3 tattoo artists share the wildest ink they've seen and done, from eyeballs to a penis tattoo

• Three NYC-based tattoo artists shared the wildest ink they've seen or done.
• Two of the artists said they consider eyeball tattoos to be shocking.

Like all artwork, tattoos are subjective. But there are some designs or placements that even tattoo artists consider to be wild.

Barry Hua is a fine-line tattoo artist based in Brooklyn who specializes in large-scale floral design. Hua, who goes by the alias Unloveable.nyc on social media, has clients from all over the world who visit his studio for custom designs.

Meanwhile, Ashleigh Ketner is a tattoo artist and owner of High Hopes Tattoo, a studio in Bushwick, Brooklyn, that celebrates emerging queer artists and clients. Ketner told Insider she opened the studio in 2020 because she wanted to create an "inviting, warm, and safe space" for queer communities, especially after growing up in North Carolina, where she said those communities were lacking at the time.

Jaz Paulino, a senior tattoo artist, said she has been working at High Hopes for just under a year at the time of writing. Paulino told Insider she has been tattooing since 2014, and she specializes in a variety of styles, including black-and-gray, Americana, and Japanese.

Insider spoke to Hua, Ketner, and Paulino about the wildest tattoos they've seen or done through the years.

Eyeball tattoos are always shocking, Ketner says

"I think placement is normally one of the things that might make it wild," Ketner told Insider.

"Like, someone who has their whole head done or their whole face, or the people who do the blacks of their eyes, which we do not do. I would not ever recommend that for anyone," she added.

Eyeball tattoos, which involve injecting ink into the white of the eye, have several potential health risks, including perforation of the eye or retinal detachment which can lead to blindness; infection inside the eye which can lead to blindness; bleeding and infection at the injection sites; and sensitivity to light, according to the NSW Government Health website.

After a series of cases where eyeball tattoos went wrong, the procedure was banned in several US states, including Oklahoma, Indiana, and Washington, according to WebMD.

Like Ketner, Hua said he considers eyeball tattoos to be a bold choice. And while he once considered face tattoos to be surprising, he said his opinion has changed in recent years.

"Anything that may seem wild today will eventually be common in the future. For example, when Mike Tyson got his face tattooed, it was a crazy wild thing at the time, but nowadays face tattoos are very common," Hua said.

According to The Sun, Tyson originally planned to get heart tattoos on his face in 2003 before his tattoo artist, Victor Whitmill, strongly advised him against the idea and instead gave him a tribal design. Tyson spoke about the tattoo in the 2008 documentary, "Tyson," saying it represents his "warrior status," The Sun reports.

Paulino once tattooed a man's penis

Paulino told Insider that the wildest tattoo she has ever done was around six years ago, when she tattooed a black-and-gray snake-scale design on a man's penis. She said the tattoo took around two hours to complete.

"It was pretty early in my career and I did it for this very reason, so that whenever someone asks, I have this story to tell," Paulino said.

"I have an image, if you want," she added. (Insider chose not to take her up on the offer.)

Like eyeball tattoos, there are potential health risks involved with penis tattoos, including infection, Paulino said.

"You can imagine that the healing process for this particular placement must be very difficult. With any tattoo, you are more prone to the possibility of infection simply because you have broken the skin. This is naturally the case with the body in general, but I imagine this sensitive area undergoing the process of getting a tattoo and having to heal itself? Tough," Paulino said.

"As tattoo artists, we are already taking many safety precautions on a day to day for any part of the body. For this particular part, I for sure did more than glove up. Every artist is different, but do what feels right to you," she added.