I had heard over and over that tattooing the soles of the feet was tricky and usually didn't take but it didn't matter much to me anyway, I wanted a design made of scar tissue, not subdermal ink, to be etched into my body. Unfortunately even after reading numerous experiences and viewing the entire scarification gallery I had yet to hear of a case of someone placing a scarification piece on this particular area and I had a good idea why. As a child (around the age or 7 or 8) it was very common for me to filet the skin from the soles of my feet. For months I would not let it heal, walking would be agonizing yet I would just cut more and more flesh away. When I would finally stop the recutting it would heal slowly, but completely. After a few months there would be nothing, no scar, no mark or any other hint of what I had done. The soles of the feet just don't like to scar.
At A Glance Author Uberkitty Contact Uberkitty@bme.anon IAM Uberkitty When A month ago Artist Self Done Location North Carolina I decided not to let this stop me. While planning a cat related full body theme one of things it occurred to me to do was to somehow cut, or brand, paw prints into the bottom of my feet. I feel in love with the idea despite the fact I knew it probably would not work. My original plan was to try branding, after all every one of the "failed" modifications I made to my feet as a child had been done with some type of blade, perhaps fire was a better idea.
I searched on the internet for pictures of animal prints. I found a wonderful zoological site that had pictures of actual prints, still in the ground, of various species including somewhere around 16 cats. They sadly didn't have the jaguar prints I was looking for but I decided that puma prints would suffice given they are native to my area (some have even been sited just a couple miles from my home.) I saved the picture then manipulated it so that when printed the size would fit my foot exactly as I wanted and the color contrast was good enough for me to easily trace the edges of the print. I printed a copy and made it into stencil by cutting out the inside with manicure scissors (they were so small it was very easy to work in the tight space.) I then went to Walmart looking for a soldering iron but ended up coming back with a wood burner/engraver when I couldn't find one.
Before actually attempting the scarification I drew the paw print on the bottoms of my feet several times to make sure I liked it and was ready for it to be replaced by a permanent version. When the time came and I felt I was ready I traced the stencil on my right foot using a surgical marker. Because they last so long I just left it there for two days to make sure the placement was perfect and the stencil hadn't shifted or done anything weird. Content with everything I drew over it again to make the lines dark and thickened them since scarification pieces tend to spread out while healing. I set up the wood burner and let it warm up for five minutes (as the directions said.)
Once everything was ready and it was time to start I ran into a problem. The wood burner turned out to be a rather clumsy tool and when coupled with the odd position I needed to sit in to properly brand my foot it wasn't all that accurate. Instead of risking a botched brand I unplugged it and let it cool.
I reverted to plan B. I have a few one time use scalpels and I brought one out. While I was much more comfortable with cutting my foot I knew I had a new problem. The design covered two different parts of my foot: the ball of the foot, which is relatively thick and tough. I figured it only had a 5% chance at best of scaring; and the sensitive arch of my foot. Being that I've never cut the arch I had no idea what the chance of scaring would be but it definitely seemed infinitely higher. I really didn't want half of it to scar well and the other half to heal over completely so I decided to only cut the toes of the paw print (the part that was on the ball of my foot) and only then if that scared correctly I would then go back and cut the heel of the print (which was in the arch of my foot.)
I took out the new scalpel and attentively made the first cut. I didn't feel anything and I didn't see it cut through any skin so I went back over it and pressed down harder. Again I didn't feel anything but this time I saw it open the skin up. Because the sole of my foot was so tough it was very difficult to the feel the cutting at first so I relied totally on sight to make sure I didn't go to deep. One I finished the first round of cutting I went back over it and cut deeper. This time I *did* feel it and blood began to ooze up. When I finished cutting the four circles I washed my foot off with an antiseptic and bandaged it. Walking stung for the first day but was not unbearable. After the first day it felt much more like walking on bruises until day five in which there was no pain at all.
The cutting itself was interesting. When the cuts were made the skin opened up and formed a sort of furrow, due to all the movement involved in walking this stayed open quite well for the first four days or so. No bleeding or scabbing, just a deep, open grooves of skin with little circular islands of flesh floating in the middle. I was very temped to just remove the flesh from centers but while this would work well on this part I was not willing to remove the flesh of the arch of my foot in the larger part of the design so I left them alone.
I didn't scrub it at all and the only irritant I used was hydrogen peroxide. Even then with as deep and the cuts were and the attention I gave to them after about five days the wounds closed up. I tired to open them back up and it worked for a while but ultimately it was a losing battle and gave up and let them close. About a week ago the some of the skin around the edges had died and peeled off. As of now there is very little trace of the cutting I did and in my experience even the small part that remains will disappear within the next several months. I knew going into this it was most likely not going to work so I can't say the failure saddens me. I do hope to try once more sometime in the future though. I want to see if having it professionally branded will produce good results. If that too heals completely I will admit this modification is just not meant to be and move on to other things.