It’s been too long since we’ve put up anything by the lovely Christiane of Oslo; in order to fix that… a really well executed (and may I say “pretty”) floral cutting.

Christiane can be reached via: http://www.pinpoint-piercing.no/

Things are quiet at Scarwars central.
My hectic work schedule has crept to a halt (which means the book/shirts ship on Monday!) for the time being and it’s time to slow down and spend some holiday time with the family.

I’ve just made a batch of deviled eggs (with bacon and truffle salt) and Claire whipped up some tasty froot loop treats; soon we’ll be in the car headed for the P5 Compound and 4 days of relaxation and present swapping.

My present to you guys/gals is this fine cutting from our good friend Thorsten. Done at SW2 in LA and documented by the spirit of Christmas himself, Atom Moore.

Happy Holidays!

Rata just sent over a whole bunch of new cuttings; the first to get featured is this tattoo/scarification hybrid. The outlines were standard scalpel scarification, with the shading portions done with a tattoo machine.

This technique has a lot of promise- we’ll check back with Rata to see how things heal up.

I promised Tiana that I wouldn’t embarrass her on her birthday by making a post here on the scarblog. But since her birthday has come and gone….

Here’s a great shot that Atom took at the SW3 event in Philly. I’m fairly sure the removal piece was done by Ryan Ouellette of PBA. I probably should have checked before I started working on this update… but cookies and Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince distracted me.

When you think of badass characters from South of the Border, you probably think of two things: Danny Trejo and Brian Decker. Brian had this to say about this hybrid cutting/branding Sugar Skull:

“I’m contemplating completely substituting skin removal with hyfrecator filling, as it’s much quicker and the results are seemingly better, in my opinion”

This piece was done at Scar Wars 3 in Philadelphia in 2007, which means in this photo it is almost 2 years old. Sam scars so much more dramatically than the average person, which is part of the reason that I love working on her. I have some pics of her other side which will go up when I get back from Vegas!

This piece was done at Scar Wars 2 in LA, which was 3, maybe 4 years ago?? Man, time flies….
Anyway, this is what it looks like as of a couple days ago. Brian Decker was working on this piece while I was watching, and holding Sam’s hand, offering my support. He asked if i wanted to help out and I jumped at the chance. We pretty much split the piece down the middle, him working on one side, and myself on the other.

I just received a few more pics from Sam of the work I did on her ribs which I will post later today or tomorrow. And if you are in the Santa Cruz area, you can check out Sam and her boyfriend at their new studio Way Body Arts.

Photo of Mikey Collins by Jared Anderson.

If your travel plans will take you through Cathedral City, California and you find yourself wanting a new scar; be warned: City officials have declared scarification a “public nuisance” and have banned it along with other extreme body modifications.

The ban, which passed 4-0* (with Councilman Paul Marchand abstaining) was spearheaded by Councilman Greg Pettis and has been put in place as “pre-emptive measure to maintain the health and safety of the community”.

The community, which boasts a single shop offering scarification/branding, will no doubt sleep safer tonight due to the efforts of Mister Pettis and the members of the Council.

Pettis voted against a fellow councilman’s attempt to get Cathedral City’s medical marijuana dispensaries banned in April of 2009.

Regulation is inevitable on a local and national level. While cutting/branding still is still a very small part of commercially available body modification practices it will no doubt be included with the much more common Body Piercing/Tattoo regulations. I would have liked to see Pettis and his fellow Councilmembers spend the extra time in talking with the lone shop that provides this service on how to set minimum standards in place. Perhaps Greg Pettis and Cathedral City prefer outright bans instead of working on solutions that allow it’s citizens the right to do to their bodies what they see fit.

You have to wonder what’s next?

* There are conflicting reports on the final vote. Mydesert.com has the vote at 4-0, with Daylife.com reporting 3-1.

This is a cutting of Harley Davidson skull logo that I did recently. As a Harley rider myself, I was pretty stoked to do this. We’ve all seen biker tattoos, but not too many biker scarification pieces. It’s about time bikers stepped up to the bad assery that this guy did. Even though it’s a on the simpler side, I really enjoyed doing this piece.