Rick Genest Doppelganers in DREDD?

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Arresting Judge: Judge Francisco
Changes/Reduced: RETUN ON BENCH WARRANT
Plea: 2 = CONTEST    Finding: 412 = INSANITY
Sentence: 71 months(s) isocube, no parole
Probation: 3YRS    Appealed: Y = YES, Rejected

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I believe that’s the lead singer of Sküllböï

I was initially pleasantly surprised to see that in the new Dredd movie, Zombie (Rick Genest) seems to play the part of a Peyote Kings gang member, although it’s a brief part because he is almost immediately murdered by the rival Ma-ma gang. Every rigger, gaffer, muffin wrangler, and fluffer is listed in the credits, but for some reason they decided Rico wasn’t worth including among them. Then I realized an odd thing (and maybe someone more familiar with the Dredd franchise has an explanation) — there is more than one person in the movie wearing his skullface tattoos. At first I thought it was a reflection in a mirror, but no, it’s a doppelganger (different hair, and one has stretched ears and the other thin hoops) — and then I realized that the mugshot above likely isn’t Rick either, judging by the throat tattoo. And then I started to become convinced that none of the characters are actually Rick!!!

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Like I said, Rick doesn’t appear to be listed in the Dredd credits. I can’t find any mention of him appearing in Dredd anywhere online, and while I’m willing to accept that my google-fu can be weak at times, I find it highly dubious that Rick would make a major appearance in a movie as big as Dredd and not mention it on his blog or facebook page. But ripping off his character rights seems like a shocking oversight for a major film to make… Isn’t it? I think it’s important to note that this isn’t “coincidental”… It’s not as if it’s just someone tattooed like a skeleton. Many specific details of his tattoos have been copied — for example, the spiderweb on his right ear — in a way that makes it obvious they’re exploiting the theft of his character and likeness, and ensures almost everyone will believe it is him.

Here are some side-by-side comparisons… what do you think? Am I imagining this?

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But then I reminded myself that it’s pretty common to see people “draw inspiration” from Zombie’s tattoos and mimic him in various mediums. It’s no big deal if someone makes a YouTube video of themselves in makeup looking like him, but it becomes a problem when a movie rips off the character that Rick has created without getting his consent first — and this is just what happened in the first episode of the first season of the show American Horror Story. One of the characters in the show appears with Rick’s tattoos done so precisely that it’s obvious that it’s been directly copied and he’s the first thing that comes to mind when you see the image. Here’s a pair of screencaps of the episode:

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They might have gotten away with this if Rico was still a Montreal gutterpunk, but now that he’s ascended into one of the glitterati he had his lawyer slap them silly and Fox settled out of court for what I assume is more money than Rick had made in his entire life up to the point he was first unleashed on the world with that glib “you call yourself a misfits fan” ModBlog post back in 2006. Perhaps that is what’s happening right now — an ongoing legal matter would certainly explain the complete lack of mention of this online. Ah, the wages of fame.

Well, if anyone knows the truth as to what’s up with ol’Skullboy’s presence in Dredd, please let me know. Either way, Rico really is one of my favorite rags to riches stories — what a wonderful unexpected adventure his tattoos are bringing him.

White Ink Eyeball Tattoo

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Well, well… I think I may have been proved wrong when I said that white ink eyeball tattoos wouldn’t work, or would at best make the eye look sickly. Pinhead did a few test injections of white ink — just baby injections over time to cautiously test the waters — and it turns out that it actually appears to work quite well (forcing me to add updating the FAQ to my already-too-long to-do list). In the photo below you can see the part of the eye that has been hit with white ink, and the parts that are untattooed. I should add that white ink is usually titanium oxide-based, which is a particularly inert pigment — and that’s a very good thing when you’re talking about putting it in your eye!

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Another Alien Ear / Earlobe Location

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You may recall that a while back I posted a picture of Sao Paulo-based Mary Jo’s intense red-ink eyeball tattoos (which I’m happy to say have been completely trouble-free to date), but you may not know that she’s not just a body modification enthusiast but a practitioner as well. After seeing Nic’s earlobe relocation, she performed a similar procedure on her husband Jefferson Saint (whose black eyes I’ve posted in the past so you may recognize him as well). The procedure was the same — opening the end of the “earlobe worm” and attaching it to a de-skinned point on the neck.

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I’m glad to see this being explored, because if it can be shown to work consistently, it has the potential of snowballing out into a myriad of new procedures — and I can’t wait to see procedures like this combined with ear pointing to really give an alien appearance! The sticking point may be that even when the skin heals together and bonds visually, that the connection may be quite superficial — Nic warned that in the case of his that even though he’s had it for over a decade, it’s unable to handle stretching.

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Psychedelic Bodmod Yin-Yang

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A few days ago I posted about the third “double canvas tattoo” that Marc (Little Swastika) had completed. He has quite a few of these in progress — he tells me there are four on the go at present — but this one is particularly unusual because the mirroring only works in this very peculiar configuration, a sort of psychedelic bodmod yin-yang.

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Alien Anatomy – Earlobe Relocation

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Yesterday I mused a little about ideas about new kinds of ear anatomy that could be created due to the “durability” of the tissue… Over and over we’ve seen earlobes get cut up into the most abusive and mangled jigsaw puzzles and then stitched back together, healing up quickly and without complication, showing just how resilient the tissue.

I was happy to be reminded that Nic Theo, based in Cape Town, South Africa, not only had the same idea, but acted on it ten years ago. With the help of his doctor, the disconnected loop of his earlobe was relocated down his neck. An easy procedure all things considered, a couple small cuts were made on his neck at the new attachment site and the lobe was stitched in place, “and bob’s your uncle”. Here are some healed pictures of it, and it’s still doing just fine a decade later.

Edit/Update: Nic wanted me to add that the only issue that he has with this is that it feels quite fragile to him. While the ear is solidly attached to the neck, it’s not robust enough to handle stretching. I suspect this is something that could be addressed with refinements in the way the attachment is created, for starters, making it as large as possible by perhaps cutting the “earworm” at an angle, rather than perpendicular. We shall hopefully see, as others explore the technique.

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Here are some fresh post-procedure photos of it, right after it was stitched in place. Click to zoom in to most of these photos for a better look of course.

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Nic’s version is quite subtle on some levels because his earlobes weren’t dramatically stretched — it’s one of those fun body modifications that is over-the-top radical on one hand, but subtle enough that many people might not even notice on the other. But imagine what could be done with a person that has three inch lobes — the inch lobes give you an almost ten inch long fleshworm to play with! I really think this class of procedure has the potential to open all sorts of new realms of creative morphological expression, and while I always have some concern when piercers start blurring the legal “practicing medicine without a license” definitions, I do think that this is well within the ability of any piercer that’s capable of successfully doing procedures like earlobe reconstructions.

And finally, let me wrap up with a few more recent pictures of Nic Theo — as you can see, the more time that’s passed, the more natural the lobe looks (in the first pictures in this entry I think the “seam” between the lobe and the neck is more obvious because of its freshness).

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P.S. The other “new idea” procedure that I recently posted, a method for creating new nipples, was also from South Africa… Keep ‘em coming!

Wednesday’s BME boy

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Here’s some BME boy appreciation for you.  I love when people submit portraits of themselves to BME.  TheTrueStasis sent us the following portrait.  I’m not sure, but I think this might be “Blue Steel”.

I like the choices and placement of his piercings, they have a certain flow about them.

TheTrueStasis

Send in portrait shots of you and your body modification!  Remember, there are two ways to submit, either by uploading photos to BME directly through your BME account or via email.

Lobe cutting now… and in the future?

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I was checking out this gorgeous lobe scalpelling by Gabriele at Max Art in Italy — he’s taken a 30mm lobe and cut it up to 50mm, changing its shape quite a bit in the process — and it got me thinking again about a procedure that I’d really love to see someone do. The first three photos below are real, and show the level of abuse an ear can take and still heal beautifully — that third image was taken only a month later.

Anyway, as you know I am big on anything that fucks with natural morphology, so what I’m suggesting is taking the earlobe loop and cutting it where it connects to the head, and then relocating that attachment point farther down the neck, as far as it can be moved and still be comfortable — which is what the fourth picture illustrates with a quickie Photoshopping. I think it someone can show that this works in reality (and I’m quite certain it’s plausible), all sorts of fascinating things could be done. There are still more Pandora’s Boxes to be opened — I’ve been giving some thought to the “what’s next in body modification” and I think that in addition to live electronics being on the cusp of exploding, I think there are a lot of body artists who are technically proficient enough at this point to start getting much more adventurous in the type of body sculpting they offer.

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