Talk of cutting your nose to spite your face! This Brazilian man is going all out to morph himself into some of his favourite mythological characters.
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Over the course of a decade, Fernando Franco de Oliveira has covered almost every inch of his body in ink and had a series of surgeries to give himself horns, a forked tongue, and pointed orc ears.
The Brazilian tattoo artist has even gone as far as cutting his nose. His inspiration? Skull imagery and The Lord of the Rings.
De Oliveira owns a tattoo studio in Tatui, a southern city in Brazil, close to Sao Paulo and believes he is ‘the main attraction of my own studio’.
About 70 percent of people who see me on the street, they want to take photos with me and they find me interesting
In an interview with CTVNews.ca, he said although he still gets stared at by strangers, his friends and family have gotten around to his new look and accept him for who he is.
Most of my friends are already used to my appearance...When I first started tattooing myself and doing all these modifications, it was a big shock to them.
How it started
He first started covering himself head-to-feet with tattoos of dragons, clowns, bulldogs and other creatures. That was in 2006 and it took him eight years to get his body covered in ink; a journey he described as:
by far the most painful experience I've gone through.
The more inked he got, the bolder he became in his quest to completely alter his appearance in other ways too.
De Oliveira began by stretching out his ear lobes; then injecting ink into his eyes turning them black; adding horns to his head; replacing his teeth with vampire dentures; and even splitting his tongue in half.
He also completely modified his facial tattoos by dying his skin blue and had his ears re-shaped to resemble those of an orc – a race of monstrous humanoids who represent the corrupted versions of elves and men in J.R.R. Tolkien’s ‘The Lord of the Rings’.
Of all these, the one modification he found the most challenging was the surgery he had in March to remove his nose. He said it took several months to heal
But I would have to say that the most life-impacting, impacting modification I've done was with my nose.It's still very painful because when I take a shower a lot of water goes into my nose.
I have God in my heart
Naturally, De Oliveira has had to live with the judgment and stares from people many of whom think he is a Satanist or Satan himself. But he says he does not let that get to him so much.
...I come across as someone terrifying. But the truth is, I'm not. I have God in my heart.
No, this is not the end of his transformation.
De Oliveira said he still has a few more alterations to make such as narrowing his jawline and getting rid of excess skin to resemble a skull. He also hopes to attach more horns to his head to complete his transformation.
Everybody -- most people in the world -- they're all alike. They're the same. And I wanted to be different. I want to stick out.
