Body modifications

Some people will go to great lengths to stand out in the crowd, which has meant some extreme methods of body modifications over the years. Gone are the days of standard tattoos or piercings, they’re so passe. Nowadays there are many new ways to alter the human body in a way that will make it more unique than it already is. Here are some examples of just how far some people will go just to be different.


3D-Art Implant is any object implanted fully under the skin for the purpose of affecting a sculptural change of the surface. The “invention” and popularization of implants as 3D-Art is credited primarily to artist Steve Haworth, who in early 1994, invented the concept of implanting steel under the skin. Implants can be stretched just like piercings. A good example of this are horn implants—they start as smaller implants, and are then taken out when healed and replaced with slightly larger ones. This process is repeated to achieve the final size.


Branding, perhaps, the most painful of all body modifications, is a process that involves burning the skin in a manner that will result in a permanent scar or mark, usually in a pattern or the shape of a specific symbol. In full-scale branding, the iron is heated hot enough and applied long enough that the resulting wound is a third degree burn, which destroys the nerve. Body modifiers who have chosen this form of scarification claim that due to the extreme pain, this type of scarring is therefore more personal to them and to some extent, more symbolic.

Performed with a traditional tattooing needle, the eye is held open while the pigment is injected directly into the cornea.


Scarification is not a new form of body modification. In primitive societies, members would scar their bodies to note great defeats and hunts. Today scarification is the creative and artistic application of scars in a controlled manner to achieve an aesthetically or spiritually pleasing result. With this particular body modification, cuts are made between 1/4″ and 3/4″ into the skin while the scar tissue is used to imprint words, pictures, and designs upon the body.