A Good Afternoon via Implants and Scars

Two days ago I posted a neat set of star-shaped horns (placed impressively precisely underneath preexisting tattoos), but I wanted to follow up with another star implant, this one by Matias at Rata Body Art in Buenos Aires, Argentina. It’s fresh in the photo — as you already know if you noticed the incision tucked away at the hairline. As great as this looks, I don’t think I would personally want a temple implant — even lightly resting my finger on my temples makes me feel like I’ve got a killer headache coming on. I’d hate to find that I’d implanted something on top of a pressure spot that slowly drives me insane! Oh wait, I started that way. No worries then, I shall do it.

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Speaking of Matias, I’ve also been meaning to show you this nice oldschool sailor-art Gypsy girl portrait that he cut over top of a black field of ink. I think it will work especially well due to the stars that sit in the negative space surrounding the canvas of the scarification.

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And while I’m on the subject of scarification, I wanted to also show you this superb collar-piece “art scar” that Azl Kelly of Mtl Tattoo created as part of a “aesthetic beheading performance”. There’s a lot to be said for really pure designs. There’s a school of thought among many writers that the less words you can use to completely and effectively describe something, the better. Now, I’ve never been particularly good at that — I’m so redundantly wordy and repetitive that you could Swiss-cheese a print out of my essays with a machinegun and effectively understand what I was saying from the tatters that are left. Azl on the other hand has figured out how to speak volumes with a single incision.

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And, well, since I’m doing the “this things reminds me of this thing” game with this long entry, let me add two more implants, both swastika implants under a black tattoo, which visually makes them “pop” even more because of the way the light hits it. The one on the left, in the forearm, is the work of Samppa Von Cyborg, who you know well of course. The one on the right, the implant on the top of a hand, is by an artist you may not know quite as well, Hugo Ferreira of Biotek Toulouse in France. The arm is fresh in the photo, and the hand is about a month old.

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PS. I apologize for the crap image quality in this entry — I accidentally overcompressed. I’m really having “one of those days” as the old saying goes.

Working Together

We’ve seen quite a few collaborative scarification pieces on ModBlog in the past.  In fact we see quite a large number of collaborations when you take into account tattoos, and body piercing.  However, what we often neglect to focus on is the collaboration between the artist and the client.  With the exception of DIY modifications, pretty much everything we do is a collaboration of some kind.  Be it something as simple as discussing the subject matter of a tattoo, or something as complex as rigging up an elaborate multi-person suspension with a team, it all requires cooperation.

It’s part of what makes our community so close, as well as unique.  We share our stories with others, and when it comes time to change ourselves we put trust in another individual to have our visions come to fruition.  Take this scarification by Misty Forsberg from Southtown Tattoo and Body Piercing in Fort Smith, AR.  Now Misty was the person who did the cutting, but it was Justin (from Rise or Die Tattoo in Fayetteville, Arkansas) who designed the image, making this piece a collaboration between the two artists.

So remember, it’s the trust between the artist and the client that bonds this community together, and makes each and every piece a collaboration of some form or another.

Fascinatingly Odd Implant/Scar Combo

My friend Baz Black sent me something I’d not have thought I’d ever see — an implant done underneath scarification, and done in the same session as well. My gut response was that this would be dangerous due to the risk of the cutting compromising the pocket that the implant is placed in, but it seems to have been quite trouble free.

Baz started by doing the scarification, making sure to keep the depth consistent (which I’m sure he’d do anyway!). Then the implant was done, taking care not to disrupt the fresh cutting. Her skin was “like butter” and the procedure went quickly. You can sort of get the idea from the side view, but the pictures don’t do it justice, with the implant rising quite prominently (it’s a 1/2″ rise), pulling the spiral contours up toward the middle like a UFO caught in a tornado. Healing to date has been trouble free and the client has asked Baz to do a second one on the other wrist.

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And while I’m mentioning Baz’s work, let me quickly post two other recent scars that he’s done, one a “traditional” cutting of flowers and a butterfly using nice clean silouette outlines and subtle details, and the other a cartoon scar over blackwork. (Zoom in if you’d like a closer view).

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Tattoo Removal Failure Reclamation

A client of Azl Kelly’s (Mtl Tattoo in Montreal) came to him looking for help in dealing with a big blog of scar tissue that she’d been left with after a laser tattoo removal. The laser had successfully obliterated the tattoo, but it did so much damage in the process that something had to be done about it — no matter how bad the tattoo may have been, this can’t have seemed like an improvement. Since the scar was now there for good, Azl worked with it, and added some definition, converting it from a random blob into a lotus flower.

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Speaking of Azl I wanted to show another piece of tattoo/scar combination work he did (you may recall when I featured some of his a while back). In this large scale piece, the outline of the tree is healed scarification by Azl, and the tattooing was done by his Mtl coworker Travis Driscoll. As I’ve said before, tattooing is a wonderful way to breathe new (and long-term) life into an aging scar that has lost it’s visual impact. It’s hard to pick a favorite from Azl’s top-notch combination pieces, but this one has to be high on the list.

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Hook Life

Many of you know Misty from her work over HookLife, as well as her scarification work I’ve posted in the past.  Well recently Lucas from the Springfield chapter of AGRO came to visit her and she was able to combine both her love of suspension and her talent as an artist.

That’s the AGRO logo in case you didn’t know.

Grave Marking

We haven’t seen much of Richard ‘Effin’ Ivey in the past few months.  The reason is he’s been pretty busy knocking out more scars to show off.  On top of that, Rich is going to be moving out to the west coast soon, so if you’re on the east coast and want to get some work done, you better get in touch with him at Warlocks in Raleigh, NC.

Here’s a fresh Parisian grave marker scar that Rich recently completed.

Scarred Dragon Scales

I love this scarification pattern done by Iestyn Flye on I believe Muffe Vulnuz. Normally when I see scarification over blackwork, I think it’s best left as light lightwork in a field of dark when healed, but depending on how this heals, I think it might look nice re-tattooed in the long run. Imagine if it healed either raised or better yet, sunk in, and then could be tattooed a dark, almost black red… It really would look like dragon scales then!

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By the way, I should add that no one has told me that it’s meant to be dragon scales — that’s just what I see when I look at it. So I hope I’ve caused no offense at this assumption!

The Friday Follow-up

As promised yesterday, today’s follow-up is going to be a look at Misty’s (IAM:Southtownbaby) first scarification piece.  We first saw it back in April of last year, and then again in June for a 3 month follow-up post.

Here’s how it looked originally..

And here’s how it looks today, with some roses that Misty added recently.

This one really show how differently scars can heal on different people, and even how much scarification can differ on areas of the body.  You’ll notice more definition closer to the knee than there is at the top based entirely on the movement of the flesh in that area.  Looking back on the fresh photo you can see that the scarification was done evenly, that’s just how this person heals.  In any case, Misty did a great job for her first time out, and clearly the client is happy as he went back to her for the roses.

She’s got fans all over the world

It was just last April that we first saw Misty (IAM: Southtownbaby) appear on ModBlog for the first time as a scarification artistWe had seen plenty of her own scars, as well as her many suspensions, yet to appear as a scarification artist was a major accomplishment.  Since then her scars have been featured several times, and she’s even gone on tour to New Zealand.  This mehndi inspired fan scarification was done while she was visiting Absolution Tattoo and Body Piercing in Christchurch, NZ.

Make sure to come back tomorrow as you’ll get to see a follow-up of Misty’s first cutting.