This interesting little piece was sent in by Joey Pang of Tattoo Temple in Hong Kong. It’s no secret how much I love her work, and this piece is just another example of how awesome she is.
You can check out the full sized version of this photo in the oriental style tattoo gallery.
The use of negative space in a tattoo isn’t a new technique by any means. This fairy tattoo by Joey Pang is just an example of how a skilled artist can use that negative space to create a beautiful image. At first glance the fairy seems to be just a head, wings, and a squiggly line. Yet when you look at the negative space, your mind takes these pieces, combines them with the negative space, and creates the full body of the fairy. Joey is using the negative space in such a way that the viewer also becomes an artist in their mind, filling in the blank with an image unique to each viewer.
You can check out more of Joey’s recent work in the new skool tattoo gallery.
I know that most of my posts featuring Russians in the past few weeks have focused on suspension teams, so I thought it was high time to remind everyone that not only can the Russians do some awesome looking suspensions, their artists are also incredible.
Check out this dragon cover-up by Sergey Voinov from Extreme Art.
Want to see what it looked like before the cover-up? Head on over to the fantasy tattoo gallery to check it out.
Well, I am anyway. So around the time ModBlog came online, my internet connection went offline. But you don’t care about that, you want to see something cool. Well how about Hetty’s awesome backpiece by Loz from Cookies Tattoos in Worcester.
Come to think of it. It’ll probably look better with some color added. Keep on reading to check out the finished product.
4 
Yep, that’s much better.
Recently Bree was the subject of a photo shoot by Carlos Melgoza, for his Anima Nocturna project.
Anima Nocturna is a collaborative effort of occultists who express themselves in different mediums and is directed by artist and photographer Carlos Melgoza. The Embodiment of Symbols and Gods The subjects embraced by Anima Nocturna are brought about by mystical experiences and divine inspiration, each are different aspects of the path and paying attention to these mysteries is a natural inclination of the collective group.
Bree’s beautiful tattoos and stunning features made her a perfect choice for the project, as you can see in the photos below.
You’ll need to keep on reading to see the other photo…
Photos from the rest of the shoot can be found in the fantasy tattoo gallery, and a closer look at her legs can be seen in this ModBlog post from just over a year ago.
Epic is pretty much the only word you can use to describe the art of Boris Vallejo. Between him and the late Frank Frazetta, fantasy novels have had incredible cover art for decades. Now if you’re not a fantasy reader, you might recognize his style from the National Lampoon movie posters, or for our younger readers, the Aqua Teen Hunger Force movie. This replication of Boris’ “Full Moon” was done by Erika Doyan, from Living Colour Tattoo in Ottawa, ON.
Obviously you’ll be able to check out this and other tattoos like it in the fantasy tattoo gallery.
Fans of Brom will instantly recognize his style in this backpiece. Brom’s the guy behind a lot of the art in role-playing games, fantasy novels, etc. The lovely clockorange from Moscow, and her artist Sergey Voynov from Extreme Art in St. Petersburg, are big fans of Brom, and it shows. The detail that Sergey put into this is masterful, which makes for a truly spectacular piece.
The headline for almost every paper across the globe is “BMEGirls are awesome!” Who are we to argue with the news.
This is just one of many photos sent in by the crew down at Studio Evolve Tattoo in Virginia Beach. Tanane Whitfield is the artist behind the tattoos, while Chuck Long did the photography.
I always like to save something special for my last post of the week, and I think you won’t be disappointed with what I found for you today.
First and foremost, I want to give you a little background on the man who inspired this piece. You may or may not have heard the name Alex Grey before, although you probably have seen some of his work. As one of the most distinctive artists in the past 50 years, his work explores spirituality through visionary art, a form of psychedelic art. I’m definitely not an expert in art theory, so I won’t try to explain his works in-depth, but what I can tell you is that his art has a profound effect on the majority of people who see it. For many people the first time they might have seen some of his work was on the album art for Tool’s Lateralus album. Since then Alex has worked with the band, in addition to his own works, and has produced not only album art, but also set designs for their live shows and even created the visuals for this video. One of Alex’s major works, The Sacred Mirrors, has been turned into a gallery exhibit known as the Chapel of the Sacred Mirrors. A film was made about the gallery, and features interviews with Alex as he explains his paintings.
Of course with his art focusing on spiritual transformation, he easily became a natural inspiration for modification artists. Gabriel Cece, from Studio Evolve Tattoo in Virginia Beach, VA, recently created this piece that is an interpretation of Alex’s work.
The art of modification is strongly linked to a transformative spirituality, where the individual regardless of the personal reasoning behind it, transforms their body on a physical level to achieve some internal satisfaction. This piece in particular speaks volumes towards this transformation, as the eyes placed on the transparent hands show the inner self looking out on the world. The spirituality of self is viewing the outside world, and is changing the external self to reflect the thoughts and feelings of the inside.
I think I should stop myself there, as I could probably go on for hours about the beauty of this piece of art. With the new gallery system on BME, you’re able to leave a comment directly on the page of the image, so if you wish to share your thoughts on this with Gabriel, head over to the religious and mythological tattoo gallery and leave a comment.
I’ve intentionally been avoiding writing a story about the Millennium Trilogy for a while now. While I haven’t read the books, I have seen the films which are believably good, but despite the title, the tattoo in question doesn’t really play a major role in the films. Sure the character of Lisbeth sports a massive back piece, but seeing as how you only see it a couple of times and the actress, Noomi Rapace, didn’t actually get it tattooed on herself I just assumed that the entire thing was a non-story.
Today I was pleasantly proven wrong.
Before we begin, here’s the trailer for the first film: “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo”
I use Google news alerts to flag stories that have specific key words in them. Tattoo of course being one of them. So you can imagine that with these films gaining international acclaim, the books being bestsellers, and casting rumors flying around for the American adaptations, my inbox has been filled for the past few months of stories about the trilogy. For the most part I just dismiss them, but since they finally got around to casting the role of Lisbeth in the American films, the e-mails have died down.
Yet here I am today, talking about the thing I promised not to discuss on ModBlog. The reason I’m bringing it up now? Well, I’ll let this article from The Mirror fill you in.
Winning a career-making role in the Dragon Tattoo films brought a strange mixture of pleasure and pain to rising star Noomi Rapace. The 30-year-old actress knew she had to nail the part of androgynous anti-hero Lisbeth Salander – or risk offending the many fans of the creator, best-selling author Stieg Larsson. So to really convince as the punky, chain-smoking, kick-ass computer hacker, Noomi embarked on a remarkable transformation. She went on a strict diet, trained in kickboxing and Thai boxing and even took her motorcycle licence. A non-smoker, she began puffing her way through “thousands of cigarettes” both on-set and off it. And she wouldn’t even consider faking all those piercings in Salander’s ears and nose because, as Noomi puts it, “I wanted to feel those piercings in myself.”
You’ll often hear of actors undergoing massive physical changes for a role. De Niro gained a significant amount of weight for his role in Raging Bull, while Christian Bale lost a frightening amount of weight in a short period of time for his role in The Machinist, only to gain it all back plus more in a couple months to be ready for his role in Batman Begins. Actors are required to change themselves to some degree for a role, sometimes it’s simply a costume, and others require a lot more commitment. So for Noomi Rapace, in order to fully transform into the character of Lisbeth she drastically changed not only her physical appearance, but also her behaviour months before filming.
While the diet and smoking is one aspect of the transformation, this being ModBlog I wanted to focus on her mods. You get a brief glimpse of them in the trailer but having seen the films it is obvious that she didn’t just opt for one or two piercings to personify the character. I counted about 10-12 seperate piercings spread out over her lobes, cartilage, nostrils and septum. While by ModBlog standards this isn’t anything too significant, to see an actress portray a character so well, and commit to that many mods is something significant. While the character of Lisbeth is certainly troubled, and goes through several drastic events over the course of the series, what we’re seeing is essentially a mainstream film that doesn’t treat modifications as some form of joke or used as shock value.
I’m sure we’ve all seen films where a “punk” character appears on screen wielding a vast array of facial piercings simply to appear intimidating to the viewer, yet in these films the piercings appear to be just a natural extension of the character. In fact, in the scenes where she isn’t wearing her piercings you get a sense of discomfort looking at her, as if something is missing. Which of course there is. I think an accurate analogy to this would be the NYC skyline post 9-11. The image of the skyline had been etched into the minds of millions of people, and now, looking at it, there is something missing. I’m not making any political statements or anything like that, but the idea that something is removed from an image that everyone was used to seeing makes one feel that sense of “not right”. Of course the NYC skyline itself evokes a lot of feelings, but I think you get where I was going with this. I really think that with Noomi Racpace’s commitment to the role, combined with a skilled filmmaker, that this may be the first portrayal of a modified person that actually captures the essence of the modified culture. Where the focus is on the character, and not the mods, yet when the mods are removed you can tell something has changed not only on her physical exterior, but something inside her as well.
If you were to take a look in a mirror one day and all of your mods were gone, how would you feel? What about those close to you, how do you think they would react if a modification you’ve had for years was suddenly gone without a trace? Because we don’t treat our modifications as something other than what they are, an extension of our ideal selves, we can sense the incompleteness that occurs with a mod is removed. Yes I realize people retire mods all the time, but even then, those first few days really can reveal how much our mods are a part of us.
Looking back at these films with the knowledge of the actor’s commitment to the part, it really shines a light on how a person who is modified isn’t defined by their mods, but by who they are as a person. While this isn’t anything new to us, there still is a large portion of the population that doesn’t realize it. Given that the titular dragon tattoo is the one modification in the film that isn’t a real mod, I thought I should close this post out with a real dragon tattoo from the BMEzine.com tattoo galleries.
I’m sure I’m not the only one who has seen the films. Can anyone else who has seen them weigh in? Did Noomi Rapace actually getting the piercings done change your view of the films and her portrayal, or does her performance stand out on its own without the piercings being a factor?