Please correct me if I named the wrong video game (I only play Guitar Hero and Rock Band). I wasn’t sure how this was going to heal when I first saw it, but it turned out quite nicely in the end — this scar/skin removal is by Branko/Darlin from BZK Tattoo in Slovakia.
See more in “Skin Removal“ (Scarification)
Stevve, who works at Marked For Life Tattoos in Warren, MI got his original cheek piercings done by Josh Anderson, with the rest of the ladder being anchors done by JC and Laura of Pangea Piercing in Ann Arbor. After the break you can see his awesome Satanic belly scarification.
This intense scarification project was done on Metal_Games by Jeffrey at Paradigm Bodyart in Arnheim. He describes the experience,
“Starting with the lines, the pain wasn’t half as bad as I’d expected. In fact, it was a breeze for the most part. It took Jeffrey, the artist, about twenty minutes to cut all the lines. A couple of deep breaths, and we went straight on to removing the skin. I wasn’t looking forward to that, but again, it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. Obviously, it was a lot more painful than the linework, but never unbearable. I was able to watch calmly as Jeffrey was working on it, although for the most part I just concentrated on the ceiling or the wall across from me. Some parts on the more sensitive parts of my leg had me clenching my jaw, and after about forty-five minutes I just wanted it to be over with. We were nearly done at that point however, and after another painful ten minutes it was all over.”
“Stopping the bleeding was a different matter though, and I lay there for a while until it stopped. After bandaging it, it felt like a large abrasion. So, back to Utrecht, where it turned out the bleeding had started again, but the next morning when I cleaned it for the first time, it had stopped. Cleaning it for the first time turned out to be pretty painful (duh), but the second time it was a lot better. Now all I have to do is to care for it according to Jeffreys advice, and I can’t wait to see how it’s gonna come out when it’s fully healed. All in all, it wasn’t the most fun experience I ever had, but I’m glad I went through with it. It looks so cool!”
See more in “Skin Removal Scarification“ (Scarification)
When she was a child, The Darthside knew she didn’t want to have children. At nineteen, she decided to get sterilized, and seven years later had the procedure done by a surgeon in Germany. The procedure had been done endoscopically, leaving her with no scars, which bothered her, so she had Muffe at Copenhagen Body Extremes in Denmark giver her three cuts, intended to look like a large scratch.
A while later, after reading the various animal modification posts, she realized that her cats and her have sort of matching scars, all stemming from sterilization…
You might have noticed in the John Joyce interview, that near the bottom there’s a shot of him doing a hip/rib cutting (at Scar Wars III). It’s on Gogo_Savvy, and the healing has been amazing, with pronounced and even keloiding… Check it out!
Praxis (photo by Demetruis Gonzalez) wrote me a beautiful note about her initially-not-intended-to-be DIY circle brand, explaining how it came to be self-done,
I had wanted a simple circle brand (or a few circles) for quite a while. I was too scared to brand myself and was planning on going to see John Joyce who I respect immensely. However, Syracuse was a good few hours from where I was going to school in Cambridge, Massachusetts. After I graduated from college I was staying in Boston for a few weeks preparing to go to Mexico for a year on a fellowship. I was staying with a very close friend Kirsten (iam:squiggles). She and I had met four years before through iam and shared a lot over the years. As the day of my imminent departure from Boston — the place I had spent the past four years and the home of the people I loved most in the world — approached, the thought of not seeing Kirsten again for at least a year was starting to weigh upon me. Over the years Kirsten had become like a sister to me, a kindred spirit. We shared a lot of experiences and memories but it seemed like we hadn’t shared enough, that we didn’t have enough time. Kirsten is the type of person who is always up for anything, who has an open mind and wants to experience and learn from life. With her I could always do anything, be myself, and not worry about her judging me. The prospect of not having someone like that in my life made me feel sick.
One day the worry became too much… I wanted to do something “crazy”, something I couldn’t do with someone else, something I couldn’t do on my own. I thought for a while and finally my mind settled on the circle brand and mentioned to Kirsten that I wanted one. Without prompting she immediately said, “I have a plain ring you could use.” She went to her room and came back with a silver ring in her hand. It was the perfect size. I told her I was scared to do it and she said she would to it to herself first to see what way of heating the ring worked best and so I wouldn’t be so nervous. She’s like that, always thinking about other people. So she disinfected the ring and put it in boiling water until it was hot and with a pair of tweezers pressed it to the skin on her thigh. It left a blister, but we decided that if I wanted a real scar, I’d have to heat it in fire. I held the ring in the fire of the gas stove until it was hot and then pressed it to my skin. Kirsten held my hand as my skin sizzled off, and as I reheated the ring and rebranded myself a few more times to make an even circle.
She still has the faint mark of a circle on her knee (and she didn’t even want a brand to start out with!) and I have my circle brand, a reminder of her and my friendship and everything we shared. Now, on my own in Mexico, when I see my brand I am reminded of everything Kirsten and I have shared and of our friendship, which continues to grow though we are no longer in the same city.
Shon cut this revolver design, with Eric contributing some of the shading technique, under the watchful eye of Dave Gillstrap. Here it is both fresh and well healed.
I’m very happy to present this many years overdue interview with John Joyce of Scarab Body Arts. It’s a long read, but worth it — I hope you’ll enjoy it as much as I did. Click through to read it now, and come on back here to comment.
Newwound has just opened up a studio of his own, Third Eye Tattoo in Melbourne, Australia, and recently did a DIY cutting on himself of the classic BME logo — this took him four hours to do. There’s a finished photo after the break. Because of all the curves and linework, it can’t have been an easy piece to do DIY with good consistency — from his post on it:
I nearly passed out a couple of times — I’ve never actually passed out… It hurt a wee bit, and I all most didn’t finish it. I was shaking for the last hour or so, but still, I think I did good… Some lines aren’t finished I’ve only really just noticed and a few dodgey bits, but hey. I learnt a lot like — what a four hour session is like, and tight curves are hard and need to be done kinda slowly, the inside for your leg really really hurts, and I’m in control. I’m pretty sure the bigger part of me was telling me to not do it, do it smaller, do two sessions and please stop.
