As someone who spends most of their time behind a computer, I don’t get a chance very often to meet tattooers from various ends of the earth. I’ve decided to get a series of tattoos that I’m calling the “One Hour Tattoo” and I hope to make time lapse videos of all of them. The first tattoo I’ve had done is by Rhys Gordon at InnerVision Tattoo in Sydney, Australia. He drew the skull and cross bones while we were chatting for his interview, which we some how managed not to do! He came out a couple days later to visit with us while we were working in Melbourne and I interviewed him there. I’ll wait to tell you more about Rhys when we post his interview for BMEtv.

Due to weird inconsistencies with the “Auto-Play”, I’ve moved the video to behind the jump. Click the image to go to the post to watch the video or click more.

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It wasn’t until a few people posted asking why I wasn’t writing about Josh in the BME tour trip update. As we’ve been primarily offline, I hadn’t heard or read about what happened. Once a few more posts came in and Nikk sent me links to the two news articles about the alleged murder, I finally understood what had happened. While we try to stay on top of news from around the world, you’ll find when you’re offline and out of the states, it’s not easy to stay connected.

I’ll link you to Shannon’s blog to read more of his thoughts on Josh as I had never met him. He has appeared on Modblog before when Shannon first had his eyes tattooed along with Josh and Pauly, it is sad that the next time we mention him, it’s under these circumstances.

My condolences to those of you that knew Josh and the loved ones that he has left behind. Tanky has asked that you contact her via email for more information if you would like to attend Josh’s memorial service on April 22nd, 2010 in Hamburg, Pennsylvania.

Due to the ongoing investigation, the circumstances mentioned in the article and the fact that  Josh left behind loved ones. Please think of them before posting comments in the comment section.

Where’s BME? Where are the posts? Are you guys okay? Have you frittered away the budget in strip clubs across the world? Those are the sorts of questions I’ve been getting. While I’d love to be on the perfect schedule of making at least one video a day, it’s going to take us a couple weeks to get to that point. Now bear with me while I try to get you caught up to where we are in the world tour. First I want to take a moment and thank H2Ocean.com and Industrial Strength for being our main BME world tour sponsors. They’re making this trip possible and I, as well as the rest of the crew, appreciate it!

I snapped some quick photos of our group. From Left to Right are Darah, Chez, Richard and Megan.

I have exactly 34 minutes of battery life on the flight between Sydney and Melbourne and I’m not sure I’ll be able to finish this post in that time. It simply isn’t possible to recount what we’ve done over such a short time. I’ll do my best to give you an over view and hopefully make you feel like you’re here with us. Some of you came out and showed us around town and for that I couldn’t be more grateful!

In order to get everyone up to speed without creating a massive tl;dr, I’ll try not to go over what Chez has already posted but it’s easy enough to say that the trip started off on a lame first step. We had one thing after another present itself, from drama to suitcases that wouldn’t zip shut, lost laptops to delayed flights, emptied pre-payed phones and more than I will waste any more time writing about. If it wasn’t complicated, it wouldn’t be fun and I wouldn’t trade it for the world on a silver platter.

Click through to read more of the story and what we’ve been up to since we arrived in the country of kangaroos!

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Did you know Alfred Hitchcock’s classic horror flick “The Birds” was originally made to be released as a 3-d movie some 40 years before the hoopla that is “Avatar”? When I was but a young little freakling, my parents took me to Universal Studios theme park where they showed “The Birds” as originally intended, in 3-D. I remember the birds would land on the heads of people just a few rows up from us and peck at their heads and I was in awe of the fact no one was screaming as they were being viciously attacked.

This movie experience gave me nightmares for many, many weeks. It’s around 25 years later and I felt like I was over this ridiculous fear of birds attacking my head until this BME contributor submitted this photo which give me haunting flash backs.

It’s a simple, simple design but striking to me nonetheless. Plus as someone with full head coverage, I think about how a tattoo will look with some hair growing in over it. A bold design like this will still be apparent through a few weeks worth of hair growth, yet subtle enough to not be noticed by everyone right off the bat, which can be a good compromise if subtlety is required.

Tattoo by Brent Cummings Holeshot Tattoo Amherst, Ma.

What do you say when you’re being stared down by a teddy bear who has been ripped open and is offering you his own innards? This is how childhood nightmares are created!

The photo was submitted by Subibkae. The ink was done by Denis decaroli at the Singapore Tattoo Show 2010.

See more in Cartoon Tattoos.

P.S. Today is Rachel’s birthday.  Hopefully I won’t get fired for posting that on ModBlog!  ;)

With a smile that is almost as addictive to look at as her portfolio, Heather Gee wins the prize for being both a bona-fide sweetheart and extremely talented artist who works out of The Illustrated Man in Sydney, Australia. Before calling Sydney her home, Heather’s nomadic spirit took her to various shops throughout Europe, starting first in the United Kingdom, then traveling to Amsterdam for her apprenticeship. I imagine her dedication to the tattoo business combined with her lively personality would make it difficult for any shop, no matter the location, to bid her farewell.

Click through to read the entire interview!

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If you have ever suspended, watched a suspension, thought about suspending or even just enjoyed a photo of a suspension, you should probably go wish this old fart a happy birthday.

This picture took place at the recent Dallas Suspension Practitioners Convention. What this photo doesn’t show well is the fact Allen and Samar are gracefully balanced and rotating on a spinning beam. Photo credit goes to Rolf, who took dozens of awesome pictures of the event.

I came across some recent amputation pictures in the galleries and contacted the IAM member who had submitted them. He gave me the privilege of interviewing him and was extremely open about being a voluntary amputee, his life and his mods.

I feel I was pretty thorough in my questions and I definitely covered all of the basics. However, I know anytime  an interview of this sort goes down, the readers of modblog always have questions they wish were asked. Well, now  is your chance, if you have  ever had any questions you wanted to ask a voluntary amputee, leave them in the comments section and I will pass them on.

Remember, I already interviewed him so the basic how and why questions have been asked already. So, please,  make sure your questions are specific and original. Also, he had done a huge service for us by being so open about a subject rarely talked about, make sure the questions you ask  are respectful of him.

What can I say? I can’t think of a creative title. I do, however, love this photo of tank_girl. Looking at this photo makes me feel happy and isn’t that what body modification should do? Her lobes are at 5/8″ according to the caption on the photo with a hint at her sleeve and some more piercings thrown in for good measure. I was going to say more about the photo itself but this ModBlog, not PhotoBlog so rather than go on about why I happen to be so fond of this particular photo, I’ll let you enjoy this beautiful woman and her beautiful mods.

This is just one of several hundred new photos added to the beta in all categories, so if you haven’t done so yet, hop on over there and check out all the new content. I plan to spend my weekend sewing (which seems far less exciting than what the BME World Tour group is up to)! Have a great weekend my friends and be safe.

Get yourself a bad ass portrait of Lemmy, like this one done by my old friend Shane Munce.  When Shane isn’t on the road doing tattoos of rock stars, or doing tattoos on rock stars he can be found at Olde Media Tattoo in Media, PA.