Wonder Woman: Body Artist Brings Comic Book Characters To Life

Kay Pike from Calgary, Canada, creates stunning artwork on her body and transforms herself into superheroes and villains from comic franchises Marvel and DC. As well as transforming into characters such as Batman, Superman, Deadpool and Poison Ivy, the artist also recreates manga and video game characters.

The 28-year-old artist and cosplay model, now dedicates her time to live-streaming the transformations to her fans and posting the creations on Youtube.

Kay has always been a comic book fan and her art is inspired by pop culture and her viewers also suggest characters she should transform into. 

She said: “I love beautiful art, I love beautiful comic art. One reason why I want to do pop culture characters is because I like the human connection. Being Rogue, for example, I got to do loads of research and I got to learn about her and I got to talk to people about her."

The most challenging character she has created so far was Liara T’Soni from video game Mass Effect, which took her a painstaking 14 hours to complete.

The artist said: “She is a video games character and they are not meant to be drawn panel after panel. She had so many little buckles and details." 

But Kay likes a bit of a challenge and says she doesn’t want to make things too easy.

“I’m not in this because it’s easy,” she said. “I’m in it because it’s challenging and fun and interactive.”

Patience is the key to Kay’s beautiful art and the entire process of creating a character can take up to around 40 hours. Kay starts by sketching small lines to build up the character inch by inch, and then adds colour to her body.

She said: “That’s when things get fun."

After laying out the colour, she uses black and white inks to make her work stand out and create the comic-book look.  

She added: “10 to 14 hours later, I have a product."

The artist posted her first creation on Reddit and now has thousands of fans tuning into her live-streams.

She said: “The reaction to this has been pretty wild. My first paint that I ever did was Titan. I was lent a palette of 12 reds and I was like: ‘Hey, I like Attack on Titan and I’m going to be this massive gross monster.

"I just painted my face, put it up online and overtime it’s evolved into live-streaming, which is very much a cool, positive hangout space for people."

Ultimately, what Kay loves, isn’t the end result, but getting to talk and connect with others while she is painting.

She said: “The most important thing is people are telling me that I’m helping them rediscover their art again, because they see still me enjoy these things for 10-12 hours, knowing it’s going to be gone in a heartbeat as soon as I step into the shower.

“Every single paint has a story. Every single brushstroke comes in between me talking with someone and that’s what I remember.

“I’m someone with a big heart that wants to paint and connect with humans.”