Man Transforms Into Silver Surfer With Comic Accurate Body Paint

StewShearerOld

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Jan 5, 2013
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Man Transforms Into Silver Surfer With Comic Accurate Body Paint


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. <a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/loadingreadyrun/8374-The-Bodypaint-Problem>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 <a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/tag/view/marvel>Marvel's <a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/tag/view/silver%20surfer>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 (<a href=http://marvel.wikia.com/Silver_Surfer_Vol_3_20>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.

[gallery=3637]

Source: Cris Alex


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The Rogue Wolf

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Holy crap, that is amazing. I actually found the picture with his eyes and mouth open to be kind of disturbing just because of the juxtaposition of comic-book coloring and actual human body parts.
 

frizzlebyte

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Despite the repeated use of "he" to refer to the artist, according to the "about" page [http://crisalexmua.com/about/], Cris Alex is actually a "she."

Is she also the model in this shoot? If so, holy crap she's freakin' good at her job.
 

Teoes

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That was a lot more impressive than I was expecting. I saw the thumbnail next to the story and just assumed a picture of the Silver Surfer from the comics had been used. I was thinking "Yes, I know what he looks like - show me the body paint!". Oh. Wow.

Zachary Amaranth said:
I'm not normally too big on cosplay, but colour me impressed.
What you did there.. I see it.
 

MetalMagpie

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frizzlebyte said:
Despite the repeated use of "he" to refer to the artist, according to the "about" page [http://crisalexmua.com/about/], Cris Alex is actually a "she."

Is she also the model in this shoot? If so, holy crap she's freakin' good at her job.
Good spot. I assume the model is someone else and she painted him.
 

MetalMagpie

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StewShearer said:
Artist Cris Alex recently recreated a classic Silver Surfer cover using his own body and a ton of paint.
As pointed out by someone else, Cris Alex is a woman. So I assume the body belongs to someone else. ;)
 

Kaimax

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I thought the preview pic for the article was taken from the comics lol.
 

Thaluikhain

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http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/139091-Body-Pain-Transforms-Main-in-Comic-Accurate-Silver-Surfer

Pain transforms Main? Huh.

Anyhoo, not a fan of the Silver Surfer, but that's impressive.
 

blackrave

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This cosplay requires silver/white lenses to pull off
And opening mouth is a bad idea
 

StewShearerOld

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MetalMagpie said:
StewShearer said:
Artist Cris Alex recently recreated a classic Silver Surfer cover using his own body and a ton of paint.
As pointed out by someone else, Cris Alex is a woman. So I assume the body belongs to someone else. ;)
A silly and deeply regrettable mistake on my part. I checked my sources while writing but somehow I still messed that up. I've written to Ms. Alex to apologize. :/
 

Baresark

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Wow, that is freakin' amazing. I am the biggest Surfer fan around (with the exception of maybe my buddy Ray). I am blown away by this. I wonder if this would work on a more modern rendition of the Surfer, I have a hard time imagining it would on anything not like the Jack Kirby style. Still, for me the best cosplay gallery I have seen.