The skull implants being made by Steve Haworth have — in part because of some amazing photos of them by Samppa Von Cyborg that went viral — have taken off and I’m seeing more and more of them. When I first saw them, the first thing I said was “these would look great in a sternum”, so I felt validated when I saw this great example that Samppa did while guesting at Copenhagen Body Extremes I felt my comment was vindicated. You’ll notice that he also did a set of beads just under the collarbone to augment the client’s biomech tattoos, but what I really wanted to point out here was the shape and direction of the incisions that he used. I’m sorry to say that Samppa is one of the few modification artists that really pays a lot of attention to Langer’s lines — meaning that he always tries to make his cuts in parallel to the direction of the collagen fibers of the body. By doing so, he does far less damage to the skin, and makes it much easier for the body to reattach and close the wound with a minimum of scarring. This is why the central cut at the bottom of the sternum is curved, and the incisions for the bead rows are horizontal rather than perpendicular to the bead rows. Taking this extra effort is the sort of small nuance that really separates “the best from the rest”.

Click to zoom of course.

Following are three more skull implants (and I’m sure over time you will see many more of them in BME’s implant galleries due to the popularity of the design). I admit I’m afraid to misidentify the location of the first one because of the close crop, but it’s either a forearm or a calf, but in either case, what’s important to notice is how different this implant looks in the soft tissue, causing the edges to have a lot more blur or blend into their surroundings than they might otherwise have. The next is of course in a hand, with the placement designed to augment the tattoo, and both of these were also Samppa’s work. The final example is by Alex of Clandestine Body Art in Bilbao, Spain (and was actually featured by Rob a while back when it was fresh), so you can compare the healed piece).

To be clear, Samppa had nothing to do with that title, and in fact, I think actually officially calling this jewelry anything like that would be culturally insensitive. But it does remind me quite a lot of the look of many neo-tribal tattoos so the name sprung to mind instantly. In any case, this is a custom piece of nostril jewelry bent to shape by Samppa von Cyborg, currently on a world tour (the dates of which you can read at the bottom of his recent article on transdermal implant design) if you’re looking for work by him. It is held in place by pressure, with the inside of the jewelry being very much like a normal nostril screw. To be honest, anyone with some needle nosed pliers and some wire could have a lot of fun coming up with all sorts of related designs!

I wanted to share with you an amazing concept piece from Lukas Zpira that’s actually from way back in 2007, but because it’s been in development, he’s kept it largely under wraps. You may remember the new transdermals from Samppa Von Cyborg that I wrote about a little while ago, and you can file this in the “great minds think alike” category, because for some time Lukas has also been working with implants that are anchored with ITAP-style small holes (and as far as I can document is the first person to implant a piece of this particular design), and are also of a rough finish to allow easier integration with the body (in fact, the transdermals that he sells have a similar finish — so I’m happy to see this idea is not limited to a single person). Lukas takes the transdermal concept a big step farther, by using some of those ideas to allow the creation of a titanium skinned “pod”.

Imagine a transdermal implant in reverse. So instead of the implant coming up and out of the skin, it creates a hole or indent in the skin, which is backed with titanium plate. Here is a closeup of what it looks like in the body:

And here is what the jewelry looks like:

Quite remarkable, isn’t it? Lukas Zpira installed that piece back in 2008 and wore it for the next eight months before taking it out to examine the healing tissue and to make way for the next generation — he’s planning larger pieces capable of holding electronics for example, although the project has been stalled by some of his other artistic work of late which I’ll post about another time. Below you can see a larger photo of the prototype in Lukas’s arm. I absolutely love the “inset” look of these pod implants, and am quite eagerly awaiting to see future improvements and variations on the design.

If you’re interested in having something like this done, I can’t tell you that it’s ready for public consumption, but Lukas can be reached c/o lukaszpira.com