Widow looking for answers after Quebec man dies in Texas Ironman competition
The widow of a Quebec man who died competing in an Ironman competition is looking for answers.
Fernando Franco de Oliveira is nearly unrecognizable from how he appeared a decade ago.
In those ten years, the Brazilian tattoo artist has covered nearly every part of his body in ink and undergone surgery to give himself horns, a forked tongue, pointed orc ears and even going as far as to cut off his nose.
De Oliveira, who owns a tattoo studio in the southern Brazil city of Tatui 150 kilomtres west of Sao Paulo, says he’s been primarily inspired by skull imagery and “The Lord of The Rings.”
“In a way, I'm like the main attraction of my own studio,” he told CTVNews.ca in a video interview, adding that clients love his appearance and passersby often stop to snap selfies with him.
“About 70 per cent of people who see me on the street, they want to take photos with me and they find me interesting,” he said.
While he draws stares from strangers, de Oliveira says friends and family aren’t shocked by his appearance anymore.
“Most of my friends are already used to my appearance,” de Oliveira said, adding that his family members took some time to get used to his transformation. “When I first started tattooing myself and doing all these modifications, it was a big shock to them.”
In 2006, he started covering himself, head-to-feet, with tattoos of dragons, clowns, bulldogs and other creatures.
His ink is so extensive that he was recognized in 2014 as the most tattooed person in the country by RankBrasil -- a Brazilian organization similar to the Guinness Book of World Records, but which only registers and ratifies records and other oddities in the Latin American country.
De Oliveira calls the eight years he spent getting the tattoos “by far the most painful experience I've gone through.”
But as he inked more and more of his body, he began altering his appearance in other ways too.
De Oliveira began by stretching out his ear lobes; then injecting ink into his eyes turning them black; adding horns to his head; replacing his teeth with vampire dentures; and even splitting his tongue in half.
He eventually covered his facial tattoos by dying his skin blue and had his ears re-shaped to resemble those of an orc – a race of monstrous humanoids who represent the corrupted versions of elves and men in J.R.R. Tolkien’s “The Lord of the Rings”.
“But I would have to say that the most life-impacting, impacting modification I've done was with my nose,” he said, explaining he had it surgically removed in March and it’s taken several months to heal.
“It's still very painful because when I take a shower a lot of water goes into my nose.”
As for enduring the pain of people’s judgment, de Oliveira tries not to let it bother him. Many people think he’s either a Satanist or Satan himself, he said, “because I come across as a someone terrifying.”
“But the truth is, I'm not. I have God in my heart.”
And de Oliveira says his transformation isn’t complete, as he still hopes to narrow his jaw line and get rid of excess skin to more resemble a skull, and also attach more horns to his head.
“Everybody -- most people in the world -- they're all alike. They're the same. And I wanted to be different. I want to stick out.”
The widow of a Quebec man who died competing in an Ironman competition is looking for answers.
Former NDP leader Tom Mulcair says that what's happening now in a trash-littered federal park in Quebec is a perfect metaphor for how the Trudeau government runs things.
The world is seeing a near breakdown of international law amid flagrant rule-breaking in Gaza and Ukraine, multiplying armed conflicts, the rise of authoritarianism and huge rights violations in Sudan, Ethiopia and Myanmar, Amnesty International warned Wednesday as it published its annual report.
A photographer who worked for Megan Thee Stallion said in a lawsuit filed Tuesday that he was forced to watch her have sex, was unfairly fired soon after and was abused as her employee.
Facing pushback from physicians and businesspeople over the coming increase to the capital gains inclusion rate, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his deputy Chrystia Freeland are standing by their plan to target Canada's highest earners.
The Senate passed legislation Tuesday that would force TikTok's China-based parent company to sell the social media platform under the threat of a ban, a contentious move by U.S. lawmakers that's expected to face legal challenges.
People living near a wildfire burning about 15 kilometres southwest of Peace River are being told to evacuate their homes.
The U.S. Senate has passed US$95 billion in war aid to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan, sending the legislation to President Joe Biden after months of delays and contentious debate over how involved the United States should be in foreign wars.
A Winnipeg man said a single date gone wrong led to years of criminal harassment, false arrests, stress and depression.
The giant stone statues guarding the Lions Gate Bridge have been dressed in custom Vancouver Canucks jerseys as the NHL playoffs get underway.
A local Oilers fan is hoping to see his team cut through the postseason, so he can cut his hair.
A family from Laval, Que. is looking for answers... and their father's body. He died on vacation in Cuba and authorities sent someone else's body back to Canada.
A former educational assistant is calling attention to the rising violence in Alberta's classrooms.
The federal government says its plan to increase taxes on capital gains is aimed at wealthy Canadians to achieve “tax fairness.”
At 6'8" and 350 pounds, there is nothing typical about UBC offensive lineman Giovanni Manu, who was born in Tonga and went to high school in Pitt Meadows.
Kevin the cat has been reunited with his family after enduring a harrowing three-day ordeal while lost at Toronto Pearson International Airport earlier this week.
Molly Knight, a Grade 4 student in Nova Scotia, noticed her school library did not have many books on female athletes, so she started her own book drive in hopes of changing that.
Almost 7,000 bars of pure gold were stolen from Pearson International Airport exactly one year ago during an elaborate heist, but so far only a tiny fraction of that stolen loot has been found.