Little Swastika Book

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Marc, better known as Little Swastika, is an avant garde tattoo artist that’s a leader in the new worlds of dotwork, geometry, “trash” tattooing, neotribal spiritualism and fine art tattooing. He has just released a limited edition book of paintings and sketches done between 2005 and 2009. It is 108 pages long, printed in a limited hand-numbered and signed edition of 108 copies, and costs 108 euro (about $140 USD). This is a must-have for any tattoo studio — it’s not flash, but it’s a wonderful design resource — or tattoo artist interested in this style as well as art collectors. You can click below to take a closer look, or visit little-swastika.com to find out how to get your own copy of this incredibly special book.

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Marc’s work has been featured on ModBlog ever since I first saw his work, at the time at his earlier studio Swastika Freakshop, but while I have your attention, let me show you two recent creations. On the left, and amazingly dense and manic chestpiece that somehow mix the scrawlings of a madman with ripples and spirals and sacred geometry, and on the left, an evocative backpiece in dripping in saturated full color, with multiple layers of both scribbled block printing and Marc’s highly stylized and very recognizable red script. If you enjoy art tattooing, Marc is one of the best, creative and technically gifted.

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Finally, since they have not yet been covered on ModBlog, I want to give coverage to Marc’s work with double backpieces. Marc’s art is sometimes so big and powerful that it takes more than one person to contain it, as he splashes his striking visions across friends and families. Here are three examples of multi-person tattoos that he’s performed, as well as a shot of him working on laying down a stencil on two of his latest subjects. I love all of these (even though the one in the top row does cover up a BME logo!).

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Again, you can find Marc online at little-swastika.com, or click here to see a collection of ModBlog entries of his work. I just spent a few minutes going through it myself and found lots of wonderful pieces that had slipped my memory — his portfolio is beyond incredible. Have I mentioned what a fan I am? Finally you can also track him down on Facebook at facebook.com/tattoingisdeath. There are very few artists who I whole-heartedly endorse. Marc is one of them.

Katzen’s New Whiskers

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My old friend, world famous artist, musician, performer, and tattooist Katzen just had her whiskers cut by scarmaster Pineapple at Shaman (shamanmodificationsatx.com) in Austin, Texas where they both live. I wanted to mention the term I’m using here for scarification artist, “scarmaster”. I’ve seen “scartist” used before, but that’s sort of a joking word that was invented in Internet days, but “scarmaster” is an indigenous term (translated into English of course) that, if memory serves, I picked up from Lars Krutak who has been traveling around the world documenting scarification and other body modifications — I hope to review his book Spiritual Skin: Magical Tattoos and Scarification soon.

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Edit/Update: Here’s a nice close-up as well!

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Dipped in Ink

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I love these finger stripes and finger tip tattoos — very neat little touch of ink, and if his hand has been dipped into the liquid world of mods and magically altered by the experience. With just a few simple lines and a little fill, it really tickles my imagination. This was done by Max of Body Temple in London on his own hand.

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A couple of cockmaster(piece)s

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Unfortunately it’s rare for genital tattoos to really be masterpieces of tattooing, even with the best artistst holding the needle. Next to a scrotum, it’s about the worst skin to work on. But just because it’s not the best canvas, it’s hard to stop people — tattoo artists and enthusiasts included — from having fun when there’s a penis involved. Happened to see two tattooed members this morning — on the left is a “NO PAIN / NO GAIN” (I guess that means he’s into S&M and can only get hard if you’re pushing needles into his taint) piece by Veronique at Original Sin in Belgium, and on the right is a “firecracker in bed” and “red rocket” (I thought it was the “love bomb” but I was corrected) themed member care of Jon Gray and Chris Costa at Brass Monkey Tattoo. I’ll leave it to you to figure out who shoots the ink and who receives it. Anyway, if you want to see more, BME has built up a giant gallery of genital tattoos (both male and female) over the years that you can explore if you’re a member.

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The Three Mod Amigos

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My friend Emilio Gonzalez as well as old BME friend Matt Gone (interviewed by The Lizardman back in 2003) and also Mary Jose Cristerna are down at the Costa Rica convention to promote it, and are doing lots of television interviews while there. I’m sure the media are thrilled to have three superstars of body modification all in one place at once. And doesn’t Emilio just dwarf Matt? His head looks about twice as large, as I’ve said before, I suspect that that Emilio is not fully human — some sort of tattooed alien werebear creature I think.

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Full Backpiece Scarification

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I wanted to share this amazing full-back scarification project, well healed and done several years ago by Shane Post of Wingnut Tattoo (wingnutmods.com). For a piece this big, with scars that have raised quite significantly, it’s remarkably even. I like that from a distance people probably think it’s a burn wound or some horrible injury, but then when they get closer — assuming they can bring themselves to look — they realize it’s a beautiful work of art.

EDIT/UPDATE: I wanted to add something that Shane just told me. This piece was done in one sitting, over about eight hours, and the client didn’t complain once. Wow. Very tough woman, I don’t know if I would have been as brave. She must have been on one hell of an endorphin high as well — this really pushes it from aesthetic procedure to ritual, and gives you an insight into the ancient shamanism practices of early humans.

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