Eyeball tattoos are slowing creeping in to the edges of our collective consciousness, slowing showing signs of life. The exteme practice has only been performed for the last ten years or so – and then, only on a very small number of people around the world. Considered to be one of the most extreme body mods that you can get, wearing a new color on the whites of your eyes (called the sclera) is pretty irresistible to some.
Now we want to stress before you take a look through these pics that if you are considering getting eyeball tattoos aka scleral tattoos, or just the one side done, that you should “see” a professional. Although the practice is legal in the majority of the world, does not mean that someone is trained to do it.
Considering the delicate nature of the tissue to be tattooed (i.e. your eyeball!) makes it very important that they don’t stuff it up – or you could potentially wind up being blinded.
The pioneer of eyeball tattooing is Luna Cobra, an Australia body mod expert who first tried (successfully) to do it in 2007 on three different people. Over the last 9+ years, he’s gotta even better at it too, as you do with practice! Many of the pictures below will be of people who have come to see Luna. He travels the world to do eyeball tatts these days. While you’ll find some imitators out there, this guy is the real deal.
He also practices cartilage removal, ear pointing (for those cool pixie ears), implants, nullo, piercings, scarification, tattoos, tongue splitting, and transdermals. Heard of all those except nullo? Nullo’s the extreme body mod that removes parts of your body, like your belly button, or a nipple.
If you’re thinking about getting an eyeball tattoo make sure that find someone who has practiced the tattoo technique many times (yes, on real, live people) and you trust them as well.
Eyeball tattoos are permanent. If you suddenly hate the color purple in 10 years, or want to land yourself a job in finance, then you’re going to be fresh out of luck. Unlike regular tattoos, you can’t cover them up, there’s no thick coat of makeup that will go over your eye. And because it’s tattooed on the sclera of your eye rather than the iris this means that a colored contact lens won’t cover it anyway. You end up hating it? Sorry buddy.
So, ready to get on to the pictures? We thought so. Have a browse through these snaps – many of them will be from customers of Luna Cobra himself. They’re all real people just like us who one day decided, “Hey, what the hell. This is what I really want!”, and then went out there and got it done.
Are you that wild?
1. Yellow Left Eye
You don’t just have to choose to get back eyeballs tattooed, as you can see by this guy’s pic above. Or maybe he didn’t want to follow through when he was about to get the other one done? He’s alone got a nice set of other mods, the labret spacer, dimple piercings, eyebrow piercings, a dermal forehead piercing, a large septum piercing and big spacers in his ears. This guy is obviously committed to the life and think he looks pretty good! What do you think, yay or nay? And is that a dermal implant we spy up the top of his forehead?
2. The Black Eye
This girl looks like a galaxy, don’t you think? It looks like one side of her face is trying to highlight the duality of her personality. The black eyeball tattoo is super enhanced with her thick black eyeliner and sculpted long black lashes. With the scribble tattoos along the side of her face, they go really well together. This girl is extremely committed to the facial piercings. It really does look like a smattering of stars, concentrated around her mouth. She obviously visits a very, very experienced piercist to get such perfect symmetry.
3. Deep Blue Like the Ocean
Deep blue eyeball tattoos really look trippy combined with the deep brown of this guys eyes. While our preference for eyeball tattoos is a contrasting effect, this guy obviously has other ideas. He doesn’t appear to have as many piercings as the other couple of people we’ve seen (just a little one under the eye out to the side, if you’d missed it), however maybe they’re body piercings instead of facial piercings. Body piercings were traditionally more popular due to the fact that you could cover them up.
4. All Black Babe
Not only is this chick wearing some absolutely rocking jet black eye makeup and huge jet black lashes, she’s also got almost jet black eyes, too. Tattooing the eyes black can give that cartoon look if you have a dark iris or put in dark contact lenses to go with it. She’s also got many facial piercings that really complement the look. We really like the fang piercings combined with the large septum and dimples. Her black hair and collar just complete the look – we bet this chick is an alt model.
5. This Black Eye
Well, there’s a close up, if ever we saw one! Hope you’re not creeped out by up close shots haha! This guy has some stunning blue grey eyes that he’s chosen to offset with black. As you can see, by the way that he’s pulled his eye open, the ink goes way up into the eye socket – there’s no white there either. This means that no matter hoe wide you open your eyes you’re not going to see any white. The ink also goes way into the inner corner of the eye. When not done properly you may still get some white.
6. Milky Blue
Eyeball tattoos like this one have been done where you still get some of the white showing through, and even patches of white. It gives a cool milky, swirly effect rather than an overall flat color. We’d really like to see the rest of his face tatts cause we reckon that they would be really boss! The eyeball tattoo also goes really well with this nose piercing – a rivet. If you choose to get an eyeball tatt you might like to think about what hardware will go best with your new look.
7. Black n Blue
Another up close shot of someone who’s got some beautiful blue gray eyes that they’ve rimmed with a black outer. What do you think about eyeball tattoos without any other body mods? A good look? Or you think it’s better with some piercings, tatts, or dermal implants? You can see again by the way that they’re holding their eye open that the black extends up into the eye socket. Eyeball tattoos are a big commitment – and it may mean adding extra body mods that you hadn’t thought of!
8. All Green
This guy has his matching game on point! Notice how he’s got the color of his eyeball tattoos matching the ring of his spacers. It goes really well with the blud of his labret ring and the black dual nose piercing. His friend definitely likes it! We’ve even got the background of the pic matching up with his mods – what a cool photoshoot. If you get an eyeball piercing you know that you are going to have to do a ton of photoshoots and hit up Insta just so that you can show it off!
9. Miss Pink
Blue and green should never be seen, but pink and green? Okay then. If you’re a massive fan of pink then you might choose a pink for your eyeball tattoo like this chick right here. While we’re not sure about the color contrast on this one, we’re sure she’s a big fan. See the forehead rivet up on the left there? It’s looking a little infected. If your piercings are starting to get infected it’s best to follow aftercare several times a day and take a course of antibiotics. If it doesn’t go away, see your piercist or your doctor.
10. My Black Eye
To be honest, it’s not his eyeball tatt that we noticed the first time we glanced at this pic – it’s the lack of eyebrows and the wicked face tattoo coming up over his lip! This guy has gone unique with his facial art, and it’s not something that we see often. Obviously an artist himself, his face is like stylized art – and we dig it! You might like to change up your hair after your eyeball tattoos. Hair that hangs in your eyes will obscure everyone’s view of your new body mod, so it might be time to shave it off.
11. Multi Color Dream
Now this one is very interesting! This tatt has two different colors all on the one sclera. On the outside of the iris this person has chosen a deep magenta, and around the rest of the sclera there is a lovely blue color. While the ring around the iris is more globs that a definite line, it definitely has a dramatic effect. You would need a very talented eyeball tattooist to even try and attempt to get something like this done.
12. Baby Blues
Don’t have blue eyes? Don’t worry! You can get your sclera tattooed baby blue instead like this guy right here. Forget the fact that he looks like boy band material, and look at how cool the bright blue is. This color will work well with deep brown eyes as he has. We also like the addition of a septum ring combined with a small black nose ring.
13. Eyes n Eyebrows
Another baby blue and brown eyed combo. This guy not only has his eye tattooed by his goatee and his eyebrows too – and we’re pretty sure that’s not just because he can’t grow facial hair judging by the looks of his five o’clock shadow there.
14. Rock On
When you’ve got no mods left to tick off the list what do you do? Tatts? Check. Piercings? Check. Spacers? Check. Split tongue? Check. Eyeball tatt? Nope, haven’t got it yet, that one’s a winner! This guy is definitely taking body modding to the extreme.
15. Blood Red Eyes
While most of us only get bloody eyeballs from a serious night out on the town or a serious amount of crying, this guy will have them forever permanantly. Maybe he did it to disguise his permanent hangover? We don’t know. All we know is that it takes some serious balls to go all blood red. Kudos to you, guy.
16. Devil’s Reject
This pretty devil’s reject has also gone for the blood red look – and we think it suits her perfectly! Complemented with a matching red head scarf, this is how extreme body mods (and tatts for that matter!) can be made to look super hot. We’re glad that the devil rejected her!
17. My Black Eyes
Black sure is a popular choice for eyeball tattoos, isn’t it? You can see in this pic that the tattooing hasn’t quite been done correctly – there’s a little white space up on his eye next to his iris that we can see. Your body mods don’t have to be perfect though. As humans, we are flawed, so why not show off some imperfections, like this one?
18. Best Friends
These two are obviously the tightest friends that you will ever come across. Not only do they have matching extreme scrawling facial tattoos, they’ve also got matching black scleral tattoos! We like that they’ve at least got a bit of different hardware in their faces. While they do match, they don’t match too much. What do you think?
19. Freedom
We’re going to run in here and take that tattoo Freedom – right there, above his eyebrow. Because that’s what body modifications are all about. The freedom to do what you want to your body. The freedom to look and be exactly what and who you want to be. And that’s why people get eye tattoos. Sure, it’s not the done thing. Sure, it’ll freak people out. But you have the freedom to choose to do it – and that’s what it’s all about.
20. Tribal Black
Another guy who doesn’t do his body mods halfway! What do we spy here? Some tribal facial tattoos, a nose rivet, some ear piercings, a large spacer, a dermal implant, and – oh yes! – some black eyeball tattoos. This guy’s irises are so dark that it really makes him look as if his whole eyeball is indeed black. We like how the tribal tattoos really frame the face, and the dots, or circles, really complete the whole thing.
21. Not an Eyeball Tattoo
Nope, you can’t get regular designs tattooed onto your eyeball, like the one above. The method that would need to be used to do this (a regular tattoo gun) has the ability to cause far too much damage to the eye. That’s why only the cloudy tattoo method is used presently. It injects ink between two layers of the eye to give the cloud effect that you see in the pictures of these tattoos. If you want something like the above design then you better start brushing up on your Photoshop skills!
22. Purple Pixie
What an awesome color! This lilac makes a great contrast for dark brown eyes, don’t you think? Eyeball tattoos can look even more stand out with the right makeup like these large wing tips this girl has drawn on. The black matches her spacers and hair and makes the eyes pop even more than they would usually.
23. Just One Blye
How happy is this guy? It’s probably because he’s pretty pleased with himself that he hooked himself up with an eyeball tatt. It looks like you might still be employeable in a non alt setting with one of these too – we’re pretty sure that his shirt reads Comcast authorized contractor. Yup, confirmed!
24. My Blue Eyes
If your eyes are already big and beautiful, getting an eyeball tattoo will make them stand out even more. This chick has chosen a bright blue to go with her dark brown eyes and it works well. She’s also go a few facial piercings – not a little and not a lot – a monroe piercing, sternum piercing, nose piercing, and dermal piercing near her eye. The effects make her a bit of a stand out hottie.
And there you have it guys! 24 of the coolest eyeball tattoos going around. We’re not saying they’re for everyone, and you better think really hard before you get one – after all, they’re going to be with you for life. When you’re hitting up the nursing home you’ll probably be the coolest person going around, no doubt, but it really is a big life decision.
If you’re set on getting one, think about what colors would best complement your iris, you can even break out the color wheel and have a look what matches come up. Ask other’s opinions, especially your tattooists, and always stay safe and go with a professional.
