bbc - There are a lot of people who start businesses that really don't know much about tattooing/piercing/branding. Finding someone who is reputable isn't the same as finding someone who is knowledgable. Reputation is only as reliable as the people spreading it. Unfortunately, there are a lot of people who aren't too bright who recommend artists.
I just found this via BME Mod before Client and it fit right in with what I was thinking about while writing the above.

Big cities tend to have better studios who deal in more volume, and correspondingly have more experience in the more extreme mods. Go into a city and talk with someone at a studio there. I once spent about an hour and a half talking to Mad Jack in Chicago about some unique piercings, only to find out that they probably wouldn't have worked. But he knew beforehand that they wouldn't work and why, and was happy to spend the time to educate me.

Educate yourself on the mod you're interested in so that you can tell if your prospective artist knows what (s)he is doing.

Get magazines on the bod mod you're interested in. If there isn't one devoted to branding, get tattooing magazines (there are lots of those). The people featured in the articles (not the ads) are the ones respected in the field.

Attend a tattoo convention - people there will know who knows what they are doing and is good at it. Body mods *are* the kind of thing where it's worth driving 5-600 miles to do the research as well as having it done.

Talk to people that have had scarification done, then decide whether you trust their judgement. When going to a studio ask legitimate, knowledgable questions. If an artist can't answer a question about what muscles and nerves in the area might be affected, go elsewhere. The better places will not service a walk-in - they want to do a consultation, then schedule the work for later.

Always remember that any kind of mod, particularly scarification, can (read that as "possibly," not "probably" Mom!) go really wrong, and that you should plan to spend a lot of time and money on getting this done, and done right. This is *not* a time you want to scrimp to save a few bucks.

Before you start doing research, know *why* you want to do this. "Because it's cool" isn't a good enough reason - eventually it won't be cool, and you can't get rid of it.
Finally - if you're in a hurry to get this done, Don't Do It.

Hope this helps.
Homeless (who has more mods than he should probably admit to)