Insights shared at Venezuela tattoo expo

Tattoos have different meaning for everyone. Some people consider them as odd and waste of time but some other people regard them as a medium to display their love for alternative art. For the latter group of people there are tattoo expos that are held each year at various places across the world. Some people truly devote themselves to the exciting and unique world of tattoos and begin to lead a life that has an appearance of their own choice. Tattoos can be made in every possible shape, size and design and people keep trying new techniques to make them more unique than they already are.

The tattoo expo held at Venezuela is one of the popular tattoo expos and it happens to be an annual event. The Venezuela tattoo expo 2013 was a four day event and it began on January 23, 2013 and ended on January 27, 2013. This was the third event in a row and it displayed some extreme tattoos plus body art that left the people speechless. Not only did the convention ha unique body art and tattoos but it also had implants and piercing. The people who love tattoos and body art will find this tattoo expo like a paradise.

The people who indulge in tattoos do it mostly for fun but there are some people who have valid reasons for all the tattoos they have. This year’s tattoo expo at Venezuela was a success and had a lot of unique art at display. Matt Gone who hails from the United States is also addressed by the name of ‘human check board’ and this name is an outcome of all the tattoos and body art he has on his body. Matt has almost all his body covered in body art and tattoos and he has some very rational reasons for them.

He told that he has many birth defects on his body which he did not want people to see and treat him differently and that is why he took the aid of tattoos to hide those defects. The ‘vampire woman’ whose real name is Maria and she belongs to Mexico considers her tattoos as a nice form of expressing herself. Many other tattoo lovers attended this amazing event to get a look at some great art. The event also included tattoo workshops, some fashion shows and concerts to entertain the audience.

The Game gets a Lisa “left eye” Lopes inspired tattoo

Trends keep coming and going and some of them tend to stay and grow even popular with time. Tattoos have been around for quite some time now and their popularity seem to increase with time. Some people consider tattoos and body art as a freak show while there are others who regard them as a unique form of art. Tattoos are also considered as a wonderful medium to express and display one’s personality. Many famous personalities have tattoos that look great and also send a message. Tattoos can be inked in all shapes and sizes and mostly people get them in order to support a cause or as a mode of self expression.

 

Jayceon Terrell Taylor who is best known as The Game was recently in news for his new tattoo. The Game is basically a rapper and actor who hail from the United States and has made his mark especially in the field of rapping. This rapper makes the headlines for various reasons and this time it is regarding his recent tattoo. The Game has recently got a tattoo that is inspired by none other than Lisa Lopes. Lisa is well known as Left Eye Lopes and she too was a famous rapper who died in a road accident in the year 2002.

Her tragic death left everyone in shock and deprived the music world of a great talent. The Game recently got a tattoo that refreshed the memories of the wonderful rapper once again. This was his way of extending his tribute and respects to the rapping queen. The Game had this tattoo inked on his ribs and posted a picture on instagram account. The popular rapper is also planning to pay his tribute to another departed rapper, Aaliyah in the same manner.

The Game said that he was planning to get a tattoo dedicated to Aaliyah on his other ribs. This gesture to extend tribute is definitely unique and wonderful but the two rappers are definitely worth it. The recent tattoo on the ribs of Game looks spectacular and is inspired from Left Eye’s Dia Le Los Muertos Version. People hope that the next one dedicated to Aaliyah will also be equally wonderful and unique. This tattoo done by The Game comes forward as an inspiration and people will follow his footsteps of getting tattoos of famous people.

DIY Subinicision Regret and Closure

It’s pretty rare for people to reverse meatotomies and subincisions — if anything, they tend to grow longer rather than shorter — but it does happen. Sometimes it’s just because people enjoy modifying their bits in may different ways (this is covered in detail in the Meet Tommy book), and at other times it has to do with regrets, either of the individual themselves (sometimes people cut themselves in a sort of “sexual frenzy” and get carried away, pushing their mods farther than they are ready for) or their worries about how others will respond.

Patrick Kielty (of Body Alter in Worksop, England who you may remember from this recent achilles piercing post) was recently called in to repair a self-done subincision. The wearer seemed unsure from the start about what they had done, and for the first week kept it hidden away and wrapped up in tissue paper. Realizing the problem wasn’t going to solve itself, he went to Patrick for the reconstruction because his subincision “made him feel weird” and “it just needed fixing”. The procedure itself was as you’d expect — cut open the inside edges and stitch it back together. While doing the closure, Patrick also used a small urethral sound to ensure that the urethra was kept at an appropriate size. In addition, because the wearer had originally worn a 15mm PA prior to the splitting, when Patrick closed it up, he left a PA hole, which now holds a captive bead ring.

The pictures continue after the break — they are of course NSFW and “adults only”.

Roland Zwicknapp Wallpaper

At the other end of the spectrum of heavily modified people, you’ve got people like Roland Zwicknapp of Visavajara (visavajara.com). He’s let me share this gorgeous portrait shot of him a few years ago by Ethan Oelman. Click the image below to see it uncropped, or save it from this link for a desktop wallpaper sized image.

Demonic Update

Back in 2008, ModBlog posted pictures of an incredible nostril and septum resculpting with another entry early in the healing and one more four weeks later. I thought it was about time that an update be posted, since Bogotá, Colombia based tattoo artist, piercer, and alternative model Caim Divell (click here for his fan page) is one of the most remarkable looking people in body modification (and BME’s early entries generated one hell of a lot of debate). As you can see he has reduced the size of his horns, which were at one point the largest forehead implants ever installed, but other than that, his look has continued to evolve. There are very few people who have pushed a concept transformation to this degree, and I would argue that living as a demonic embodiment of metal is socially more challenging than being, say, the Lizardman. As I said, there’s more info on Caim’s surgical modifications in the early posts, but I should mention here that they were created by Emilio Gonzalez (mithostattoo.com).

Stretched (6ga) Glass Industrial

I just got an interesting photo from Tommy in Germany, who wears a 4mm (about 6ga) glass bar, made for him by the talented folks at Gorilla Glass. The piercing started as a normal 14ga industrial, and over five years Tommy stretched it up using normal steel rings, never finding any jewelry he really liked until discovering Gorilla Glass. Much of the time he wears two separate short glass plugs, but here in the picture he’s using the 55mm (just over 2″) long glass bar with round ends, secured with O-rings. The bar is quite solid, having survived a few falls, and I suspect with that any guaranteed-concussion blow to the noggin hard enough to break the bar, the broken bar would be the least of his worries.

Ocean Beach Pier Guerrilla Suspension

The Ocean Beach Pier in San Diego is the largest concrete pier on the West Coast, extending almost two thousand feet into an often epic ocean, the kind of misty scene that deserves a soundtrack fit for a moon landing. Third Eye Perception Flesh Suspension (thirdeyeperception.com; who you may remember for the baby-bouncing superman) chose this modern yet primal landscape as the site for an ideal guerrilla suspension. If you like the picture, don’t miss the video.

Silicone-encased Sacred Object Implant

Jonah Wagner’s girlfriend, Namru La Vey, had a lapis lazuli stone disc, something that she’d treasured for thirteen years before giving it to Jonah, making him swear never to lose it. About three years ago Jonah crossed paths with Steve Haworth (stevehaworth.com) at the BMXnet conference, where he asked Steve whether he could build a a silicone implant around the disc — because lapis contains a wide cross-section of minerals, it’s unlikely that it could be safely implanted without being sheathed in a biocompatible scabbard to isolate it. Steve did some experiments to figure out the best way to cast silicone around the stone, and two years later sent Jonah a large silicone cross with the stone suspended in the center. Because of its size, he had Samppa Von Cyborg help out as well by cutting down the implant slightly so it would be more suited to a hand, and finally the pact was sealed as Jonah’s girlfriend, the original holder and gifter of the stone, implanted the cross into Jonah’s hand (with help from their boss Andrea Venhaus) at the Dortmund, Germany studio they all work at, Deep Metal (deepmetal.de).

The pictures below show the project the day of implantation, in November 2012, and in healed pictures taken a few days ago. Same drill as always — click and for the big pic.

Tattoo of Bieber Crown

Now, now, who hasn’t seen celebs trying to pull off things which so do not suit them? In fact, most of us who love their healthy intake of celebrity fodder can simply count the accounts which draw observations such as been there, done that and have the T-Shirt!

Anyhow, coming back to the original point, the subject, ladies and gentlemen is Justin Bieber. Yes, the very same singer of Baby and Somebody to Love (feat Usher) and till recently the ‘J’ in Jelena (a collective term that joins Selena Gomez and Justin Bieber, duh!).

Now as was being said, there are plenty of stupid things that celebs keep on doing to prove a point. In a bid to prove himself as someone who belongs to the male species…. er……that was a mistake, in a bit to prove himself as competent as singer The One Direction, Harry Styles, Bieber has gone ahead and got another tattoo!

This time the tattoo is in the shape of a crown.

The Sense, If Any

If a bold attempt be made to understand Bieber’s choice for his new ink, you may think of only two things. Number one would be that the crown symbolizes the entry of another queen, after Selena has left for good.

Number two would be to signify that he is finally coming in terms with his sexual orientation, true story!

And by the way, you might also be interested to know that the crown is placed right on his chest, the left part as it happens. Need we say more?

Collection of

If you are a Belieber, there is a good chance that you will end up adoring the new ink as much as his existing 4-5 tattoos, if not more. So the crown apparently gets to join his collection of Jesus visage, a bird, an owl and yes Jesus in Hebrew again. Maybe he could get a loin, a badger and a raven’s ink the next time and we will all know how much he loves Harry Potter!

His Competition

Since Justin’s growing collection of tattoos is largely accredited to keeping at par with Harry Styles’ history of body art, it would be safe to say that Justin till has a long way to go. Harry reportedly flaunts 24 tattoos, with another recent addition, the design being on the lines of a ship.

Since Taylor Swift was present while Harry got inked again, what do you think this signifies? The Ship is sinking or long sailed, eh?!

Accidental Lobe Pointing… No More!

So this is what happens when you go to your local Sao Paulo cutter and ask him for an ear pointing and he don’t notice that you’re standing on your head, right? Gawd, I feel like this picture is a caption joke goldmine and I’m letting you down by only writing one. Anyway, what you’re looking at is an earlobe repair/reconstruction, where the first artist built it all pointy-like. The resultant upside-down elf was not too happy with that, so they went down the street to see Rafael Leão Dias at Dhar Shan Body Art in Jundai, who repaired it for them. It still looks a little wonky in the second picture, but it’s likely that the curve of the lobe will smooth slightly as it heals (and it’s certainly not going to be giving boners to gelflings with vertigo any more).

Accidental Lobe Pointing… No More!

So this is what happens when you go to your local Sao Paulo cutter and ask him for an ear pointing and he doesn’t notice that you’re standing on your head, right? Gawd, I feel like this picture is a caption joke goldmine and I’m letting you down by only writing one. Anyway, what you’re looking at is an earlobe repair/reconstruction, where the first artist built it all pointy-like. The resultant upside-down elf was not too happy with that, so they went down the street to see Rafael Leão Dias at Dhar Shan Body Art in Jundai, who repaired it for them. It still looks a little wonky in the second picture, but it’s likely that the curve of the lobe will smooth slightly as it heals (and it’s certainly not going to be giving boners to gelflings with vertigo any more).

Healed Shoulder Scars by John Joyce

Scarab Body Arts‘s John Joyce (scarabbodyarts.com) has oft been featured on ModBlog (including a long interview back in 2008), but given that I’m posting scar follow-ups today, it’s a good time to feature more of his top-of-the-line work, fresh and healed. The first piece shows the scar at four months (the wearer has been previously featured here and here), and the second at seven months.

PS. Do take the time to browse his earlier ModBlog mentions for mountains of similarly brilliant work. You won’t regret it!

Welcome to Florida

I got this from Brandon, mentioned in the previous entry, who owns Foolish Pride in St. Petersburg. It’s a flyer that he found on the street in front of his shop — I’ve censored the studio doing it because I don’t want to drive any business to them. That said, it is an interesting idea, offering an environment where inexperienced people can tattoo each other — I can think of many situations where this could be desired, for example, parents who want their child to tattoo them (which is certainly quite common among children of tattooists, and regular customers or shop friends), or people who want to tattoo or be tattooed by their partner. But to overtly advertise for it? And to do it with this particular wording seems like a recipe for creating legions of kitchen scratchers. What do you think? Great idea? Terrible idea? Good idea done wrong?

Oh, I can’t resist. After having looked at their portfolio, my suspicion that this is a shop to be avoided were confirmed. I gotta share a few pictures from their published portfolio — the stuff that they presumably think best represents the sort of quality they aspire to. It really blows my mind that shops so terrible that they can’t even get flash right consistently seem to be able to pay the rent. It’s really a testament to how incredibly stupid and devoid of self-respect the average person is that shops like this have no problem luring people in tattoos that emphasize cheap prices over talented artists…

The Un-Friday Followup?

I know Rob made a tradition of posting scar follow-ups on Fridays, but I’ve never been good at planning things, and better at doing things when inspiration strikes, so I’m going to post a couple more followups today instead of waiting until week’s end.

This first one is “selective ink rubbing” that Brandon Pearce of Foolish Pride Tattoo Company (foolishpridetattoo.com) in St. Petersburg, Florida did eight months ago. In these pictures you can see it fresh, then at three months, and finally as it is now, at eight months into the healing. As you can see, it’s a normal cutting, but he’s rubbed ink into parts of it (the glasses, eyelashes, and barrette/bow) to accentuate the design, a technique that he’s used in a number of scars he’s done. Click to take a closer look at any of the stages.

I also wanted to show a blackwork-vs-scar sleeve that he’s been slowly building up with linework scars of vegetation like leaves and flowers. You really can’t go wrong with scars over blackwork!

Suspension Scar + Tattoo Job Offer

I got a message from Mike Hill at Broad Street Studio (broadstreetstudio.co.uk) in Bath, Somerset, UK telling me that they’re looking for a new tattoo artist at their studio and asking me whether I’d be willing to post a job ad for him… I told him I couldn’t really do that, but if he could find something interesting for me to post, well, as they say, “one hand washes the other”… So he got me some pictures of a recent scar he did on Tam Smith. Unlike most skin removal scars over tattoos, this is over a Japanese sleeve, rather than over blackwork, and the negative-space it creates interacts with the tattoo rather than standing solo. At first I’d assumed this was a tattoo on a fishing enthusiast, but it’s actually a flesh hook as Tam is part of the suspension community.

If you’re a tattoo artist looking for work (or perhaps even a long-term working vacation in beautiful Bath), get in touch with Mike on Faceobook, or via their shop website. To give you an idea of the sort of shop you’d be stepping into, here’s some work done by Fil, another one of the tattooists that call Broad Street Studio home — that’s Mike’s head top-right (you may recognize it, because Rob featured it back in 2010). Click for a giant look.

400 Hook World Record Suspension

It used to be that when you thought of insane over-the-top implementations of body modification and ritual, South Americans couldn’t be beat. But lately when it comes to bringing the crazy, it’s been impossible to the Russians, what with things like freefall suspension and now this four hundred hook suspension, facilitated in part by Modblog regular Maxim Yampolskiy, who is perhaps best known for his creative and innovative silicone implant work.

The idea was born in mid-December 2012 in the mind of Artem Kovalenko (of Krasnodar’s ArtMod Team) who went on to do the suspension. After reading about a 220-hook world record suspension (which I haven’t seen, but you may recall the 178-hook suspension I posted back in 2006, and the 296-hook suspension from later that year), he decided not just to break it, but to completely shatter it. He contacted Max (of Moscow’s Brutal Forms Group) and Renat Khalitov (of Astrakhan’s Blood Brothers Team) and since Max already had a hundred small hooks ready to go that he’d been hoping to use on something like this, he bought three hundred more and a plane ticket. They all got together in Krasnodar on February 13th, 2013, and because of time limitations on when they could use the space, Max and Renat began throwing hooks about two hours after their flights landed!

Having seen some issues with previous high-hook-count suspensions, Max looked at this as a technical challenge, eventually deciding on placing the majority of the hooks in Artem’s back and then more on his legs. Four hundred hooks means four hundred piercings, which is a gruelling thing to go through with or without a suspension — it wasn’t that long ago that four hundred needles would have been enough to land a play piercing world record! The piercings were done like a duet, with Max doing the piercing with the needle, and Renat instantly inserting the hooks, the two of them acting “like a punching machine”. They took occasional breaks, but managed to get all the hooks placed inside six hours. Rigging, using 200 meters of fishing line laid in parallel to save time, added three or four more hours of work.

Unfortunately by the everything was finished, Artem — to say nothing of Max and Renat — was pretty wiped out so the suspension itself was fairly brief (although it went well). When Artem came down, the hooks came out very quickly, being removed within half an hour. To celebrate their success and record breaking, they took off a couple of days to go snowboarding (Krasnodar is not far from Sochi, where the 2014 Olympic Winter Games will be held). Artem was none-the-worse-for-wear and the suspension experience didn’t limit his ability to enjoy the slopes.

The sharp-eyed may have noticed the white rigging plate. Unlike the metal rigging plates that are commonplace, Max has been developing rigging plates and even Gilson safety hooks using very hard and strong industrial plastics. When I saw them I asked Max whether he had concerns about safety and what their breaking point was, and he told me he figures these places are capable up to at least 3.5 tons — in his testing the metal components break before the plastic fails! Contact Max via his Facebook page if you’re interested in getting custom plastic suspension equipment.