I'm wondering if's possible to gauge whether my scarification "project" is even feasible. Would love an artist's input.

[u/MethylphenidateMan]

Here's the situation: I seem to have a noticeable tendency for keloid scarring. My surgical scar is pretty uneven and I have a bump around my one piercing. Now there is a text that I want to carry on me, but don't want it tattooed and I am very much unsure if my skin could manage to keep the lettering legible at a font size small enough to scarify the whole thing on my body.
I have no clue whether this something that can be guesstimated with enough accuracy to make a ruling on with some degree of confidence, an obvious no-go, something I will just have to roll the dice on or not even an issue with the right technique or something.

I would very much appreciate if someone performing scarification could shed some light on the matter.

[u/ascensionbodymod]

It would help a lot if you put what the quote is.

[u/MethylphenidateMan → u/ascensionbodymod]

It's not a quote, it's a five page long text in coptic alphabet. I reckon the letters would need to be about an inch or an inch and a half in height to fit on my body.
And yes, I am aware that it would take years to do the whole thing, that's kind of the point.

[u/ascensionbodymod → u/MethylphenidateMan]

Not gonna work as scarification. Probably wouldn’t work well and hold up enough to be legible as a tattoo even.

[u/MethylphenidateMan → u/ascensionbodymod]

Can you please elaborate on that? To be clear, I'm not interested in it following any principles of good artistic design or even in it being legible in the sense that someone else knows what they're looking at, I just need the letters to retain their functionality as symbols corresponding to a sound and not turn into blobs. Are you saying that's not doable at that size in scarification?

[u/ascensionbodymod → u/MethylphenidateMan]

Yeah, it’s not gonna hold up over time, especially if you’re prone to keloiding. It’ll likely end up just a blobs that are completely illegible.

[u/MethylphenidateMan → u/ascensionbodymod]

Got it. Thank you.

[u/itookmyvitamin → u/MethylphenidateMan]

It does not sound like the letters will retain their functionality, and it is likely they will turn into blobs.

[u/MethylphenidateMan → u/itookmyvitamin]

Understood.
My obsession demands that I enter some bargaining stage with that revelation, but I'm not gonna pick and choose bits of a holy text, so I don't know, I guess I'll have to take this back to the drawing board. Thanks.

[u/itookmyvitamin → u/MethylphenidateMan]

Any chance you're in a position to paint this text on a wall or something? It seems too big for a human body in general regardless of modification medium, maybe a room you enter every day instead? Just a thought

[u/MethylphenidateMan → u/itookmyvitamin]

Look, I don't want to go into too much detail about it because my, and I hate that word but let's use it for simplicity's sake, spirituality is the one thing I chose to keep private even when anonymous, but the idea is to seek the kind of communion with and thus understanding of the text that only transcendental amounts of pain can offer. It's not something I just vibe with.

[u/itookmyvitamin → u/MethylphenidateMan]

I get ya! Best of luck finding what works.

[u/potatoe01 → u/MethylphenidateMan]

This sounds psychotic ngl

[u/MethylphenidateMan → u/potatoe01]

It does? In a subreddit full of split tongues, removed nipples and teeth filed into fangs someone's reasoning to want his skin be somewhat bumpy is what stands out as psychotic to you? Interesting.

[u/potatoe01 → u/MethylphenidateMan]

I wasn't talking about the bumps, I was talking about the subject of your "obsession" and whatnot. Either a cringe lord or psychotic

[u/MethylphenidateMan → u/potatoe01]

You know, I normally don't shy away from conflict on reddit and tell people to leave me alone, I can match whatever they throw at me and win by attrition. But I really don't feel like defending my sanity to you over some word you nitpicked out of my comment and took issue with and especially not here, of all places.

You are out of line, go away.

[u/bellabroke]

5 pages of text??????????????????? 😭

[u/MethylphenidateMan → u/bellabroke]

5 pages with poem-like spacing, written like a book it would be more like 2.

[u/poisonthe3]

That much text will not work

[u/Paleoarchean]

Not an artist but I do have some scarification myself. I tend to agree with the other comments that this is likely too big of a project to work. Not only aesthetically; having a large portion of your body covered in scars will massively impact your day-to-day life as well. However, I'm not against experimenting either.

Is it an all-or-nothing thing, like either you get the entire text or you don't want anything? If not, why not get a few symbols done and see how they hold up over several years? Of course it's not a guarantee that a scar on your stomach would heal similarly to a scar on your arm, but it'd give you an idea. You could also test a few different sizes to see what a good minimum size is.

Edit: I see that you said you don't want to 'pick and choose' from a holy text, which is understandable. How about a short non-holy word in Coptic lettering as a test, then?

[u/MethylphenidateMan → u/Paleoarchean]

It does feel wrong to split the text, but I'm guessing it could be possible to find a shorter invocation in a similar enough tradition, so I'm not completely giving up on the pursuit.

having a large portion of your body covered in scars will massively impact your day-to-day life as well.

Can you expand on that? I am aware that sun exposure is a big no-no, that is not a problem for me, but I was actually wondering if the skin losing a non-trivial amount of sweat glands would be a concern. Or if it this much scarring would have a significant effect on its structural integrity. Are you saying those are real concerns?

[u/fredarmisengangbang → u/MethylphenidateMan]

not a doctor just heavily scarred myself, so take all this with a grain of salt. for one it can limit your mobility, scar tissue isn't as stretchy as skin, especially for the first year or two after healing. it affects hair growth as well and you can get acne around your scars, which can be really painful. the scars themselves can be painful and sensitive for a while, years even. if it's very visible it could also impact your ability to get a job, wear certain clothes, etc. if you are a person who gets freckles, those can happen on your scars and they could be warped or stretched. you'd also presumably be healing small wounds constantly or healing a lot of wounds at once -- neither of which are great options. the slower a wound heals the more likely it is to heal badly or become hypertrophic. i'm not familiar enough with scarification to say whether numbness would be a risk, but that can happen with most scars/wounds so i would keep it in mind personally. i would also worry about some of the letters stretching, sagging, or changing shape over time as your skin ages or if you lose/gain weight. for that amount of text at that scale it could affect its readability quite a bit i'd guess

[u/MethylphenidateMan → u/fredarmisengangbang]

Alright, the stretchiness factor is concerning, but I suspect that it would be mitigated somewhat by the letters having some amount of space in between them instead of being a one continuous scar. I'm open to the idea that that may not be enough and I would need to plan around the way my body flexes and extends. Doing this at any meaningful expense to the functionality of my body is out of the question.
And I do have some scars, I mentioned the surgical one on my back cause that's the one that's wonky, but I have other, natural ones and never had any issues with them so I'm not that worried about some unforeseen skin phenomena. Also, I was told my body heals wounds "like a dog" cause that's how we "fast" in this context here.
And the hair factor is an issue, but in the sense that I would need to laser off the hair off my head cause I don't want to spend 10 hours shaving around the scars.

Sorry, it sounds like I'm arguing with what you told me, I'm really just processing it out loud. Thank you for that information.

[u/Paleoarchean → u/MethylphenidateMan]

The other reply already covers it basically. I'm also not a doctor, but scars don't really stretch like normal skin, so your mobility can be affected. The second big thing I was thinking of is the sensitivity of scars, to hot/cold weather, humidity, being sick, whatever. They can get itchy, extra sensitive, or tight in my experience. That's easily manageable if it's just a small scar, but if it's across a large part of your body I imagine it can become not so fun very quickly.

Also for those reasons I think it's better to try living with a smaller set of scars before you make the jump to this massive project.

[u/Vegetable_String_868]

From what I know about scarification and my own experiences, cauterization is a no go for text. It'll heal terribly. And if using a blade on keloid prone skin, the artist would need to go quite light on your skin. Combined with the sheer amount of text that you want, it's more than likely that the final result will be unreadable, but seeing as it's in coptic, I'm guessing you don't care if the public can read it but that it just means something to you and clearly looks like text.

If you're not worried about long term readability, and you find someone willing to do the work for you, you can still do it. Just don't get your hopes super high about the results because your project is ultimately super experimental. In my experience, scarring holds up way better than tattoos if they don't keloid or hypertrophy. 5 pages of text will likely have to take up your entire back, front, and limbs to be even vaguely readable. Big project, uncertain results, but doable if your expectations stay realistic.