I’m tripping over this great chestpiece by Pinkie Leenders (tattoopink.be). Or at least this tattoo makes me reminisce about tripping — what a gloriously psychedelic body he’s created for Laurent. This is a wonderful example of modern body modification Shamanism.
Tobias, who you may know not just from here on BME, but also if you take part in the tattoo and modification forums on Reddit, said that ever since he saw the 0ga tragus I posted back in 2008 he worked toward it. At that point he was wearing itsy-bitsy 16ga jewelry in each ear, and over time he’s stretched them to that 0ga that first inspired him. Success! He currently wears skin-color Kaos Softwear silicone jewelry in it, which I think is perfect because it makes it look even bigger. He adds, “to this day, it still amazes and wows people, and they’ve become my absolute favorite piercings.”
My old friend David also wears BME a 0ga tragus — two of them as well, one of them in each ear, although he wears matching 0ga Anatometal steel tunnels. That’s David’s “Dumbo ear” (his words, not mine) there on the right, and Tobias is on the left. By the way, if you like this, check out the 1/2″ tragus I posted just a little while later.
Of course we’ve all seen hypodermic needles used to perform play piercing many times, as well as captive bead rings in play piercing sessions (generally in the form of corset piercings), but it’s very unusual to see the two combined, as Aaron Thompson of Black Swan Southside (Lakeland, Florida) has done with this 35-piercing session on his friend Hannah. Also in the photo are a set of 14ga microdermals along the collarbone. I should add that the image has been Photoshopped by me to emphasize the heart. Click the picture to see the original as he posted it.
There’s been an incredible amount of debate about tattoo healing after my post two days ago — with a disturbing amount of denialism, and an especially deranged argument on Facebook — but the fact is, when you get a tattoo, you have to live with the healed version, not the fresh version. The tattoo artist on the other hand, thanks to their handy camera, may forever live with the fresh version. Photos don’t need to heal.
A fresh tattoo looks different because it’s not covered by an ink-free layer of surface skin — it is, in fact, covered by a layer of tattooed dead skin that may or may not have the same ink in it as the deeper skin — plus the ink particles haven’t had time to settle into their permanent locations. For starters this means that a healed tattoo will almost always have less intense colors and less deep blacks, and there will be some flattening and blending of tones. The degree of these changes depends on factors including the types and colors of ink and, the nature of the wearer’s skin, and the tattooist’s technique — and of course a client can destroy a tattoo with bad aftercare but that’s not what this entry is about. Also, the order the ink was put in won’t matter as much in a healed tattoo — in a fresh tattoo, the visually dominant color will be the last one put in, temporarily hiding what’s beneath it, but in a healed tattoo it will be more of an “average”. In a flat oldschool tattoo this doesn’t make much difference, but in a tattoo with a lot of shading and color nuance it can make a huge difference. And of course all this is assuming a best case scenario — if the tattoo artist has a light hand or otherwise didn’t put in the ink properly, there can also be fading, sometimes dramatic.
A reputable tattoo artist will always aim for the healed tattoo to look as good as possible, not for the fresh tattoo to look as good as possible. In many cases they may even need to create a fresh tattoo that doesn’t look as good as the healed one, and as a result, some unethical artists who are looking to win a convention tattoo award (and often do) that’s being judged that day, make decisions that don’t do the client any favors as discussed to death previously.
I’m very happy to say that the best thing to come about from this discussion is a number of artists vowing to make sure that their portfolios contain as many healed photos as possible. Healed photos are the only way a client can truly know what they are paying for, and are essential. Any tattoo artist that doesn’t have plenty of healed tattoos in their portfolio is one I’d be very nervous about.
On that note — and sorry for taking so long to get here — I’d like to share with you two tattoos, fresh and healed, from Mike Shultz at Altered Image Tattoo & Piercing in Indianapolis (alteredimagetattooindy.com). Compare the tattoos fresh and healed ones. Look at them closely — see how the colors and levels change — and you’ll get some insight into healing, and the decisions that Mike made to give his clients a tattoo that they should be happy with forever, not just something that will win him a Best of Show. Thank you to all the tattoo artists out there who have pledged to give the world an honest impression of what they’re capable of and including plenty of healed and unedited photos (or better yet, both, spreading an understanding to the public of how tattoos heal) in their portfolio.
Be sure you zoom in to really appreciate both my comments and Mike’s artistry.
Jakub’s palm tattoo, done by Lukasz Bam Kaczmarek of Poland’s Kult Tattoo Fest (who is actually better known for bright color work than simple black like this) is beautifully healed in this photo, with practically perfect linework, nice and solid, with almost no fading or ink loss, something that is very difficult to achieve on the palm, let alone on the inside of the fingers.
There comes a time in every horror movie fan’s life that some of the details of certain movies blend together. Unless it’s a really iconic scene, it’s easy to get confused when looking at a photo of a zombie and trying to place what film it’s from (or even if it is from a film). I want to say this is a Fulchi zombie, but having seen so many over the years, I can’t place this particular member of the walking dead.
Tattoo by Grzegorz Latoch from Street Tattoo in Warsaw, Poland.
Marc (Little Swastika, little-swastika.com) recently posted this old tattoo he did in Blackie’s Heavy Blackwork group, and emphasized that it was one of his older pieces, during a period where he used much heavier swaths of solid black than he does nowadays. Even though his style has evolved a great deal since then, I wanted to publicly acknowledge it because it’s a beautiful piece of graphic design. The interplay between the heavy “maze” on the left have versus the dance of spirals on the right with a background that’s been tattooed to mimic the splotchy image of block printing, and the two halves separated with a strong scribbled red boundary line, is incredible. For a big bold piece that it is in some ways “simple”, it’s also got some great little nuances — for example, look at the very bottom right how the fine stamp pattern goes over the heavy black bar as negative space.
And in relation to some of the volatile discussion lately about the way tattoos heal, I also love that Marc almost exclusively posts healed tattoos (not that he has much choice on account of the sheer scale). These tattoos will look good forever in my opinion, not just because Marc is technically proficient, but by the very nature of their design being resilient to the natural effects of aging.
If this looks familiar to you, it’s because Shannon first posted about this hand poked circle of life tattoo a few weeks back. Back then it was just the outline, but since then handpoked master (that sounds dirty) Ferank has finished up the sacred geometry, and the result is breathtaking. Oh, it should be noted that the cross was tattooed by someone else.
I’m one tough Gazookus
Which hates all Palookas
Wot ain’t on the up and square.
I biffs ‘em and buffs ‘em
And always out roughs ‘em
But none of ‘em gets nowhere.If anyone dares to risk my “Fisk”,
It’s “Boff” an’ it’s “Wham” un’erstan’?
So keep “Good Be-hav-or”
That’s your one life saver
With Popeye the Sailor Man.
Morbid from Street Tattoo & Piercing in Warsaw did this cutting of everybody’s favourite spinach eating sailor.
About a year ago I took a day and dedicated it to Gábor Zagyvai (IAM: Wyrd). The purpose back then was to highlight just how diverse his skills as a body modification practitioner are. I ended the day with a piece entitled “Abstract Mistycism” (his spelling) which you can see here. So now we come to today where Gábor is continuing to produce new works under his abstract mistycism banner.
