For three weeks, Amber Luke couldn’t see anything at all. The cause wasn’t an illness or an accident — it was a tattoo.
Luke, a model from Brisbane, Australia, is known online as “Blue Eyes White Dragon” and “the Dragon Girl.” Over roughly a decade, she has covered nearly her entire body in more than 600 tattoos, alongside other extreme modifications, in a transformation that has made her one of Australia’s most recognizable body-modification figures.
The Procedure That Went Wrong
One of her most drastic changes was tattooing the whites of her eyes a vivid blue. The process involves injecting ink directly into the sclera with a syringe, repeated several times in each eye.
According to Luke, the procedure didn’t go as planned. “Unfortunately, my artist went too deep into my eyeball,” she said. “I was blind for three weeks. That was pretty brutal.”
A board-certified plastic surgeon who later commented on the case for Fox News said the procedure breaks through the eye’s protective outer layer, which can open the door to infection. Fox News also noted it’s not entirely clear what injury Luke actually sustained — but she has said the temporary vision loss was real, and that she still doesn’t regret it.
From “Plain Jane” to “Dragon Girl”
Before any of this, Luke says she looked like a typical blonde “girl next door.” Old photos she’s shared show her with smooth, unmarked skin and a conventional appearance — a stark contrast to the heavily inked face she has now.
She started getting tattoos at 16, and what began as curiosity grew into what she has called an addiction. Today, her body art includes facial tattoos, a split tongue, pointed ear implants, and cosmetic surgery, on top of the eyeball ink.
A Lifeline, Not Just Ink
For Luke, the transformation isn’t just about appearance. In interviews over the years, she has described going through severe depression, self-hatred and suicidal thoughts before her body modifications began.
“I was so catatonically depressed, suicidal and was a walking dead girl,” she said. “I was numb. I hated myself the majority of the time — that hatred ran deep. It tormented me. Now I’ve totally transformed myself into someone I’m proud of being.”
She’s said her facial tattoos have limited her job options and that she’s faced harsh criticism, including being called a “degenerate” after her first neck tattoo at 20. But she says the positive reactions from strangers and supportive friends and family have outweighed the negativity.
Second Thoughts — Then a Change of Heart
More recently, Luke considered reversing course. She used an AI tool to generate an image of herself with all her tattoos removed — and said the result horrified her.
“I absolutely hated what I saw,” she said. “I f—ing despised it.” She’s since dropped the removal plan, though she has had a handful of tattoos lasered off in the past.
What We Know
Amber Luke, of Brisbane, Australia, has more than 600 tattoos and several other body modifications.
She started tattooing at age 16 and has continued for roughly a decade.
She had her eye whites tattooed blue, which she says left her temporarily blind for about three weeks.
A plastic surgeon says the procedure carries real infection risk by breaching the eye’s protective layer.
Luke has spoken publicly about past depression and suicidal thoughts, crediting her transformation with her self-acceptance.
She recently decided against removing her tattoos after seeing an AI-generated image of her face without ink.
Why This Matters
Body modification has exploded alongside social media, with extreme transformations regularly going viral — and influencers’ claims about safety and cost are often impossible to independently verify. Luke’s story also taps into a broader conversation playing out across the U.S.: how people use visible self-expression to cope with mental health struggles, and how harshly society still judges those choices, especially when it comes to employment and public perception.
Closing
“It’s my body,” Luke has said — and for her, that’s the whole point.