Artist Rakes in Money with Tattoos on Swine and People

A leading service among plastic surgeons is tattoo removal. It’s known as “labor intensive” because the patients must return to the plastic surgeon anywhere from two to six times and let the doc do erasing work with a laser.

Basically, the cosmetic surgeon zaps the ink in the tat with a laser. (Read more about cosmetic tattoo removal.)

But when a tattoo is considered art -- and fetches a king’s ransom -- you gotta think about leaving it on.

Wim Delvoye, a Belgian artist living in Beijing, China, started by tattooing eight pigs with designs reportedly similar to Louis Vuitton logos. (Animal lovers, chill! The porkers, shown below, were anesthetized!) A few swine were inked with Walt Disney characters.


Artist Wim Delvoye and his four-footed canvases
(Ananova.com photo)

After the oinkers have lived a long and productive life, the pig skins will be sold for $120,000 each. (Can you imagine -- a Louis Vuitton football? What a way to get more chicks into the NFL! Can’t you just hear the girl talk now? “They fumbled a Vuitton Beaubourg in the first quarter and then tried an on-side kick with a Mahina XXL clutch in the 4th!”)
(Read more about the tattooed pigs.)

Tattoo Removal

The following will make tattoo removal experts worldwide cringe, but Wim’s latest project was inking an elaborate tat of the Virgin Mary on the back of Tim Steiner, a 32-year-old Swiss man who is cashing in on his tattoo.

Here’s how: Wim did his usual masterful job and sold the artwork on Tim’s back to a German art collector for a cool $275,000. The cash is split among the art gallery that arranged the sale, Wim and Tim. More.


Tim Steiner, a two-legged canvas
(Paolo Foschini photo)

Then, not unlike the pigs, Tim hopefully goes on living a long and productive life. Now, I know what you’re thinking and that’s not it -- Tim does not -- repeat, NOT -- become a football!!

Plastic Surgeons Verboten

Instead, many decades from now, just before Tim is laid down for a dirt nap, the skin of his back is removed and the Virgin Mary tat becomes the sole property of the art dealer who can sell it if he wishes.

And that’s not all. Contractually, Tim must display his back in public three times yearly to art lovers worldwide.

However, plastic surgeons who know how to remove tattoos are verboten in the shows!

Tattoo Removal Docs Barely Keep Up!

Newer Tats are in Braille, on Eyes and Even Used on
Fingers to Create Instant Moustaches

Many plastic, cosmetic and dermatological surgeons offer tattoo removal for those times when people regret ever getting the body art in the first place. (READ: Grew up and got a job!)



Laser tattoo removal. It usually requires three to five or more
appointments to completely vaporize the tattoo ink.

If you’re in the market, read more about tattoo removal. (HINT: You’ll burn far more time and money taking it off than that mad, crazy moment back in the day when you first got it!)

Despite that booming trade in removal, more tats are being applied and in more creative areas of the body. No longer restricted to bulging biceps or on a lady’s trim ankle, tattoos are starting to appear on eyeballs and in Braille, too. Yet another trend is tattooing moustaches on fingers.

Hey, I know what you’re thinking. What’s that part about Braille tattoos? How does that work?

Well, say, you want “Mom” inked onto your bulging bicep. Or your best gal or guy’s name delicately inscribed onto your ankle.

It’s done with a series of raised dots, just like in regular Braille. Only no ink is used. The surgeon (if you can find one) just inserts implantable surgical steel, titanium or medical plastic under the skin.


“Mom” in Braille

And that naturally leads to another one of those “Why-did-nobody-ever-think-of-this-before!” moments.

If you have Braille tats on your hand like in the picture below, you can instantly learn the name of the person with whom you are shaking hands. Just don’t assume everybody is named “Mom.!”



Can’t you win some sort of prize for outside-the-box thinking like that?

And here’s another thought:
You gotta admit writing a “Mom” tattoo in dots, saying “This is mom’s name in a red heart with a wavy wreath and an arrow through it” in Braille is going to take up a lot of arm or ankle space. Not to mention all those hands feeling your biceps and ankles.

It probably would look something like this:



But, hey, more power to them. The sightless have enough challenges in life so if they want Braille tattoos, bring ‘em on!

Removal of Braille tattoos: top scientists have carefully analyzed the issues and ramifications involved and have announced they will think of something soon.

One of the hottest new trends in Tattoos is for men and women who want a moustache -- but only some of the time.

It works like this: just ask your favorite skin ink artist to tattoo your choice of moustaches onto your index finger.

Then, say, you want a disguise or you’re at the guest of honor at the annual Moustache Convention. Why, just hold your finger over your lip.
Presto! Instant soup strainer! How easy could things be?


Removal: Put your hand down.

Tattoos on your eyeball probably would not be your doctor’s favorite choice of body art for you. Besides, it gets unsettling with the needle in the eye and all so we’ll just skip that part.



One guy getting an eyeball Tat, concluded his description about creating a tattoo on his eyeball with the following words of wisdom:

“Now that this experiment has been started, please wait for us to either heal or go blind before trying it!”

Removal of eye tattoos? No known method. Start by crying a lot.

Speaking of dots: at least one tattoo aficionado and artist had inked, numbered dots on the length of her lower leg, below. If you connect all 16,581 dots from the lowest to the highest number, the outline of a giraffe appears. Reason? She’s absolutely nuts about giraffes and has been since childhood. Plus, artists do things entirely for reasons of their own.

Unfortunately, the dots are not raised so the artwork is not accessible to readers of Braille. But with legs like that…..whoops! Never mind! Gee, I almost let loose with some highly politically incorrect male chauvinist pig sexism there. But you get the general concept, I’m sure.


Removal? Basic tattoo removal.