Anders “The Piercing Guy” installs a dermal anchor in the forearm of Brendan “The TBA Guy” at Dragon’s Lair Tattoos, Brisbane, Australia.
Sorry Swirly, I changed the music!
Anders has his toe blackened by Swirly at Dragon’s Lair Tattoo, Brisbane.
[Javascript required to view Flash movie, please turn it on and refresh this page]
Want to know why?
* – But you can click the image anyway..
I think I mentioned that part of my goal with this education series is to get piercers to think about improving their game in ways they might not have thought of, so this time I want to address the question,
What item(s) do you have in your studio that many other studios may not have? And what are some inexpensive ways that a studio can be inexpensively improved?
Because of education funding cuts, teachers in Canada and the US (and I’m sure around the world) are often forced to buy classroom materials using their own money because the school doesn’t have or isn’t willing to spend the money. Sadly, it’s not uncommon for modern tattoo shops to be the same — because at most shops piercing makes a fraction of what the tattooing makes, it can be very difficult for a piercer to convince the shop owner to spend money on that aspect of the business, and they’re often left trying to find ways to improve it using their own time and money. This time around we’re talking to the folks in the picture below.
Above, L-R: Anders (iam:Alienboy, Anders the Piercing Guy, Brisbane Australia), Dustin Sharrow (iam:Aesthete, Mata Mata, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada), Leo Ziebel (iam:5point, 5pointstudios, Johnston, Iowa, USA), and John Lopez (iam:John Lopez, Slave to the Needle, Seattle, USA).
Anders
I have a low frequency laser pen, which is very helpful with small problems such as follicular cysts and small boils, and is also helpful to speed up healing in stubborn piercings [editor’s note: this is called photobiomodulation].
All studios will be different and might need different things, and if the owner doesn’t want to invest in sterilization equipment, most equipment can be rented or leased for a small monthly cost. This means less initial cash outlay for top-quality equipment, and renting and leasing is usually fully tax-deductible.
Dustin Sharrow
At my old shop, where I worked for nearly four years, I had the owner install an air-conditioning vent in my room because it would get very hot in the summertime, and people would pass out. It actually helped. It’s not rocket science, but if you approach the procedure from the point of view of the client, you start to notice things you normally otherwise wouldn’t. For example, at the old shop, there were bright plastic fridge-magnet letters that spelled RELAX inside an overhead light that only the client could see. It was a surprise that everybody, nearly without exception, commented on. It was a great diversion.
In my new piercing room at the new shop, I am fortunate to have a huge wall of glass block that allows natural daylight in. Natural daylight is so much better than fluorescent lighting. I had a half-wall shelf built the entire length of that one wall (in front of the glass block window), and on it I’ve put several plants. Plants are proven to calm people down. Even if you don’t have natural daylight (windows) in your room, I think it would be acceptable to use fake plants! With this new shop, I’ve purposely stayed away from any chrome or polished steel or white walls, except in the sterilization areas. The result is more akin to a spa than a tattoo shop, and is much more inviting and less clinical than a dental office would be (the common association with ‘clean’ shops).
Leo Ziebel
For starters, you can sterilize your gloves. I have no problem with piercers who don’t but I choose to. Again, it’s all about reducing the chance factor for problems. I use presterilized Safeskin nitrile gloves but before I was able to buy those I would make glove packs and sterilize them myself in our autoclave (you do have an autoclave don’t you?). Ron Garza Wrote a good article for The Point that illustrates how you can make your own glove packs if you like. It’s from issue 33 and you can view it at The APP website.
Unfortanately, most things a piercer can do to step up their game can be costly. The situation I find a lot of piercers in is the shop where the owner either doesn’t care or doesn’t want to improve their standards of safe piercing. This can be a very frustruating situation that I have found myself in more than once in my career. Some people just don’t get it and frankly they don’t want to. All they think is “why in god’s name would I spend 8 dollars on something that I can get for 27 cents?” The best way I found to change this was to get my clients who cared to pay up front for nicer jewelry and make small orders to fill their requests. It was slow going and very tiring but over time people started asking for it. It’s really all about how you feel about it. If you are genuinely stoked about something, you’re clients will see that and they will want it too.
John Lopez
The most obvious things that can make drastic improvements are hands-free sinks and soap dispensers. For $135 (less for more units), Sky Renfro will send you a Step-Flow unit which turns ANY sink into a hands-free one. In the scheme of things, this single upgrade can prevent more disease transmission than any other. In conjunction with hands-free Technicare dispensers and other ideas Ill share in a moment, the possibility of spreading micro-organisms around the shop can be reduced even further. Of course this is assuming that hands are being washed correctly and at the appropriate times.
Another great improvement which really costs very little is creating barriers between hand sinks and work areas, and between work areas and contaminated areas. Having clearly defined areas is a key concept, but actual barriers makes things clear to customers as well as guest artists and counter staff.
Barriers can be created with any non-porous material. Above is the piercing set-up area at Slave to the Needle. This single barrier allows us to wash our hands without worrying about splashing potentially contaminated water onto our set-up area. Theres also a hands-free Technicare dispenser and a Step-flow unit to make the sink completely hands-free.
Another, even cheaper thing to consider is simply removing useless, dust gathering items from walls, shelves and counter areas. While nice artwork and other decorations can help provide atmosphere and make a shop interesting, theres really no excuse for clutter and dust-bunnies. Do you really need a hairy shrunken head over the piercing bed? Or forty-five action figures collecting dust on a shelf somewhere?
And no matter who you are or where you work, theres always room for improvement. Sometimes it costs a little money and sometimes it just takes a little energy.
 |
2006 BME YEAR END AWARDS
Let me first apologize for the terrible layout and style of this piece… I thought it was more important to get it online than to waste time prettying it up.
Thanks again to everyone for a year full of wonderful pictures, articles, and experiences. I think we (everyone from the person who helped financially, to the person who submitted a single navel piercing, to the megacontributors) did a great job bringing BME into it’s thirteenth year online, and continue to stay true to the reasons it was started in the first place… Essentially, to let people know that the way they feel is not just normal, but valuable.
For the second year in a row, our over top contributor was KitanoKaryuudo (who is pictured to the right) with a truly staggering 6,526 images submitted in 2006. What’s even more amazing is that Kokomi (another BME/HARD ultracontributor, and last year’s second place contributor) was only twelve images shy! Even outside of the BME/HARD realm, the top contributors submitted just amazing numbers of images. It blows my mind how generous everyone continues to be with their time. I can not thank you enough.
Anyway, I try to do these things a little differently every year. This year I decided it might be fun to do a regional breakdown, so I split the contributions into regions that roughly represented the number of contributions they generated… On the lists below you can see those winners along with their local and overall ranking. Links go to their IAM pages.
TOP IMAGE SUBMITTORS, OVERALL, BY REGION
| ASIA | |||
| Regional Ranking |
Overall Ranking |
# Submissions | Contact |
| 1 | 1 | 6,526 | KitanoKaryuudo |
| 2 | 29 | 592 | Crazy Glamour |
| 3 | 37 | 507 | Sui Otoko |
| 4 | 61 | 304 | nobcatz |
| 5 | 62 | 300 | BME/HARD – Anonymous |
| MAINLAND EUROPE AND SCANDINAVIA | |||
| Regional Ranking |
Overall Ranking |
# Submissions | Contact |
| 1 | 2 | 6,514 | kokomi.3k |
| 2 | 8 | 1,991 | madmax |
| 3 | 14 | 1,447 | BME/HARD – Anonymous |
| 4 | 15 | 1,391 | bena |
| 5 | 25 | 657 | BME/HARD – Anonymous |
| 6 | 33 | 547 | babakhin |
| 7 | 34 | 543 | BME/HARD – Anonymous |
| 8 | 40 | 480 | BME/HARD – Anonymous |
| 9 | 49 | 413 | tan0k |
| 10 | 53 | 403 | Shadark |
| CANADA | |||
| Regional Ranking |
Overall Ranking |
# Submissions | Contact |
| 1 | 3 | 3,056 | RussFoxx |
| 2 | 6 | 2,362 | Lexci Million |
| 3 | 10 | 1,705 | Holy Flesh |
| 4 | 20 | 834 | jasonvandervee |
| 5 | 27 | 599 | Efix |
| 6 | 31 | 580 | lilfunky1 |
| 7 | 35 | 521 | Myke |
| 8 | 55 | 387 | Cerra |
| 9 | 57 | 358 | Vex Hecubus |
| 10 | 70 | 258 | JesseV |
| USA | |||
| Regional Ranking |
Overall Ranking |
# Submissions | Contact |
| 1 | 4 | 2,775 | perk900 |
| 2 | 5 | 2,426 | stainless |
| 3 | 9 | 1,739 | SteveBennett |
| 4 | 16 | 1,372 | Big Rick |
| 5 | 17 | 970 | KIVAKA |
| 6 | 26 | 606 | j_scarab |
| 7 | 32 | 552 | holeybody |
| 8 | 36 | 507 | BME/HARD – Anonymous |
| 9 | 43 | 445 | Allen Falkner |
| 10 | 44 | 435 | Shawn O’Hare |
| 11 | 46 | 423 | MUTE-ONE |
| 12 | 46 | 423 | Melissa |
| 13 | 48 | 414 | Zebra Tattoo |
| 14 | 51 | 408 | barryb |
| 15 | 52 | 406 | CaptNipp |
| 16 | 56 | 372 | HollywoodPiercer |
| 17 | 60 | 306 | toxicskin |
| 18 | 69 | 265 | Piercer Dave |
| 19 | 72 | 250 | phoenixxx |
| 20 | 76 | 225 | tattooedheart |
| CENTRAL AND SOUTH AMERICA | |||
| Regional Ranking |
Overall Ranking |
# Submissions | Contact |
| 1 | 7 | 2,323 | Valnei |
| 2 | 11 | 1,640 | cutuvi |
| 3 | 13 | 1,485 | Joao_Caldara |
| 4 | 22 | 725 | Lucas Takano |
| 5 | 39 | 487 | UREA |
| 6 | 41 | 460 | peco |
| 7 | 42 | 450 | Freakboy |
| 8 | 45 | 430 | RAFAEL |
| 9 | 58 | 341 | deb |
| 10 | 63 | 288 | wild skin |
| THE UK, IRELAND, AUSTRALIA, AND NEW ZEALAND | |||
| Regional Ranking |
Overall Ranking |
# Submissions | Contact |
| 1 | 12 | 1,501 | alienboy |
| 2 | 18 | 967 | Piercing Pete |
| 3 | 19 | 877 | dispel |
| 4 | 21 | 797 | Stretcher |
| 5 | 23 | 723 | holierthanthou |
| 6 | 24 | 715 | strawberry |
| 7 | 28 | 598 | joker |
| 8 | 30 | 580 | vampy |
| 9 | 38 | 503 | tattoodfreak |
| 10 | 50 | 410 | VEAL |
| THE MIDDLE EAST AND AFRICA | |||
| Regional Ranking |
Overall Ranking |
# Submissions | Contact |
| 1 | 134 | 138 | dave |
Admittedly, the race for the top few spots is daunting, but depending on where you live, submitting enough to win a placement is definitely doable… It’s also interesting looking at the breakdown to note that different types of pictures are dominant in different areas.
As all years, there are prizes as well as recognition. This year there are three different prizes. First of all, everyone who places (on any of the lists here) gets either a staff shirt or a container (more about that below), or both if they place more than once. The staff shirts (which you may have already seen on my IAM page) are based on a sectional view of a head containing various body modifications, and their explanations in Latin. And of course he’s got BME on the brain…
TOP IMAGE SUBMITTORS, BY SECTION
As well as splitting up the results by geographic region, we generated them by section of the site again. Those lists follow:
| TATTOOS | |||
| Ranking | # Submissions | Contact |  |
| 1 | 910 | Big Rick | |
| 2 | 479 | babakhin | |
| 3 | 285 | j_scarab | |
| 3 | 285 | Joao_Caldara | |
| 5 | 278 | Zebra Tattoo | |
| PIERCING | |||
| Ranking | # Submissions | Contact |  |
| 1 | 1,097 | alienboy | |
| 2 | 724 | KIVAKA | |
| 3 | 654 | Lexci Million | |
| 4 | 529 | holierthanthou | |
| 5 | 385 | Valnei | |
| SCARIFICATION | |||
| Ranking | # Submissions | Contact |  |
| 1 | 641 | Valnei | |
| 2 | 527 | Lucas Takano | |
| 3 | 513 | madmax | |
| 4 | 324 | Lexci Million | |
| 5 | 318 | Joao_Caldara | |
| RITUAL | |||
| Ranking | # Submissions | Contact |  |
| 1 | 2,614 | RussFoxx | |
| 2 | 2,073 | stainless | |
| 3 | 1,228 | SteveBennett | |
| 4 | 1,092 | cutuvi | |
| 5 | 964 | bena | |
| BME/EXTREME | |||
| Ranking | # Submissions | Contact |  |
| 1 | 523 | madmax | |
| 2 | 267 | SLS-Frank | |
| 3 | 247 | Valnei | |
| 4 | 181 | old soldier | |
| 5 | 173 | SteveBennett | |
| 6 | 169 | RussFoxx | |
| 7 | 156 | Stretcher | |
| 8 | 146 | holierthanthou | |
| 9 | 126 | Shawn O’Hare | |
| 10 | 122 | Anonymous | |
| BME/HARD | |||
| Ranking | # Submissions | Contact |  |
| 1 | 6,517 | KitanoKaryuudo | |
| 2 | 6,514 | kokomi.3k | |
| 3 | 1,447 | Urban Soul | |
| 4 | 832 | jasonvandervee | |
| 5 | 609 | Stretcher | |
| 6 | 592 | Crazy Glamour | |
| 7 | 543 | AvantGarde | |
| 8 | 526 | Holy Flesh | |
| 9 | 507 | Sui Otoko | |
| 9 | 507 | Anonymous | |
As I mentioned earlier, as well as printing shirts, I’m also printing containers (sort of like a sharps or first aid container) with the same logo (although single color). Maybe a place to keep your jewelry, maybe a place to keep your play piercing needles… The exact style of container isn’t confirmed yet so I can’t show you a picture but it’ll be printed with the logo in one of these two ways:
THE SCRIBES OF OUR COMMUNITY
As well as pictures, personal stories and articles are the other core part of BME’s mission to inform and share experiences. The top writers wrote huge numbers of articles, with the top dozen all writing at least a full-length article a month.
| EXPERIENCES AND ARTICLES | |||
| Ranking | # Submissions | Contact | 
|
| 1 | 50 | Silhouettes | |
| 2 | 26 | strawberry | |
| 3 | 24 | broken_wings | |
| 4 | 19 | Fuzzybeast | |
| 5 | 16 | Caroline June | |
| 6 | 14 | Ribibe | |
| 7 | 13 | delusionalfairy | |
| 7 | 13 | sweetcheeks | |
| 7 | 13 | aniorange | |
| 10 | 12 | MilllieB | |
| 10 | 12 | deadly pale | |
| 10 | 12 | kyo | |
| 10 | 12 | rwethereyet | |
| 14 | 11 | Bondage-Kit | |
| 14 | 11 | Flutterfly | |
| 14 | 11 | GucciGurl | |
| 17 | 10 | Blackvampyremage | |
| 17 | 10 | Kyrenna | |
| 17 | 10 | ubergeekgawdess | |
SPECIAL RECOGNITION!
As well as the obvious submissions, there are many other parts of BME that are generated by the volunteer work of people who go largely unthanked (including quite a few that I haven’t even mentioned in this article!). For example, there’s BME’s newsfeed, which has been tirelessly maintained by volunteers even though updates have been sometimes sporadic (my fault).
| NEWSFEED SUBMISSIONS | |||
| Ranking | # Submissions | Contact |  |
| 1 | 909 | deadly pale | |
| 2 | 758 | rebekah | |
| 3 | 261 | Ebowlotus1960 | |
As well as obvious and “official” parts of BME, there are large parts of the BME community which are run wholly independently and autonomously that deserve recognition as well. I’m sure there are many more important ones that I don’t know about… I asked at the end of the year who had made contributions to this community (that isn’t otherwise mentioned here), and a few names stood out with regularity… These included:
- Shawn Porter for organizing both fun events and the Scar Wars series of conventions, and his work in creating a cohesive scarification community both online and offline.
- Monica for maintaining the series of IAM.Pregnant forums which have been invaluable resources to the many new parents on IAM/BME as this community ages.
- Warren for his IAM.Learning forum for people learning to pierce.
- Rebekah for her tireless work promoting IAM/BME members and for her hard work with Modified-News.
- Anaesthetise‘s Postcard Exchange Forum on IAM is enormous fun for the many participants.
- Wlfdrgn has undertaken the important task of managing the IAM/BME Scholarship Fund (see BME’s guest articles for more information, or visit his IAM page), now in its third year.
- Havve and Christiane for their suspension work in Norway and elsewhere.
- Allen Falkner for — among many other things — suspenion.org.
- Vampy and Dispel for their many suspension events in the UK and their excellent documentation.
- Perk900 for a series of great parties and a ton of photos.
I could really go on and on, and in a way I feel guilty stopping… There are so many other places people have contributed — reviewing experiences, helping me on technical issues, writing for and editing the encyclopedia, and more.
The core staff of BME’s QOD (Question of the Day — book coming soon!) continues to provide wonderful educational resource. They’re made up of Ryan Ouellette, John Joyce, Shawn Porter, Lori St. Leone, Sean Phillips, and Lassi.
Finally, let me mention BME’s core staff, some of whom you probably already know, and some of whom you may not be aware of… Without these people, it would be much more difficult to keep BME going. Rachel runs the business end of things. Phil processes pretty much every picture that’s added to the site. Rooraaah does the same, but for naughty videos. Jon keeps our UNIX servers going and develops new toys for BME’s users, and Mike helps me keep our Windows boxes alive and uncompromised. Jen handles the customer support, and finally, there’s me, Shannon. Mostly I just put out articles long behind schedule.
And that doesn’t even include the staff of BMEshop (primarily Ryan and Corrie).
You’ll receive an email and/or IM on IAM from me in the next week with a form where you’ll need to fill in your address and shirt size and all that. I haven’t sent those out yet, but if you don’t hear from me within the week make sure that you contact either me or Ryan and Corrie so nothing gets missed… Other than that, I wanted to mention that there is one very special prize, sort of a secret talisman that will be going out to the very top contributors. Whether they reveal what that item is or not is up to them.
I won’t reveal it here, and probably won’t on my IAM page either, but let me say that (1) it’s very, very cool, and (2) it was created by an award winning butter sculptor.
Thank you everyone for another wonderful year. BME would be nothing without the community that surrounds it and creates it. If you’re reading this, there is a very good chance that you took part in creating this all… If so, thank you. You’ve helped me, and you’ve helped a lot of other people, and I hope you’ve helped yourself as well.
Shannon Larratt
BME.com
Care of Anders the Piercing Guy in Brisbane, Australia:
Alienboy, who sends this photo, emphasizes that this terrible industrial placement was not done by him! The bar was put in, somewhere in Queensland Australia, in a manner that put gentle pressure on the ear because a straight bar was forced over the convex outer conch. In time it started to erode the skin and sink into the cartilage — so, as is too often the fate of the quality piercer, the money goes to the scratcher and the victim ends up asking the unpaid quality piercer for help.
Obviously one of the reasons that people like surface piercings is that it gives them the ability to place piercings just about anywhere with a reasonable chance of successful healing. But I often wonder just how and why people choose their particular placement — what exactly struck them about the back of their shoulder that made them decide that was the one they wanted?
Thanks to Anders the Piercing Guy down in Brisbane, Australia for the photo.
|
BME.COM 2005 Year End Awards Thanks for another great year! With your help, BME continues to go strong as it enters its twelfth year. In this wrap-up article, I’d like to thank a few specific people who helped BME grow in 2005. These lists are just the best of best (or the biggest of the best if you’d like) — thanks must also go out to the thousands and thousands of people who made smaller but still important contributions, to say nothing of the paying members and BMEshop customers who make it possible to keep the servers online. In 2005, BME received about 60 gigabytes of image submissions totaling approximately 300,000 files. Of those, 188,485 images met our standards and were posted to the site. These successful image submissions came from 24,257 people and were posted in 151 separate updates. Along with those pictures, 7,234 stories and articles were posted and reviewed by site members, and 4,803 articles were posted to the BME newsfeed — almost all by volunteers. Overall top image contributors The competition was fierce this year and the numbers are quite staggering. BME/HARD members were competing with both professional piercers and with event photographers for the top spot. Below are the winners for the overall top image contributor of the year:
|
2. 4,159 images  stained steel |
|||
Top image contributors per month
And let’s break it down by month as well:
January 1. vampy (871 images) 2. Big Rick (520 images) 3. matt bruce (216 images) 4. KIVAKA (210 images) 5. kokomi.3k (171 images) |
Top image contributors per section
To make it more fair, I’ve also broken down the winners per section. Most of the names are still familiar, but this also shows you some of the niche contributors who helped keep some of the more difficult sections alive:
Tattoos 1. Big Rick (3,528 images) 2. bastard (629 images) 3. j_scarab (260 images) 4. babakhin (186 images) 5. Efix (158 images) 6. Anonymous (152 images) 7. RAFAEL (150 images) |
Most diverse image contributors
While some contributors tended to submit in just a few categories of BME, other people submitted to many different galleries (piercers especially). In 2005, 739 galleries were updated at some point during the year. The following people deserve recognition for having an active involvement in a wide range of activities covered on BME:
1. stained steel (71) 2. holey13 (62) 3. KIVAKA (55) 4. Lexci Million (55) 5. Efix (50) |
6. j_scarab (50) 7. alienboy (47) 8. babakhin (43) 9. holierthanthou (42) 10. redneckzombi (42) |
Most consistent image contributors
Some people submitted only occasionally but in large numbers — for example, folks who documented conventions and events. Others contributed on a more constant basis, meaning that any given update was likely to have an image from them. Of the 151 separate updates posted to BME in 2005, the following people were represented in the largest number of them:
1. KIVAKA (61)
2. Lexci Million (60)
3. j_scarab (55)
4. alienboy (51)
5. Joao_Caldara (45)
Top experience authors
I was blown away by the number of articles some people wrote this year, with the top place being a tie of a story submitted on average every twelve and a half days for the entire year! Here are the top authors of 2005:
#1. 29 stories kyo |
#1. 29 stories cuthalcoven |
#3. 21 stories aniorange |
|||
 BlueStar (18) |
|||||
Honorable mentions (10 experiences): gothicphoenixx, d’Latta, and Orilind.
Top experience reviewers
When experiences are posted they first have to move through a moderation process whereby members of the site determine what should be posted and what needs to be sent back for revision first. Of the 7,526 experiences that were posted, the following list shows which reviewers were successfully involved in getting those ones posted (so this doesn’t include the experiences that were rejected):
1. Ebowlotus1960 (3,387)
2. deadly pale (2,759)
3. cuthalcoven (2,618)
4. Frisky_Vixen666 (2,608)
5. dressxupxdollie (2,442)
6. Yknits2001 (2,374)
7. Skip3s (2,159)
Top BME newsfeed contributors
BME’s newsfeed is maintained by a small team of volunteers (anyone can submit stories) who troll news sites finding any articles that might be of body modification interest to readers of BME. The following people posted the greatest number of stories to the newsfeed:
1. rebekah (2,337)
2. Ebowlotus1960 (881)
3. CajunChefClay (392)
4. piercedjenny (336)
5. Frisky_Vixen666 (334)
BME/News Interns and Staff
In 2005, BME brought on two interns to develop content for BME/News. Much thanks to them for their hard work and articles, and good luck on their future ventures, writing and otherwise:
 snackninja Read all of Jordan’s articles |
 typealice Read all of Gillian’s articles |
In addition, the following people maintained a column in 2005 on BME:
 The Lizardman |
QOD Staff
As it has for years now, BME’s QOD staff tireless answers body modification questions from the public. Here are the members who posted regularly over 2005:
 MONTE |
BMEshop
BMEshop is a small family business that runs independently from (but is still partnered to) BME. Here’s who makes sure that your BME swag and body modification gear gets to you quickly and at a fair price:
 badseeds |
 tcie |
BME Core Staff and Volunteers
And, of course, BME’s core staff of volunteers and employees:
 badur Badur’s done a wide range of things for us including being held hostage by a hostile ISP! |
I have almost certainly forgotten people from this list, and for that I apologize! I’ve also I’ve left off related projects like wlfdrgn‘s IAM scholarship, Shawn Porter‘s SPC, and Crow‘s Modified Mind, folks that contribute to ModBlog, that all deserve their own credit as wel.
But what did they win?
Everyone you saw mentioned on this page gets a limited edition 2006 BME staff shirt (in whatever color they’d like). The design is based on military unit shirts for those of you who don’t have family in the armed forces, and the latin on the front says “free will”. Anyway, if you see someone wearing one of these, you can bet that they made significant contributions to BME (or perhaps robbed someone who did), and thus influenced the future of the body modification community with their input (thus “PROPHET”) on the back.
But wait — there’s more! You know I love making t-shirts, so instead of just one staff shirt design for 2006, I’ve made two for winners to choose from. If they appear on this page once, they can choose one of the two shirts, and if they appear more than once, they get both. Shirt number two (available in any color but black or white) is a picture of BME’s pinup of the year, Eva (KitanoKaryuudo) — click here for a closeup:
In addition, the top five image contributors won $100 gift certificates to BMEshop, as did the top three experience authors. Oh, and everyone here got free access for a year (not that they need it since they contribute so often). I wish I could give out more prizes!
Thanks again everyone for a great year. Big things are in store in 2006 on a lot of levels; a new content management system, a rewrite of IAM, some new sociopolitical projects, tons and tons of free stickers, and more. I think you’ll like what’s coming…
Shannon Larratt
BME.com
Since I’m going to be mostly offline for a couple days (as will Jordan who will be covering the Guadalajara convention with Rafael), I thought I’d post a little more to keep you occupied. First, if the entry about Craig tattooing his dog upset you, let me offer you this more easy-to-digest dog tattoo by Matt Lautar at Great Southern Tattoo in College Park, Maryland.
I recently mentioned “finger mustache” tattoos. Well, I’ve been seeing them more and more. Here’s one on Embot (by Jason Bradshaw at Custom Ink in Isla Vista, CA), and another on El Pulpo in Germany.
I also recently mentioned My Little Pony tattoos so I thought I ought to showcase the fabulous My Little Pony sleeve that Venus Pink had done by Kim Durham at Brewery Ink in Los Angeles.
And, finally, if you’re having a downer day, maybe you’ll like this combination piercing and stapling by Anders the Piercing Guy down in Brisbane, Australia.
See you in Amsterdam!
