(BBC News): The sentencing of a convicted criminal with an eyeball tattoo in an Alaskan court has drawn attention to an unusual form of facial decoration – one that is less than a decade old, but winning new converts all the time.

Jason Barnum, 39, who pleaded guilty to the attempted murder of a policeman, has ornate tattoos on his head and part of his face – teeth on his cheek, an eyeball in middle of his forehead. But even more dramatically, the white of his right eye has been tattooed jet black.

Arguing for the prosecution, Anchorage Police Department Chief Mark Mew urged the judge to take a look at Barnum’s face which, he said, showed the convicted criminal had “decided a long time ago that his life was about being hostile to people”.

But, in tattooing his eyeball, was Barnum really expressing hostility to the rest of society? And if our eyes really are the window to our soul what else might a tattooed eyeball say about its owner?

The man who first experimented with injecting ink into an eyeball is a US tattoo artist who goes by the name of Luna Cobra. Far from wanting to look evil, the original goal was to look like the blue-eyed characters from the cult science fiction film, Dune.

“There used to be a private body modification convention that happened every few years in Canada,” Luna Cobra says.

“That year, an old friend had Photoshopped a picture of his eyes to look blue like in Dune. I told him, ‘I think I can do that for real.'”

The next day, Luna Cobra took a syringe and practised on three brave volunteers.

“I’m aware of how insane that sounds, but I’ve been doing this type of thing for my whole life so I wasn’t coming from nowhere with this,” he says.

His technique, which he has modified over the years, involves injecting pigment directly into the eyeball so it rests under the eye’s thin top layer, or conjunctiva.

A single small injection has enough ink to cover about a quarter of the eye. It takes several injections to completely cover the sclera, which is then coloured for life. He has done it for hundreds of people – in blue, green, red and black – from Singapore and Sydney to London and the US.

“If you want to amuse yourself by decorating your eyeball, why not do it?” he says. “I do a lot of things that look like tie-dye or ‘cosmic space’. I think it brings a realm of fantasy into everyday life.”
Looking a little out-of-this world is something that appealed to Kylie Garth, a body piercer who works in Luna Cobra’s Sydney studio. Before deciding to change the colour of her eyeballs, Garth had experimented with a number of body modifications including face tattoos, piercings, elf-like pointed ears and a bifurcated tongue.

“It was mentally intense,” she says of the several injections needed to colour her eyeballs a delicate blue-green, a colour she refers to as sea foam.

“It feels like somebody is poking at your eye, then it feels like strange pressure and then it feels you have a bit of sand in your eye, but there’s no pain.”

One customer who might disagree with this is a Polish rapper, Popek, who was filmed having his eyes tattooed green by Luna Cobra in London. A couple of days later he experienced a painful burning sensation in his eyes that prevented him sleeping.

Fortunately, it was temporary – he was later reported to be considering going back under the needle to darken the tattoos – but opticians warn about a risk of damage to the eyes, and even loss of vision.

Garth says the reaction to her eyes has been universally positive.

“It’s thinking about getting a needle in your eye that makes people say, ‘I can’t believe you did that.’ But I’ve never had anyone say my eyes look scary,” she says.

The same can’t be said of darker tattoos, however.

“I try to keep people away from it, especially if they have a dark iris,” says Luna Cobra.

About one person a week contacts him to inquire about eyeball tattoos – and many want black.

“I tell them you’re going to look frightening forever to the majority of people you encounter. You might find people have trouble connecting with you or looking at you because they can’t follow your iris.”

Luna Cobra says he urges young people to wait until they have a job before getting a black eyeball tattoo, because otherwise they may never get hired.

“I was living on the streets, and I tried to get a job, but of course my beautiful face didn’t allow me to do that,” Barnum said at his sentencing in Anchorage.

But whether or not Barnum intended to shock, many of Luna Cobra’s clients are hoping to do just that. Some dismiss his warnings saying it would be “cool” to frighten people. Others say they don’t care.

(By Joanna Jolly)