Woman spends millions covering entire body and face with tattoos

A woman has spent more than Sh2.7 million (£20,000) covering her entire body with tattoos – including turning her eyeballs blue.

Amber Breeana Luke, 24, got her first inking when she was just 16 because she wanted to “know what it feels like”, and she immediately caught the bug.

Her first design was simple old-fashioned calligraphy which read ‘you can keep knocking, but won’t knock me down; no love lost, no love found’.

But now, every inch of her body is covered with stunning designs, including flowers, skulls, animals and block patterns.

Amber, from New South Wales, Australia, said: “At first it was because I wanted to know what the feeling was like – I craved it even though I had no idea what it felt like. Once the needle penetrated my skin, it felt like home.

“My passion developed when I was 20 years old, I started to get more heavily tattooed.

“The feeling I got from getting tattooed was like no other I had experienced – I literally felt the negative energy disperse from my body, minute by minute.”

Amber, who works as an apprentice tattooist while studying to become a traffic controller, isn’t exactly sure how many tattoos she has in total, having stopped counting when she reached 150 – but she thinks she’s had at least 100 more since then.

Her passion has set her back about $40,500AUS, which is about £20,000.

She also her tongue split in two and a silicone implant in her eye to make her look like a pixie.

Perhaps her most shocking tattoo – and Amber’s favourite – is her eyeballs, which she has had coloured in bright blue.

She said: “My eyeballs caused me the most immense pain I’ve endured so far, but they’re worth it.

“Every morning when I wake up and look at my eyeballs, it makes me happy because blue is my absolute favourite colour.”

Her love for tattoos coincided with her deciding to get help with her mental health struggles after an extremely difficult few years.

She said: “My upbringing was great. My mother worked her hardest all the time and gave me everything I needed.

“I was extremely lonely though.

“I’m an only child, and because my mother worked so many hours – dad wasn’t really in the picture – I hardly got to see her. And, over time, I developed an immense desire to never be alone.

“Depression and anxiety developed at age 15, Borderline Personality Disorder with Schizophrenic traits came a little bit later on.”

But everything changes as she celebrated her 20th birthday.

She said: “I decided I wanted to stop hating myself at age 20.

“The hatred I harboured in my heart for my image was relentlessly brutal. My depression played a huge part in it, but my perspective of myself was shunned so much that I would avoid leaving the house for weeks at a time.”

She said: “Of all of those traumatic events, there was one other-worldly experience. I won’t go into to much detail, but when I was hanging there, blacking out, I heard a heavenly presence tell me “Amber, it’s not your time”’.

“That’s when I felt someone unravel the rope around my neck and I fell to the floor, crying and hyperventilating.

“I can still hear the voice to this day.”

Amber regularly posts photos of her body on social media as she hopes to inspire people to love their body, while promoting a positive example of body modification and heavy tattooing.

She said: “People are very quick to look at someone and profile them.

“We should all try and take a step back and wonder how creative and passionate that person must be to express themselves like that. ‘Instead of shunning someone, look at their beauty – I mean come on, it’s 2020.

“The support I receive online is phenomenal. And people are quite open-minded these days.”

Source : SDE