A man who wants to be a dragon has spent $20,000 on procedures, including inserting horns into his forehead, tattooing his eyeballs, and carving scales into his arms.
30-year-old Joshua Burns from Vancouver, Canada started his ‘dragon journey’ when he was only 19.
The reptile seller and performance artiest had his tongue split, had his ears shaped, earlobes cropped, and tongue dyed violet. He also had silicone ‘horns’ inserted into his forehead.
Tristan Risk, his girlfriend, is very supportive of his plans to be a 100 percent dragon.
Burns, who also wants to get his gums and penis inked, said: “I want to be 100 per cent covered as a dragon, and beat all the world records out there for the most modifications and tattoos. But I also want to look aesthetically pleasing.
“I’m liking where I’m at currently but every time I get another tattoo or another modification, I feel more confident and happier – and it helps with my career.”
He was a teen when he saw someone who had his tongue split and it left him fascinated.
“I saw it and immediately thought, ‘I want that’ because reptiles have split tongues too. I didn’t see any downside to having it,” Burns said. “I already had all these piercings, so it wasn’t that far-fetched for me.”
In 2009, he paid $500 CAD to have his tongue split. “I absolutely loved it when it was finished. I felt like I was becoming the person I was meant to be,” he expressed.
Burns had scarification done in 2017. The procedure involved using a scalpel to cut out parts of his skin to create a scale design.
“I didn’t have any anaesthetic – it was about three times as painful as a tattoo. I livestreamed it so I had to keep it together,” Burns joked. “I’ve also had my eyeballs tattooed. They injected the purple dye in a little spot, and then it spread around my eyeballs.
“I needed ten shots in total to get it right. I have a different relationship to pain than most people because of my work, so it wasn’t too bad for me. It is hard to explain, but it felt like an eyelash stuck in my eye.”
Burns further said: “I was most nervous about getting this done, because if anything did go wrong, I was risking my eyesight.
“So far, it has been absolutely fine though – I need reading glasses now but I don’t think that has anything to do with the tattoos.”
Last year, he set up a YouTube channel where he talks about body modifications.
Burns concluded: “I don’t think I’ll ever stop getting body modifications – new ones come out all the time, so I don’t want to limit myself. But I want them to look good too.
“People in the body modification community are awesome. Some assume we might steal from them because of how we look – but actually we’re probably the most likely to help an old lady cross the road.
“We aren’t bad people. In fact, we’re some of the most genuine people you’ll meet, because we aren’t afraid to express our true selves.”
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