A fearless Australian model, Amber Luke, has shared how difficult it is to find traditional work in the modeling industry due to her 99% tattoo coverage throughout her body. She’s gone through intense pain and nearly $25,000 worth of modifications for the unique look that she loves so much.
Boasting tattoos covering nearly every inch of her body, Amber Luke has rightfully earned the nickname “Dragon Girl.” Recently, she discussed how difficult it’s been for her to gain traction as a tattooed model in an industry that is notoriously known for its narrow standards. Despite being one of the more popular models on Instagram and other social media platforms with over 1 million followers combined, finding work from companies within this field remains problematic due to preconceived notions surrounding heavily tattooed individuals.
Recently, Amber “Dragon Girl” Luke sat down with the hosts of Brisbane’s Robin, Terry, and Kip Radio Show to confess that her rise to fame as Dragon Girl hasn’t been quite so lucrative. Although she initially thought becoming a tattoo model would be financially beneficial for her bank account, it has since proven not to be true.
“I’m not going to sugarcoat it,” Luke stated. “(My tattoos) have limited my (employment) options.”
Despite the fact that her tattoos make it more difficult for Luke to be employed as a model, she insists that none of them were applied in vain.
“The way I see it is I don’t want to work for a company that’s shallow-minded (and can’t) look past my image. They won’t look at my work ethic. They won’t look at my morals or my values or what I have to bring to the table.”
During her radio program appearance, she asserted that “everyone has their own opinions of what beauty is,” emphasizing that if people don’t consider her attractive then they can just move along.
“You see these cultures (where people) stretch their necks, their ears, their lips. But at the end of the day, we all are entitled to our opinion, and that’s okay. But, what gets to me is when someone expresses their opinion to me in public and comes up to me and says, ‘Oh, you’re ugly’ or ‘you’ve ruined yourself.’”
The model has no time for the unsolicited comments of strangers she encounters in her daily life.
“It’s very distressing to know that people have that strong opinion, and they can just voice it without any repercussions.”
Luke has gone through much to have her body tattooed, but the most difficult transformation was having her eyes inked blue like a dragon. This process left her partially blind for some time and made it so that she shed tears of blue.
To commemorate the momentous experience, she vowed to get a tattoo – a striking image of a woman shedding blue tears on her chest.
