Another person I could have included in my post about Iestyn Flye’s scar work and upcoming seminar with Ron Garza was the brilliant and aptly named blackwork tattoo artist Matt Black who works at London’s Divine Canvas, since he has some eye-catching skin-removal on his nose by Iestyn. Even though you don’t see this type of facial scar that much, it has a strong historical basis and in fact Maori mokos, which are based on their wood carving art, were first done as “skin carving” before they became the more commonly seen “normal” tattoos.

I hope seeing it and similar pieces will encourage more people to explore this artform on their faces. The nose seems to really carry the scar well — although I would urge people to only go to the best for this sort of thing… Your nose is not a piece of anatomy you want someone learning through trial-and-error on!!! Here is a recent picture of Matt’s face showing both the scar and the rest of his amazing facial tattooing.

But I also wanted to share two recent blackwork tattoos that Matt has done. I’m not sure who the hand work is on, but the chest is on another great body artist, Damien Voodoo, who has an incredible collection of work that I will certainly show more of in the future. You can find Matt at divine-canvas.com along with many other top-notch artists specializing in (but not exclusive to) the modern neo-tribal tattoo style. By the way, look carefully at these tattoos and you’ll see they’re not just a “boring old solid fill” — it’s actually a dense field of dotwork.

This miniature Ouroboros cutting done by no other than Ryan Oullette is a great example of the detail work that can be packed into  tiny scars. Facial scars are generally very subtle, so I imagine this will heal cleanly and likely have the appearance of a white tattoo. Hopefully, this guy keeps up with Ryan so we can have a healed pic down the road.

We spend a lot of time on ModBlog talking about the image galleries, and the wide variety of images contained within them.  In addition to the galleries, the stories, and ModBlog, BMEzine is host to it’s own Wiki.  It’s a great resource to get information regarding all sorts of topics that cover the entire spectrum of the body modification world.

Today I wanted to share with you an article about an unusual form of scar that at one point was extremely popular in certain parts of the world.

What you’re seeing here is what is known as a dueling scar or Renommierschmiss.  I’ll let the Wiki explain.

At the turn of the 20th century, the dueling scar (or bragging scar, or Renommierschmiss) was popularized by upper-class Austrians and Germans who saw it as a mark of their class and honor, due to the social importance of dueling societies at Austrian universities at the time. If you were a doctor, lawyer, or professor, the dueling scar was a tattoo that signified your inclusion in an elite social rank, and visitors to university cafes would expect to see young men with bandaged faces.

The sport at the time was very different from modern fencing. The men used heavy sabers, and took turns chopping at each other five times apiece repeatedly. While padding was worn, the goal was to be injured. Kevin McAleer (author of Dueling: The Cult of Honor in Fin-de-Siecle Germany) writes,

The idea was to stand your man and show courage—not to inflict a wound, but to be wounded. That’s the very strange part of it—the true winner was he who walked away with a nice juicy scar, to show that he’d stood the test. The point was not to get the other guy, but to show that you could take it. You’d get these guys who looked like they’d walked into a propeller. It was pretty gnarly, but the guys were damn proud to look that way.

The scars showed you had courage and education, and were good husband material. A lot of these kids were rather good-looking, and you didn’t have to ruin your whole face in dueling. The scars usually accumulated on the left side of the face, so from the right profile, he still looked good. And even if it was an ugly, knotted scar, women were attracted by everything it implied, and the pride with which the wearer bore it.

The main thing we’ve learned from this, is that no matter the culture or the era, chicks dig scars.

But seriously, it seems that while the practice of dueling for scars seems to have faded over time, the practice of intentional scarification has definitely carried on.  Now I haven’t had the pleasure of getting a gnarly, unintentional scar, but I’m sure some of you have.  Anyone have a “I got this scar when…” story to share?