Kay Pike’s Body Paint Cosplay Brings Comics Art to Life

A few months ago, artist and cosplayer Kay Pike embarked on a fascinating new project. She's using body paint to transform herself into various characters from comics and animation. Rather than translating their looks into real world terms, in the manner of the traditional cosplay she had previously done, she's now incorporating the highlights, shadows, and contours of comic book art.

Each of her short Instagram videos begins with what looks like a stationery, two-dimensional piece of artwork. Then she moves, and it becomes clear how the two-dimensional image has been applied to her three dimensional body. With the female characters she's done, it's particularly interesting to see the comic book ideals of a female body overlaid onto an actual female body. And in turn, when she plays male characters like Colossus, she camouflages her own shape with painterly illusions.

We've embedded several of her videos below, but you can see them all on her Instagram, and watch her paint on Twitch.