing Evolution

Posted on September 26, 2012 by Shannon Larratt

To generalize, ear pointing works by cutting a piece out of the top of the ear, and then stitching the open portions together, folding the helix rim up into a point. It is a wonderful optical illusion that this makes it seem as if the ear has a point coming out the top, when in fact the ear has actually been lengthened very little, if at all, since we can only remove tissue — nothing is added. While additive procedures are theoretically possible, they appear currently beyond the reach of the body modification practitioner, if not beyond the reach of most reconstructive surgeons. In the majority of ear pointings done since Steve Haworth first invented them in the mid-1990s, the wedge-removal procedure has changed little — only the location, size, and shape differs (and varying the shape of the piece removed the result can cover a wide range of appearances).

However, Samppa Von Cyborg expanded the procedure by removing more than just what’s needed for the point, allowing one to reshape the entire contour of the ear. This related example is by Matias Tafel of Rata Body Art in Argentina. You can see from both the stitches and the animation that a long strip running much of the height of the ear has been excised, giving an end result where the ear is narrower as well as pointy. This narrowness brings with it the optical illusion of additional length/height, because it changes the length to height ratio and tricks the mind of the observer.

matias-ear-animation

A Good Afternoon via Implants and Scars

Posted on September 5, 2012 by Shannon Larratt

Two days ago I posted a neat set of star-shaped horns (placed impressively precisely underneath preexisting tattoos), but I wanted to follow up with another star implant, this one by Matias at Rata Body Art in Buenos Aires, Argentina. It’s fresh in the photo — as you already know if you noticed the incision tucked away at the hairline. As great as this looks, I don’t think I would personally want a temple implant — even lightly resting my finger on my temples makes me feel like I’ve got a killer headache coming on. I’d hate to find that I’d implanted something on top of a pressure spot that slowly drives me insane! Oh wait, I started that way. No worries then, I shall do it.

Speaking of Matias, I’ve also been meaning to show you this nice oldschool sailor-art Gypsy girl portrait that he cut over top of a black field of ink. I think it will work especially well due to the stars that sit in the negative space surrounding the canvas of the scarification.

m-ratascar

And while I’m on the subject of scarification, I wanted to also show you this superb collar-piece “art scar” that Azl Kelly of Mtl Tattoo created as part of a “aesthetic beheading performance”. There’s a lot to be said for really pure designs. There’s a school of thought among many writers that the less words you can use to completely and effectively describe something, the better. Now, I’ve never been particularly good at that — I’m so redundantly wordy and repetitive that you could Swiss-cheese a print out of my essays with a machinegun and effectively understand what I was saying from the tatters that are left. Azl on the other hand has figured out how to speak volumes with a single incision.

And, well, since I’m doing the “this things reminds me of this thing” game with this long entry, let me add two more implants, both swastika implants under a black tattoo, which visually makes them “pop” even more because of the way the light hits it. The one on the left, in the forearm, is the work of Samppa Von Cyborg, who you know well of course. The one on the right, the implant on the top of a hand, is by an artist you may not know quite as well, Hugo Ferreira of Biotek Toulouse in France. The arm is fresh in the photo, and the hand is about a month old.

PS. I apologize for the crap image quality in this entry — I accidentally overcompressed. I’m really having “one of those days” as the old saying goes.