Speaking of Iestyn

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Gosh, I’d forgotten both how fun and how difficult posting here is for me. I’m simultaneously excited and nauseous! But before I call it a night, I wanted to share a few more pieces by Iestyn Flye that he’s posted while I’ve been largely offline. I should also mention, if you didn’t catch it earlier today, that he’s now online at the-absolute.co.uk. Anyway, I will try and post a bit more this weekend but I can’t promise a lot.

This first piece is really interesting and not something you see every day (for all of these I suggest zooming in for a closer look of course). It begins life (the left and middle image) as a skin-removal scar, which is then accentuated once it’s well healed using red dotwork tattooing.

Next, a gorgeous example of facial scarification, with an organic free-flowing piece on one side that has a sort of early Celtic/Viking feel to it, balanced and contrasted on the other side of the face with a series of geometric crosses that instead of being free-flowing, integrate tightly and precisely into the tattoo work done earlier. A stunning and world-class creation.

Finally, the some mind-blowing geometric scarification that would be impressive if done as a tattoo, and unbelievable when done as a scar.

One more SkinTunnel

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I don’t know how I missed including this in my earlier post. Since SkinTunnels are new, I think a good percentage of people just want them for their own sake — they’re something cool and new and exciting, so people want them for their own sake. As a result, some of them are a little random and just “stuck wherever” rather than cleanly integrated into the body, let alone into a pre-existing body art plan. Not so with this example by early adopter Iestyn Flye (the-absolute.co.uk), who’s done probably my favorite SkinTunnel to date with this awesome example that fits perfectly into a tattoo. And I’m a little surprised at myself, because normally I think metal/ink combos are a little silly, but this one is great.

Shaped Transdermal

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Speaking of that famous Italian inventor (no, not Leonardo) Gabriele from MaxArt, after the SkinTunnel he’s got another innovation that he’s beginning experiments with, a design for a shaped-post transdermal. These get installed like a normal transdermal would be, but the hole is cut to shape with a scalpel rather than being dermal punched as you’d do with a typical round post. I will admit that I’m not quite so certain that this will heal as beautifully, because it’s asking a lot of the body to pull into some of those little detailed indents in my opinion. Whether I’m wrong or not time will tell, and I am eagerly awaiting pictures of how the healing is going — it’s a ton of fun seeing people continuing to innovate in body modification.

SkinTunnels Galore

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I’m happy to see that Gabriele‘s SKINTUNNEL design is entering the palette of body modification options beyond Italy. For example, Brian Decker of Pure (purebodyarts.com) just did a set of them on Ashan’s arm, using a single incision to insert both of them (push the incisions for the posts to push through — see our earlier posts on SKINTUNNELs to see the jewelry if you’re unfamiliar with it).

Iestyn Flye (the-absolute.co.uk) has also been doing them, the one on the back a collaboration with Gabriele that’s a month old, as well as another one on Yann Brënyàk. You gotta love the hex-head transdermal next to it by the way!

I’ll also mention that the first ones that Gabriele did are still looking good and beginning to stand the test of time. Here’s the neck at four months old, with a fancy new cap on it as well, which you can also see on the original wrist SKINTUNNEL which I think is about six months old now.

PS. Until Gabriele and Rachel have a chat about adding SkinTunnels to BMEshop (which I think would be a great way to introduce them to even more people), if you are a body modification practitioner interested in these, contact Gabriele directly if you’d like to talk about ordering a set.

Blue Eyes Update

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Because Howie (lunacobra.net) did my eyes in a hazy style, with a lot of marbling and transparency, you can see the way the tattoos change over time in my eyes more than in some of the ultra-solid eyes. It’s amazing to me how different my eyes look from day to day because of the way the ink moves around, and also on how slowly the entire eye has become more and more blue (in the early days parts were still only white)… I guess that subtle variations in the way I hold my head over the previous day, or perhaps absent-minded eye rubbing, and other factors cause the ink to move around. Sometimes the coverage is quite even, and sometimes it’s high contrast, almost blue-black in spots. One of my favorite bits that illustrates this well is the top of the iris, where you can see the ink pools, since gravity and pressure pushes it down, but then it hits the limbus barrier and stops. You can see that clearly in the top two pictures.

This modification has a good shot in the running to by my favorite modification of all time, both on myself and on others.

Speaking of blue eyes, Johnny Villonius just posted a picture of his blue eye, which he’s had for quite a long time (below), and you’ll note that he has a similar cloudiness in his. This should be expected (although it’s far from guarantee’d) in any eye that’s done lightly. Personally it’s my favorite look, and is the most subtle as well (to say nothing of being safer). I’d recommend doing this sort of look to most people as a “first step” which may or may not remain final. It’s quite possible to darken it with a second session. Anyway, I find that while I get constant compliments on my eyes, very few people realize it’s a tattoo. Most believe it’s natural, or even just say “you have the most amazing eyes”, but seem to not know why, as if their brain is seeing the blue, but their conscious mind refuses to acknowledge it. I find that when people give me compliments on it, when I mention that it’s a tattoo, that they often switch from loving it to being disturbed.

That might just be WOLVERINE

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Sorry for my long absence by the way — I’ve been wrapping up my new (or old, since it’s been in the works for over a decade) book of interviews, which I hope you’ll see in the shelves of BMEshop and elsewhere quite soon. The book is complete; it’s just a matter of finalizing the deal with the publisher.

Anyway, I saw this new implant by Bruno (brunobma.com) in Italy and was quite struck by it. It’s intended to give the appearance of being similar to Wolverine right about to blow his Adamantium load. I enjoy this conceptually, and not just because I’ve become a comics superfan in the last couple years, but because I like any mod that makes people question the anatomy they’re looking at. I think a lot of people are going to look at this and have absolutely no idea what they’re looking at, what strange anatomy is in that hand, and whether it’s aliens among us, an odd mutation, or perhaps a weirdly healed injury… Holy headfuck. You don’t get that with a circular barbell!

Tongues, tongues, slither in the psalms*

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The beautiful rachietartz has sent in some new photos and it felt like a good day for a BMEgirl update.

Photo by Alanna Ralph, Photography Makeup and Hair by Rachael Martin from Salon Blush.

*I have stolen today’s title from a song in The Devil’s Carnival.  Coming up with titles is hard!

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