Woman spends $120K on body modifications to morph into a 'blue eyes white dragon'

·4 min read
BRISBANE, AUSTRALIA - MAY 28, 2020: AMBER LUKE, 25, from Brisbane, Australia has 600 tattoos covering her face and body. She first filmed with Truly last year, revealing her blue tattooed eyes which blinded her for three weeks. Since then, she has continued to add to her collection with stretched ear lobes, more tattoos, and plans to get a Brazilian Butt Lift. Her journey into body modification began when she was diagnosed with severe clinical depression at 16-years-old. She explained the reasons behind her extreme look to Truly: "I know it sounds very materialistic that I want to change myself but imagine hating yourself so much that you couldn't even look in a mirror or step outside your house. It was just, it was a horrific way to live." Amber has now spent $50,000 on tattoos, and $70,000 overall on body modifications. She joked that the high cost makes her mum cry, but Amber doesn't "plan on stopping anytime soon". Her next procedure will be a Brazilian Butt Lift, which she has gained 10 kilos for, as the fat will be injected into her butt. She said: "A lot of people will give me scrutiny for this because, you know, 'Why not just go to the gym'?" Amber continued: "I'm lazy, I'd rather pay the 15 grand." Now she feels much more content and has been with her partner Sam for six months. "He is absolutely amazing," she said. "There's not anything that I do or say that scares him away." PHOTOGRAPH BY Joshua Maguire / Barcroft Studios / Future Publishing - NOTE: This Photo Can Only Be Used Within Context With The Information Provided In The Metadata (Photo credit should read Joshua Maguire/Barcroft Media via Getty Images)
Amber Luke, from Brisbane, Australia has 600 tattoos covering her face and body. (Joshua Maguire/Barcroft Media via Getty Images)

A heavily-tattooed Australian woman is revealing she went through $120,000 worth of body modifications to morph from a blond-haired teen to what she describes on Instagram as a “blue eyes white dragon.”

Amber Luke, 25, recently shared a selfie on her Instagram Stories under the caption “body modification is the ultimate form of self-expression.” She also has a section in her Instagram account dedicated to before and after photos of her surgeries, including breast augmentation and a butt enhancement.

Among other things, Luke has a split tongue, lip tattoo, gauged ears, tattoos on nearly every part of her body and has even tattooed the sclera (whites of her eyes) blue.

Luke has shared photos of herself pre-transformation on Instagram, noting that she was “catatonically depressed, suicidal and was a walking dead girl.” She added, “I was numb. I hated myself [the] majority of the time - that hatred ran deep. It tormented me.”

Now, Luke wrote, she’s “totally transformed myself into someone [I’m] proud of being. I’m a strong woman who knows exactly what she wants and who she is.”

Luke, who declined to comment to Yahoo Life, has 47,500 followers on Instagram, including fans who regularly fill the comments of her posts with fire emojis. “Amazing you’re a work of art!” one wrote in a recent post. “Mega legendary creature,” another said.

Luke shared in a recent Instagram Story post that she’s spent $120,000 on body modifications so far. And, while she hasn’t indicated whether she plans to do more, she regularly updates her posts with photos of new tattoos.

Related video: Blue eyeball tattoos allegedly left woman blind for 3 weeks

But, while body modifications are popular in some circles, experts warn that they can be dangerous to your health.

“Surgery is a challenge for the healthiest of patients,” Dr. Edward S. Lee, an associate professor of surgery at the Rutgers New Jersey Medical School, tells Yahoo Life. “A larger body contouring operation, like having breasts done…we compare that to running a marathon. You need several months to recover.”

Every surgery comes with a risk of complications, including infection, Lee says, and it’s even greater when someone regularly has procedures done. “If you do something like get a tattoo and then have breast implants put in, and you’re only spacing them out a little, you put yourself at a slightly higher risk of infection,” Lee says.

*** EXCLUSIVE - VIDEO AVAILABLE *** BRISBANE, AUSTRALIA - 10 AUGUST 2019: Amber Luke posing in her house. A 24-YEAR-OLD woman is so dedicated to her extreme look that she had her eyeballs tattooed blue and was blinded for three weeks. Amber Luke, from Brisbane, Australia, has gone from 0 to over 200 tattoos in under seven years and has even had her eyeballs tattooed bright blue and tongue split. She was diagnosed with diagnosed with severe clinical depression at just 15 years old. But the model got her first tattoo done at the age of 16 and claims it felt like a release of negative energy for her. Since then she hasnt stopped and has recently started getting body modifications such as a breast augmentation and plans a Brazilian butt lift. Now, her aim is to be 100% covered in tattoos by the time she is 25. Photograph by Dean Swindell / Barcroft Media (Photo credit should read Dean Swindell / Barcroft Media / Barcroft Media via Getty Images)
Amber Luke got her first tattoo done at the age of 16 and claims it felt like a release of negative energy for her. Since then she hasnt stopped and has recently started getting body modifications such as a breast augmentation and plans a Brazilian butt lift. (Dean Swindell / Barcroft Media / Barcroft Media via Getty Images)

Lee is especially wary of extreme body modifications, like splitting the tongue. Aesthetic and function aside, “the people who are doing it are usually not licensed practitioners. The materials you are using are questionable in terms of sterility. Also, the tongue does bleed quite a lot,” Lee says.

Even just tattoos come with the risk of communicable diseases, like HIV and hepatitis C, if they’re not done in a sterile environment, Dr. Gary Goldenberg, an assistant clinical professor of dermatology at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City, tells Yahoo Life. “Other concerns are infections, such as staph,” he says.

Tattoos also change, Goldenberg points out. “Some tattoos can fade with time,” he says. “As the skin ages, it becomes more wrinkly and loose, potentially changing or distorting the way the tattoo looks.

Sclera tattoos are especially dangerous, Vivian Shibayama, an optometrist with UCLA Health, tells Yahoo Life. “Whitening the whites of your eyes is extremely dangerous,” she says. “It involves removing a thin surface of the eye called the conjunctiva, which protects the ocular surface. It could lead to infection, perforation and blindness.” Shibayama’s advice: “Don’t do it.”

Lee urges people interested in body modifications — especially extreme body modifications — to think hard before diving in. “These are permanent,” he says. “You cannot undo a sclera tattoo.”

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