Sophie’s ear notching (and unalome scar)

Posted on October 29, 2012 by Shannon Larratt

Speaking of unusual ears, Sophie Lacroix just had this beautiful unalome cut on her cheek by Efix Roy (efixroy.com), but while the skin removal scar is very nice, what really caught my eye was the wonderful notch she has cut into the rim of her helix. This was also done by Efix, first four years ago and then again last winter to fine-tune the shape, using a scalpel cut-and-suture technique, with the sutures being removed a week later and the healing going quickly after that. Only the one ear was done, with the main reason being a love for unique aesthetics and unusual procedures. Most people she knows aren’t that into it, or assume it’s an injury or the result of an infection from a piercing gone wrong, but it’s for her not for them. She says, “all my modifications make me feel better, and I’m not a crazy girl who doesn’t like herself — I just love the way modifications make you different and beautiful. People don’t like what they can’t understand and I deal with that. My ear was pretty normal, then I cut it, and I love it — it’s that simple.”

Click to zoom in for a closer look.

A few great self-mods

Posted on October 26, 2012 by Shannon Larratt

Speaking of Yann Brënyàk of Body Temple (londonbodytemple.com), another in his growing arsenal of modifications is this scar on his leg, totally self performed, which is always very impressive to me even though there’s no shortage of self-blading in this world. The core swastika heart design is great, and I like the way that he’s mixed heavy bands of skin peeling with find detail scarwork with the swastika geometry background pattern. Another nice touch is the random slashing around the border, which if you know Yann’s facial tattooing, is a motif that is echoed across his identity.

Those with long memories may recall way, way, way back in 2007 Hugh Mattay, now modifying people at 119 Tattoo (oneonenine.com.au) in Sydney, had his batwing eyebrow tattoos posted here. Since then he’s had a lot of tattooing added to his forehead, with the stripes exploding out over his temples being perhaps my favorite of the bunch. But he’s also been piercing himself this week, adding first the medusa piercing, and now a pair of cheek piercings. I’m always impressed when people do their own labrets or medusas because it’s so hard to judge one’s own facial symmetry, and it only takes being off my a millimeter to look wrong.

Make it bleed!

Posted on October 16, 2012 by Shannon Larratt

Remember when I said I thought maybe I was posting too many scarification photos? Yeah, remind me to delete that entry, and while you’re at it, remind me to rename my testicles “Ryan” and “Ouellette”. Then maybe people will think that my wonderful balls traveled to Linkoping, Sweden and did this wonderful Jean Luc Picard as Locutus of Borg skin removal scarification on Elin’s back. Fortunately for Elin though, it was the real Ryan Ouellette, of New Hampshire’s Precision Body Arts (precisionbodyarts.com) who created this gorgeous piece of Star Trek superfandom over six hours of assimilation with his blade (and a little help from Nick Kelley who did the initial artwork design). Beautiful work as always — and I have to wonder if in the distant future, when this piece has faded as all scars must, if it might be an idea piece to give a second life to with a bit of tattooing?

Scalp Swastika-Burst Skin Removal

Posted on October 14, 2012 by Shannon Larratt

Iestyn Flye, normally of London’s Divine Canvas (divine-canvas.com), has recently been in Italy doing a guest spot at MaxArt in Rome. While there he did this amazing scalp cutting and skin peel, originally designed by Paul Kennerley as a full star (ie. this is only half of the original design), with the small cuts that radiate out from the centre aiming to give it the illusion of 3D form. Over the years Iestyn has built up an incredible portfolio (oft-featured here), so I have no doubt that this piece will look amazing healed. Click to see it even bigger.

FTW Update and Nose Skin Removal

Posted on October 2, 2012 by Shannon Larratt

As you know, I’m a fan of body modification master Thorsten Sekira at Silver Studio (silverstudio.at) in Vienna, Austria and I recently posted a couple of his large-scale scarifications. Today I wanted to feature some of his smaller scale work that he’s done on Pauli’s face. The FTW forehead — I’m consistently surprised at how subtle forehead scarification often is — was done almost two years ago (January 2011), so it’s well healed in the pictures that show the fresh skin peeling on the nose. Given the fine structure of the nose and its zero margin for error and the fact that it’s slightly different from the normal body surface skin that artists are more familiar with, this is definitely the sort of scarification best reserved for artists with Thorsten’s level of experience.

The first picture can be zoomed in.

As an aside I gotta say I’m really loving the “13″ eyelid tattoo! And it’s always a great pleasure not just watching scars heal, but watching body modification collections on major enthusiasts like Pauli grow. It’s a real treat. Some day I’d love to see someone put together a comprehensive book that tracks a multitude of heavily modded people over a ten-or-more-year window, perhaps with a big coffee-table page-spread dedicated to each person with photos showing how their aesthetic evolved over time. If I had more time on this planet I’d sign myself up to tackle such a project, but since I don’t, I hope someone will steal the idea (or has already had it independently).

pauli-by-thorsten-2

SkinDiver Project resurrected as Scarification

Posted on September 21, 2012 by Shannon Larratt

About three years ago Baz Black of Dundalk, Ireland did a heart-shaped jewelry project on his girlfriend’s arm using SkinDivers (a simplified variation on the microdermal that looks a little like a labret stud). It healed well, but after three years she was tired of them getting caught on things all the time and decided to remove them. During the removal, since Baz knew that she was going to have some scars from the project no matter what, he suggested that they could improve its appearance by using a dermal punch to convert the piercing project into a skin removal scarification project. I think he came up with a nice way of breathing new life into a dying mod.

bazblack-skindiver-to-scarification

Hanya Skin Removal Backpiece Update

Posted on September 19, 2012 by Shannon Larratt

Over five years ago I posted a photo of this incredible full-back hanya mask skin removal scarification by cross-spectrum body modification master Thorsten Sekira, then at Modified World in Munich, Germany, but now at Silver Studio (silverstudio.at) in Vienna, Austria. As is not surprising, the piece has healed evenly and without complication. Given the chaotic nature of the background, it’s impressive that it stands out as well as it does — and if you compare the picture posted in 2007 with these two pictures (posted a short while apart, as you can tell because the one on the right has additional tattooing), the wearer has been slowly filling in the background with ink, keeping the hanya mask as negative space so the scar will continue to grow more prominent as their body art evolves.

thorstenscar1

I’m only giving you a tiny glimpse into his large body of work, but another related scar that Thorsten did is this Kirin (a deer-like dragon for lack of a better introduction to its rich and complex mythology which you can search out for yourself), on untattooed skin this time, and using more traditional cutting rather than heavy-lined skin removal. In these photos it is of course healed, and again, you can see that it is nice and consistent, even though it’s on skin that experiences significant movement and abuse and can be quite difficult to get ideal results on.

thorstenscar2

As I mentioned, Thorsten is one of those guys that’s capable of anything — piercings, suspension, implants, ear reconstruction, scarification, and even tattooing. I say “even” tattooing because it’s not uncommon to find piercers who are into other mods, but most of the time there’s a real line between the tattoo world and the rest of the modification world. To be honest, it’s probably one of our biggest problems as a subculture. On that note I want to finish off with a silly little tattoo he poked — I’m sure it’s obvious, but this is German for “right” and “left”. For those forgetful, always-getting-lost sorts I suppose? Unfortunately it only works in sandals with carefully chosen strap designs. Oh, and I like the subtle typographical touch of slightly deviating the baseline of the text so as to make it look like it’s been shaken (or stomped) a bit out of place.

thorstenfeet

Life is PAIN

Posted on August 18, 2012 by Shannon Larratt

Here’s a giant PAIN-ful text skin removal by Gato Piercer out of Bogota, done in an hour and a half of peeling. I should note that I rotated this photo to make the text easier to read and see — it’s on a leg and was photo’d standing up. The only concern I have is that the text is not quite in a straight line, but I’m going to assume that’s just from the swelling from the procedure rather than the artist making the mistake of putting the stencil on while the person was sitting down rather than standing. Because scarification artists are typically piercers not tattoo artists, this mistake can happen — although I would assume that’s not the case here because Gato is plenty experienced. As ~~always~~ often, click to zoom.

Why do men have nipples?

Posted on November 12, 2010 by Rob

There’s an easy answer to that question, they have nipples so they can be removed.

The excellent removal and suturing job was done by none other than the multi-talented Efix Roy from D-Markation in Quebec. Also, if you happen to be in the Toronto area next week, Efix will be stopping by Exotix Studios to do some with with Six.

Hopefully we get more pictures as this heals up as I know a lot of people out there would be interested in seeing it.

Daily dose of skin removal.

Posted on December 1, 2009 by Rachel

caleigh green had her cutting done by Efix while he was doing a guest spot at Tatouage Royal in Montreal. If you want to find him on a regular day, check out D-Markation in Quebec City. There is something a little surreal about this photo. The texture in the skin removal section comes through. I feel like I can touch it.

See more in “Efix Scarification Gallery“ (Scarification)