The Friday Follow-up

This week the Friday Follow-up is taking a look back at a scar that was ModBlogged back in August.   Gabor’s OM scarification piece had a few people confused as to where exactly it was located on the body, but the healed pictures today clearly show the scar around the navel.  Before we get to the healed picture, lets check out the fresh cutting.

Fresh

To see how the scar has healed in the past few months, keep on reading.

Don’t ask me how the outie turned into an innie, I just don’t know.

Healed

If you’d like to check out more of Gabor’s scarification work, take a look in his BMEzine scarification portfolio gallery.  While you’re there you can check out other artists that have been featured in the Friday Follow-ups, like John Joyce, Brian Decker, Efix Roy, and many more.

Fresh and Clean

With the Friday Follow-up we get a chance to see scars and brandings months and years after the initial session.  It allows us to see the result of scarification process over time, which for many can be a contributing factor in their decision to get a scar.  Of course everyone heals differently, but it can give people some ideas of what to expect from the process.

What we don’t often see is the early stages of healing.  Those first few days before the scabs start to form, when it is just an open wound.  Last week we saw a scar of the BME heart logo by John Joyce on a young woman named Casey.  We got to see the cutting as it was being done, and completed, just moments before the dressing was applied.

Casey was kind enough to send in another image which was taken just after the first cleaning of the scar.  It’s interesting to see the scar this fresh, but without the blood that is present when the cutting first takes place.  Hopefully Casey continues to send in images of the healing process so we can all see some of the steps involved in the healing of a scarification piece.

Heart at work

It’s always interesting to see a master at work, and when that master is John Joyce, you can expect to see something fantastic.

Curious as to what John is cutting?  Keep on reading to find out.

Casey Nichols sent in these pictures of her BME Heart cutting, and the larger versions can be seen in the BME Logo Scarification gallery.  Also, if you’re interested in seeing more of John’s work, check out his own gallery.

Hopefully we get some pictures of the scar down the line for a Friday Follow-up post.

Bird of Paradise

The myth of the bird of paradise stems from an old Sufi fable about the Huma bird.  It is said that the bird is always in flight, never coming to rest, and is often believed to not even possess legs.  Tales of the Huma bird can be traced throughout various cultures, and in all cases the bird is seen as a good omen, bringing wealth, prosperity, and good health.  Stories go on to describe the bird as having both male and female attributes, while others link it directly to the myth of the phoenix.  The meaning of course can shift depending on the culture, yet themes of eternal life and renewal tend to be the strongest.

As for the real birds of paradise, these beautiful animals are still alive in the world, although they are considered a threatened species due to hunting and deforestation.

Given the beauty of the birds, and the link to a myth about rebirth and transformation, it should be no wonder that this scarification piece by John Joyce looks fantastic.

bird of paradise

The reasons the person chose to get this piece are their own, yet something can be said to the process of the cutting and the scar that will follow.  In essence the person is becoming reborn with a new sense of being.  The skin that was removed is gone forever, yet something new and beautiful will take its place.  Like the phoenix, the person has undergone a rebirth, coming out on the other side a transformed person.

John himself is no stranger to creating brilliant pieces of art, as you can easily see in his own gallery on BME.

In the end, it’s all about satisfaction

“Look at a day when you are supremely satisfied at the end. It’s not a day when you lounge around doing nothing; it’s when you’ve had everything to do, and you’ve done it.”
-Margaret Thatcher

John Joyce uploaded a couple of images from what I can assume to be a recent cutting that he did.  What caught my eye wasn’t the scar itself (although it does look great), but it’s the look on the woman’s face when she’s staring down at the finished product.

I’m sure most of us have been in this situation before, when you’ve sat down for a procedure, be it tattoos, scars, piercings, etc, and after the artist is finished you finally get a look at the culmination of goal.  That feeling of satisfaction that what you had imagined in your head was finally realized on your body.  You can tell in the image that she is very happy with John’s work.  Whatever the story may be behind the piece, you can see in her face the satisfaction.

The last time I felt that way was pretty recently.  I had the final sitting on my most recent piece, just some touchups really, but I got off the table, stood up, and looked at my arm.  There’s the moment you feel where you have a wave of relief wash over you, at the same time a moment of sadness hits as well.  You’re elated the work is done, but also sad that this shared experience you had with the artist is finally at the end.  It may be that feeling that drives so many of us to continue to be modified.  The sense of control over our bodies, and the ability to share something so personal with someone that you may barely know.  A bond that forms that you will never forget.

So while John will move on to his next client, the time spent with this woman will be forever etched into his mind.  As for the recipient, she has something not only etched into her mind, but also her body.

scar

“it smells like a turd covered in burnt hair!”

I had to steal the title for this post directly from xomateos’s diary entry about the procedure. How could I possibly come up with a better title than that?

Anyhow, xomateo originally had these scars cut/removed by the talented John Joyce. A year later he had his lovely koala go back over the scars with a cautery pen to retouch the scar and hopefully kill off the follicles that regrew. This was her first time using a cautery pen and it looks like she did a damn fine job!

Apparently they plan to make these scars a yearly tradition. I suggested next year they try cold branding, because if it doesn’t kill the follicles it will likely make them grow in white and that is cool all in and of itself! So we shall see what 2011 and on brings for Mateo’s head!

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For a few more shots of the procedure and finished result, keep on keeping on.

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phx8gwup

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I bought my very first cautery pen from BME Shop several years ago. They don’t sell them anymore, but they do sell a TON of other rad stuff for the body mod aficionado or DIY modder. Rachel has extended the 30% off sale at BME shop  until April 6th! It is good for everything but anesthetics, scalpels and dermal punches and all you have to do to take advantage of this is use the coupon code “worldtour” when ordering!

2009 BME Year End Awards

Happy New Year!! Let’s start this off by giving away free stuff!

It must have been the year I turned 21 that each day started by passing more and more quickly. I remember being 12 thinking I”d never be 16, then 18, then 21 and now I’m 4 months away from being 30. It means another year of growing BME has come and gone. It seems like the 2008 Awards were posted just a few days ago but it’s been a year. A whole year. We’ve seen so many ups and downs. This year marks the largest contribution by one person over the course of a year, which is also the largest contribution by one person during a year in the history of BME. There are also a couple faces here from last year that we couldn’t kick off the leader boards if we tried. Perk900, I’m talking to you, let’s see you get first place next year!! With this being the last day of 2009, I figured I’d kick it off right and present the 2009 Year End Contributor Awards!

You’ll also note that if you check the leader boards you’ll see different people listed in the top ten for image contributions than are listed below. Our 2nd and 3rd place winner is actually the same person so they’ve been combined and Jen gets disqualified and doesn’t get to win a contributor staff shirt because she already gets one for being staff! That moves everybody up one or two spots and that’s how we’ve come up with the list below.

If you are on the list, you’ll be contacted by me personally. If you don’t hear from me, check your spam or please email me with your address and shirt size to [email protected]. We will be sending out a very special surprise to the top contributor in each section!

I’m throwing in some BME trivia for you all to enjoy as well:

BME Facts:
Photos: 4,493,138
Experiences: 46,980
Videos: 7,942 (plus more that have been posted on Modblog!)
Posts on Modblog: 8,061
Comments on Modblog alone: 177,491
Average Daily Modblog readers; 112,387
Tattoo & Piercing Shops listed on 411.BME: 10,680 (not including the shops that are pending verification
Countries with users on BME: 70
Ask.BME answers: 1,083 (not including the previous version of the QOD)
Ask.BME comments: 2,870

There are tons of other things I haven’t included but I just wanted to show what we have all built together and thank you all again for contributing to BME and making the site what it is today.

TOP 10 IMAGE CONTRIBUTORS

1. 45,802 images

number1

Kitano Karyuudo

See the rest of this year’s top contributors after the break!


2. 15,488 images
number2
kokomi.3k
3. 2,717 images

Perk900
4. 1.014 images

Alienboy
5. 872 images
number6
UREA
6. 626 images
image71
China Tattoo Portfolio
7. 577images

Allen Falkner
8. 560 images
number9
LilFunky1
9. 559 images
number10
JOSEPH DOWNUNDER
10. 473 images
number10image
Thou_Art

TOP 9 EXPERIENCE CONTRIBUTORS


1
. 7 experiences

Devro


2. 7 experiences
expnumber2
Larry666

3. 6 experiences (tie)

Bluestar

3. 6 experiences (tie)
expnumber3missbrutal
MissBrutal
4. 5 experiences (tie)
exp4hoboqueenhoboqueen

4. 5 experiences (tie)
exp4scrletroseScarlettRose
4. 5 experiences (tie)
exp4dear29

dear29

4. 5 experiences (tie)
exp4sevendaze
sevendaze

4. 5 experiences (tie)
exp4ycul

Ycul







Experience Reviewers:

I wanted to add in a special thank you to our reviewing volunteers who vote on experiences so they can be added to the site. Without them, Jen and I would be reading a lot of experiences and going cross eyed. Experience reviewers earn credits towards limited edition tshirts through out the year. The 25 linked are logged by experience reviews for all time, not broken down by year which is why they’re generally not included in the Year End Awards but I wanted to give them some extra recognition and say thank you again for the reviewing that you do. I appreciate it a lot.

EDITORIAL CONTRIBUTORS

Tiff Badhairdo
Ask.BME staff

Meg Barber
Roundtable member,
BMEshop

Brian Decker
Roundtable member

Stephen DeToma
Roundtable member

Allen Falkner
Roundtable, Author

Ferg
Author

Russ Foxx
Ask.BME staff

Ron Garza
Roundtable, Author

Warren Hiller
Ask.BME staff

Derek Lowe
Ask.BME, Roundtable

John Joyce
Roundtable member

Paul King
Author

Lexci Million
Ask.BME staff

Ryan Ouellette
Ask.BME, Roundtable

Sean Philips
Ask.BME staff, Modblog

Shawn Porter
Ask.BME, Author

Efix Roy
Ask.BME staff

Joy Rumore
Roundtable

Lori St. Leone
Ask.BME staff

Steve Truitt
Roundtable member

James Weber
APP Author

Since everyone works from home, I’m not able to give each and every one of them a huge hug and say thank you for all the help that they do behind the scenes in making BME such a great place, not to mention keeping it updated, the servers running properly and the members happy! If you can, drop them a line and say thanks! Without them, I’d probably go crazier than I already am!

BME STAFF



Phil Barbosa

Image processing, party
planning, mustache rides


Mike Brum

Server maintenance,
TOS banhammer


Jen Savage
Customer service,
loud noises


RETIRED BME STAFF



Jordan Ginsberg
Former Witty Guy who took amost two
years of beatdowns courtesy of
Modblog

RooRaaah Crumbs
BMEvideo


Tristan Henry-Wilson
Designer Extroidinarre, whom we
call upon from time to time!


Jonathon Marshall
Our thanks still go out to Jon who helps us
whenever we need him!


jasongrazer
Jason
Former Admin

shannon2
Shannon Larratt
BME’s founder and former EIC

I can’t thank everyone enough for continuing to support BME, not only the site itself but the community that it has fostered over the years. I look forward to a new year with new goals, obstacles and hopefully many many triumphs. The first one being the long overdue launch of the new Beta BME Galleries, then the rest of BME and finally the transition of IAM onto the new software. I’ll be able to start adding new features, aside from the ones already implemented in the new site, and BME can continue to grow while giving itself back to the community where it belongs. I can’t wait!

I also wanted to give a special thank you to the people who have contributed to BME’s Legal Defense Fund. To date we’ve raised $1,470.00, which certainly helps. As I’ve mentioned before any and cost recovered if we’re awarded attorney’s fees will be donated to BME’s Legal Defense Fund that I’ve started to help defend the body modification community at large.

And now what you’ve all been waiting for, this year’s award is the t-shirt below! I wanted to figure out how to make a shirt that said “I was a top contributor to BME and all I got was a bag of dicks!” but Alie K. came up with this great design! Check more of her work out at GoodTattoos.ca if you want to get tattooed by her or need someone to do design work. She’s come up with more than a few gems for BMEshop.

sausage-party-mockup-shirt

Rachel Larratt

* * *


West and East


Alright, this shit just isn’t even fair anymore. Earlier this year, we posted an earlier iteration of this beautiful scar by handsome hair-farmer John Joyce on Sam, and we hoped that we’d be kept abreast of how well it healed. Considering the way Sam’s body treats scars, we were optimistic that it would end up just lovely, but my God—this is the eight-month status report. Part of me wants to know the details of the deal they’ve both obviously made with the devil, but then I feel like that may take away some of the mystique of their incredible offerings. More after the jump.

This Week in BME


And finally, you lovely people, let’s wrap up our week with this bathing suit-area pull, facilitated by Steve and Tracie. If there’s a better metaphor for the end of summer, we have not been made privy to it.

So goes the week that was. What might you have missed?

Aw, young love, starring John and Preston.

Aw, lovely floral sleeves, starring various flowers.

Mawwiage! This is a very positive week thus far.

And it’s Natalee (a.k.a. the future Mrs. John Joyce)! Seriously, what’s with all this love and happiness? Can we get a zombie uprising or meteor strike or something?

Oak is just chock full of implants now, courtesy of Steve Haworth.

Oh God we are freaking out.

And that is that! We may not be around a ton this weekend on account of ye olde long weekend, but we’ll be back next week, refreshed and raring to go (maybe). Until then, compatriots, have fun, stay safe, celebrate labor (that’s what Labor Day is for, yes?) and, as always, thank you for your continued support of BME.