It was a pretty early start and a 3 hour drive down to the south coast. Kalima was pretty easy to find and when I got there Quentin was already making a Brew. I needed the coffee and cheeky couple of biscuits to calm my nerves and excitement. We were having a good old chat, when Iestyn must have smelt the Tea and joined us.
Iestyn showed me the design he had done and said that it would look better on my stomach, and it would also make it much easier for two people to work on this area. I loved the design as soon as I saw it. Geometric, intricate and slightly fractal, we played with positioning of the design Iestyn being the perfectionist want the design perfectly centrer on my body, but it turns out my belly button isn't perfectly central to my body. This looked a little odd, So we repositioned the design using my belly button as the centre of the design. Quentin was happy, Iestyn was happy, I was happy!
So I was shaved, cleaned and disinfected and then laid down on the padded bench.
"Ready?"
"Sure, lets go"
The guys spent about an hour with their scalpels cutting the skin along the outline of the design that had been printed on my stomach. It wasn't too painful, on the whole, but every now and again the scalpel would find a more sensitive area and give a real sting, but it was a short lived kick. To be honest the most painful part of the first hour was my arms going numb from having them above my head for so long.
After a break for tea and biscuits they guys crack on with the scarification. They use a pain numbing gel as they will be cutting a little deeper and wider, the second time round the design. The gel stings like a bastard. This is by far the most painful part of the day. It is fire, it is acid, it is lemon juice in the eye... it is over! The pain goes as quickly as it came. After another cup of tea the anaesthetic has taken hold and the team get back to work. It is a very odd sensation to see two, heavily tattoo'd, scarified, branded, body mod'd men in surgical masks, wearing head torches, deeply concentrating, bent over, cutting into the skin of your stomach, and not feeling any sensation on pain.
The pain free cutting doesn't last forever, there are parts that are more sensitive and the cutting on occasions was very painful. Luckily Quentin has an incredibly wide and eclectic taste in music, focusing on the music and tapping my fingers on my chest helps distract me, and draw focus away from the pain. It took about 3 or 4 hours to complete the second phase of the work, with plenty of tea and biscuit breaks, when I was struggling to cope. When we finally finished they cleaned me up and as they were wrapping me up they notice a couple of lines they had missed on the second phase of cutting."No chance, Sorry, I'm done"
The relief of the job being finished was over whelming, it looking incredible, much bigger and bolder than I ever imagined. My bod was shaking from the all adrenalin surging through my body, and I just couldn't face getting back on the table. I confirmed with both Iestyn and Quentin that I was 100% happy with their work and was happy to have my moment of "no more" left as slight imperfection. And hey perfection is over rated anyway.
I got dressed had a very sugary coffee, a handful of biscuits and we stood around chatting about India and Nepal, I would have loved to stay and chat about these wonderful countries, but I had a long drive home, and an overwhelming desire to get home, see the family and get some sleep.
The photo above was taken by Iestyn after finishing the clean up, just before I was wrapped up in cling film.
It is impossible to put into words how professional, talented and dedicated to perfection these two gentleman are. I had spent a huge amount of time researching scarification before I had my first scars done in 2011, Iestyn's name came up over and over again, and when I saw that he was teaching others scarification, it soon became clear he was 'The Man' to go to. So it was a privilege to have him work on my second piece too. Quentin is an absolute gentleman, calm, methodical, and so focused on what the customer wants and needs, it kept me calm and assured at all times. Quentin's portfolio is so long, broad and very impressive so I had 100% confidence in his skills.
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