Artist Cris Alex recently transformed a male model into a classic Silver Surfer cover using body paint.
Update: I would like to make a correction to the original story. Firstly, Cris Alex is not the model in the pictures. She is the photographer and a special effects makeup artist. We also mistakenly called her a “he”. Thank you to Ms. Alex for the clarification and my apologies for the error.
Original Story: I’ll admit to not being a hardcore follower of the cosplay community. That being the case, I am still routinely blown away by the visual feats that cosplayers sometimes pull off. Body paint especially, is something that fascinates me. When you get down to it, the human body has limited space. Seeing people use it as a canvas to recreate famous (and often complicated) characters is something that I find to be flat out fascinating. This is the especially the case when you’re talking about works of art like Cris Alex’s recent rendition of Marvel’s Silver Surfer.
Rather than using body paint to create a realistic version of the cosmic hero, Alex, a special effects artist, decorated a male model with a special paint scheme designed to recreate the Surfer as he appeared in a classic comic cover (issue 20, volume 3). She then used “strong lighting” to “flatten the appearance of the body paint” while photographing the finished work. The end result are pictures the model looks less like a person covered in paint and more like a piece of comic art that’s leapt off the page.
According to Alex, painting the model took about six hours. Constructing the surf board and rock props in the photo took another seven hours. The hardest part however, was making sure the image looked properly flat. “The image was only intended for a very specific view point,” she explained to The Escapist. “The hardest part was to make sure the 2-dimensional illusion was maintained at the correct angle.” Alex’s Silver Surfer photo shoot and more can be viewed at her personal website. Take a look and let us know what you think.
Source: Cris Alex
