Kay Pike from Calgary, Canada, is a talented artist and model who spends hours on end skillfully covering herself with body paint to turn into famous superheroes, cartoons, and even villains.
Cosplaying used to be a huge part of Kay Pike’s life, but she just couldn’t sit and sew for hours, after being diagnosed with congenital arthritis in her hips which caused her terrible pain, like she used to do.
Fortunately, in 2015, she discovered ‘cospaint’ during the Edmonton Comic and Entertainment Expo, an intriguing art form that allowed her to transform by using body paint into virtually any comic, cartoon, or video game character.
“I was working at my booth, and the convention staff brought a makeup artist named Lianne Moseley over to me,” the 33-year-old artist told Self.com.
“Her model had bailed on her, and the convention staff knew I’m always down for anything.”
She began to do ‘cospaint’ on her own and found she had a strong talent for it.
She grew better at using her body as a canvas as time went by, and most of her designs are simply awe-inspiring these days.
She spends between 10 and 14 hours on body painting, methodically applying body paint and ensuring that every little detail is just perfect, but I’d say it’s certainly time well spent looking at what she can achieve.
“My typical process is several hours of planning, cleaning, and organizing before painting. Then some basic line-work just as you would for drawing a comic on paper,” Pike said.
“My color-blocking goes lightest to darkest and then I blend and add effects.”
When she finishes applying the body polish, Kay will take some pictures and record some videos for her fans to share on social media, then spend a long time washing off her alter-ego of the day in the shower.
Interestingly, Kay Pike never had any intensive education in art or body painting.
All her life, she had just been playing and experimenting with doing a drawing, and cospaint just made it possible for her to take the art form to a whole new stage.
On Instagram, where she has over two hundred thousand followers, the talented artist shares her amazing transformations but also streams the process live on Twitch, at least twice a week.
Source: Facebook, Kaypikefashion, Oddity Central