Zombies. Super Heroes, Hip Hop Stormtroopers... and Bananas ( yes, bananas)!

Pashur's body painted zombie creation on actress, Jennifer Rice

I was hired by a really cool "zombie survival" company called Z-booth to paint people as zombies at Long Beach Comic Con. The convention was full of creative cosplayers, zombie lovers and comic fans. It had everything from pint size Edward Scissorhands characters to break dancing hip-hop stormtroopers! Some of the more entertaining zombies were the people that came dressed as a character and then let me zombie them up. That's how we got Zombie Captain America and Zombie Amy Winehouse. Then there was the Banana....a guy dressed as a banana. Not quite sure what that was about but it was pretty funny!! I zombied up my girlfriend who proceeded to scare people (usually into joining the hordes of undead and becoming zombies themselves). Some other fun requests included sugar skulls and a few black eyes. The convention was a blast, but then again, zombies always are!

Once Upon A Time...

"Mirror Mirror" by Pashur

I returned to one of my favorite events of the year, Hilloween, A Halloween costume party for charity. This year the money raised went to Team Smile - which helps give dental work to kids in need that can't afford it.

"Enchanted" by Pashur

The themes have varied over the years, and this year it was "Fairytales and Nightmares!" What says fairy tales like an enchanted mirror? Thus, I had my body paint design theme for my awesome model, Natalie Heart. I also squeezed in "Hilloween" across the top of the mirror as a bonus touch for the event I was painting at.

This Halloween event had quite a mix of tricks and treats! I also painted a regal golden fairie queen on one of the co-organizers of the event, a zombie on one of the sponsors, a circus performer as Little Red Riding Hood who was attacked by the big bad wolf, and dozens of the event staff as ogres and fairies.

"Golden Fairie Queen" by Pashur

A special big thanks to my team of painters that helped rock it out, Nick Wolfe and Sonya Grafft.

Fantasy Fest 2013

It was another incredible year at Fantasy Fest body painting at Paradise Tattoo in Key West, FL. My crew and I were so slammed this year! I literally started painting at 10am everyday and did not finish until after 11pm on some days!! I knew it would be like this going in, as I was already booked solid with appointments before I even arrived to Key West.

The theme this year was Super Heroes and Villains. It felt like I body painted every Marvel and DC character there was... Poison Ivy, Catwoman, Batgirl, Spiderwoman, Supergirl, Wonder Woman, Sue Storm, Captain America and the like. It’s amazing how many variations people come up with for these characters!  A whole week of naked comic book women, it was like an x-rated version of Comic-Con!

Not everyone went the comic book route with their body paint designs. Here are just but a few of the many designs I body painted this year...

A Native American design with a dreamcatcher.

An abstract design with glitter to match her mask.

A detailed motorcycle.

An evil clown.

Body Painting at Fantasy Fest requires you to paint very fast. You have to be able to crank out high quality body paintings very quickly. Almost every design I body painted this year at Fantasy Fest was done in less than an hour. Some took only 30 minutes, some took 45 minutes, some took the entire hour to body paint. Only three designs I body painted this year took 2 hours, and those were full body designs.

Next year will be incredible as well. The Fantasy Fest theme for October 2014 is Animeted Dreams and Adventures. Only 11 months away...

Body Paint Lingerie

Lingerie demo body painted by Pashur

On Nov 7th, I taught a sold out body paint lingerie workshop in Tampa.

My demo model, showed up in a purple silky robe, which inspired the metallic purple color I chose as the lingerie base. She looked fantastic painted up in purple lingerie, and now I know why she owns a purple robe!

I painted this design while explaining the step by step process to the workshop. The entire design (corset, panties and stockings) took a total of 75 minutes to body paint.

One student in the class, mentioned how easy I broke down the lingerie. I think with any project, a clear guide is extremely important, and once learned gives you the ability to create amazing art. The students were fantastic, and really soaked in the guide I taught them. The result? Well I think they surprised themselves!! It's moments like this that make me really enjoy teaching, seeing students discover in themselves the ability to make something incredible. I think they each created a portfolio worthy piece, I was so proud of them!

Bad Monkey! Salute!

While I was in Florida visiting, my friend Wyndy lined me up a body painting project at Bad Monkey, a military themed bar in Ybor City (Tampa, FL) on Nov 6th.

The bar was decorated with military decor, so I chose a retro military pin up theme of course! The bar's interior also provided lots of photo opportunities for my model, who I had just met the day before. I am so glad she agreed to pose, it really turned out great!

I wanted to show the stages of the bodypainting, so you can see it from start to finish….

Step-by-Step of the design painted.

I’m pretty sure she could have said “drop and give me twenty” to anyone at the bar and they would have happily proceeded to do so! She was a hit!

Son of Monsterpalooza

Adult film star, Lily Lane - body painted by Pashur.

Photo by PictureBoi.

On Saturday, October 12th I body painted at the ultimate Monster Special FX Convention in Burbank, CA... "Son of Monsterpalooza".

My Client.

My client, a humorous horror magazine called, "Girls & Corpses Magazine", wanted me to paint a model half "Girl" and the other half "Corpse" at their convention booth. So I did just that, but with my own spin on things. I painted the model half female beauty, and the other half taken over by an alien corpse, after all - the client did not specify what KIND of corpse.

Adult film star, Lily Lane - body painted by Pashur.
Photo by Pashur.

The model was Burning Angel's adult film star, Lily Lane, so you might be thinking she was nude… but no, much to the attendees disappointment she had to wear a bikini, which was a bit of a challenge to paint around. I had planned to paint Lily for several hours, and an hour into it, the client told me I only had 2 hours left before she had to go do photos with his photographers, that’s the trick to live events, you have to roll with the punches! He also wanted his logo painted on the model, so I hand painted it, with time ticking away! I managed to complete the design in 3 hours, I felt pretty happy about it, despite the surprise time constraints!

Pashur and his model, Lily Lane. 

Photo by PictureBoi.

She was a hit among the crowd, there were plenty of fans of monster corpses, and plenty of fans of girls, so it was a win/win!! We stopped for lots of photo ops and received lots of compliments from monster fans and special FX make up artists. After we took photos, what was I to do next?

Ashley Acosta's Zombie face - painted by Pashur in 10 minutes.

Ashley Acosta, one of the convention attendees wanted me to paint her up as a zombie. So I painted a 10 minute zombie face on her. She loved it. Ashley told me, "You're gonna be a legend". It never hurts to hear that compliment. Speaking of compliments, Ashley got many great compliments on her zombie make up! Her favorite compliment on the make-up came from FaceOff contestant, Miranda Jory.

Then I wanted to check out what all was going on at the event...

I looked through the monster booths which were filled with amazing special FX masks and monsters - a horror fan’s dream come true (or a true nightmare for the squeamish)! A lot of the FaceOff contestants and other FX artists were there, and Jordu Schell was doing monster drawings for $20 which was incredibly fun to watch. A good chunk of my time was spent hanging out with my friends at the European Body Art booth.

Pashur's body paint work with actress,

Dee Wallace Stone (E.T., Cujo, The Frighteners).

Photo by PictureBoi.

The celebrity line up at the event was pretty cool too. I saw Dee Wallace-Stone (E.T, Cujo, The Frighteners), Nastassja Kinski (Cat People), Jeffrey Combs (The Re-Animator), Wings Hauser (Mutants) and actor Akira Takarada from the first Godzilla movie in 1954. What a fun mix of people!

Pashur and his model, Lily Lane. Photo by PictureBoi.

"Son of Monsterpalooza", you are what nightmares are made of (and I mean that in the best way possible)! I can’t wait for next year, at "Second Cousin Removed from Mosterpalooza"!... okay, just Monsterpalooza.

INGLORIOUS ARTIST

Kristin Lee body painted as Beatrix Kiddo from the movie, Kill Bill.

People always say I remind them of Quentin Tarantino due to our similar mannerisms - so when I saw that there was a collective art show based on Quentin Tarantino films, I had to be a part of it. The show: Inglorious Artists.

I decided to body paint the character Beatrix Kiddo (played by Uma Thurman) from the movie Kill Bill, so ideally I needed a blonde model. Luckily my friend and model, Kristin Lee, who is always so wonderfully charismatic was gracious enough to pose for me. Within two hours of the show starting, I lined up the shoes, a fake sword and underwear for the model to wear during the painting process.

I arrived at the Boshin Gallery in downtown Hollywood. Cool art by cool artists lined the walls of the hot room. Kristin was already there and ready to pose. I set up and started body painting Kristin. After a few hours of painting it was down to the final details... which were the patches. I decided to make my own patches that mimicked the real ones. The four patches read... "CAT Wagon" (a reference to "Pussy Wagon" in the Kill Bill movie), "Pashur" (on the lower left), "KL" (Kristin's initials) and "QT" (Quentin Tarantino's initials).

Everyone present loved the body painting. At one point, every single person in the gallery at the same time, had surrounded me watching me paint. People say that watching paint dry is dull, but yet people always stay to watch people get body painted - and I have no complaints about it. One female gallery attendee commented, "I am not usually into the whole nude body paint thing - but you changed my mind." People strolling by stopped to stare in the gallery window of Kristin being body painted. Upon completion of the painting, Kristin posed in the gallery window for a short bit for people to view her as they walked by. With her sword prop, she really got into character which the crowd totally loved. People then lined up to get a picture with Kristin body painted up, as well as pics with her.

The body painting was a success. For a job well done, we celebrated with margaritas at actor Vince Vaughn's restaurant, the Velvet Margarita.

Skin Wars

Skin Wars promo image. Models: Kristin Lee and Simone Dawes.

I have been consulting for an upcoming body art competition TV series called, Skin Wars. While consulting with the client, they asked me to create a promotional image for the show. I did a sketch and sent it to the client for approval. Once approved I called my friends Kristin Lee and Simone Dawes, who are always so great to work with, and asked if they would come pose for the image. They accepted. The models came over to my studio and we got started. I wanted to show that body art is cool, fun, eye catching and colorful - yet is still very sexy. Strategically posed and painted, the models show just that.

Skin Wars will be airing in 2014 on the Game Show Network (GSN). Body Artists will compete to show off their skills, until only one is left. Good luck to those competing.

Kaleidoscope - Sea Apple

"Sea Apple" Body Painting (from my Kaleidoscope Series)

In May 2013, one of my sponsors Kryolan asked me to do a UV body painting at a convention with their UV body paint. My friend Lisa Greenberg was also attending the convention and I had been wanting to paint her for a few years since she is a trained dancer and can pose extremely well. Kryolan UV Paint +  Lisa as my Model = my vision for the latest of my Kaleidoscope series.

The entire design was done with Kryolan UV and Kryolan black body paints (which is a theatrical make up product, not to be mistaken for the spray cans with the similar name "Krylon").

Lisa did  many amazing poses that Thomas Ledford was able to capture with his photography skills. I then used photoshop and manipulated it to make the repeating image to create the Kaldeoscope effect. The end result was an image for my Kaleidoscope series, that looked amazingly like an Australian Sea Apple. I discovered these fascinatingly odd little creatures at an aquarium in Australia when I was visiting. They are a plankton eating creatures that looks like alien plant life with brilliant coloring. Nature is full of so much inspiration!

Halloween Workshop in Virginia

On Tuesday, Aug 20th, my friend Nick Wolfe and I held a surprise Halloween themed workshop in Richmond, VA, with our host Tal Thompson. With less than a week notice, we had 10 people in the workshop. Not too shabby.

We started off teaching the students how to paint skull and zombie designs, because what's more Halloween than skulls and zombies?? During the break, we all went downstairs to get some coffee at the local coffee shop. I think we took the employees by surprise as it was quite the invasion of creepy cool designs! If the coffee hadn't woken up all the customers, the sudden appearance of a pending Zombie Apocalypse certainly did!! They loved it, and insisted on getting pictures with their undead patrons!

A 10 minute demo of a ghost/zombie design

that I painted on my friend Nick during the workshop.

One of the best things about workshops is getting to see old friends and make new ones, nothing like zombies to bring a group together!! The stories that come from such events...for example: When we left, we were pulled over for an expired tag (which luckily had already been fixed)... Nick was still in his zombie ghost make up that I painted him in. The cop said nothing. Absolutely nothing. Now this was a cop who truly had seen it all!

Afterwards, we all went back to Tal's and had an amazing dinner with some of the other attendees, a great end to a great workshop! Thanks to everyone that came out!

Mars Attacks Her Booty!

I was in town visiting my sister in Charlotte, NC on Aug 24th and had a day to myself so I thought I would do some body painting.

My photographer friend Charles of NC Glamour Photo picked me up and we went to his photo studio where I set up and waited for the model to arrive. The model, Amie Raine, arrived on time and was cool off the get go. I painted a green fantasy armor design design on her and we finished with some time to spare. So I had a little time to do a second body art piece on her if she was willing. I had been wanting to do the Mars Attacks piece, but did she have the right hiney for the job? I told her my concept and she was totally game.

First thing I had to do was make sure the shape of her buttocks would be right (you would be surprised how many butt shapes would not have worked). She had the right butt shape for the design, so I began...

Working on the design, upside down. The green is from a previous design I painted on her.

I outlined the piece on her from the position it would be photographed in, and then for the model's comfort - she stood up and I painted the design upside down! For the final touches, I had her lay over a chair to do the detailed line work and squiggly brain parts. Here I was, a real smart ass painting a brain on a butt... the irony. The entire piece took me 75 minutes to paint, albeit the laughter that was ensuing probably added some time!

When I was all done, Amie said, "This is the coolest thing I have ever done." It never hurts to hear that statement.

Charles got great photos of the design on a black background and the next day he sent me the best image from the bunch. My girlfriend found the font online and sent it to me, and with a little photoshop for the background and lettering, the piece was complete.

I might do a sequel to the piece called, Ass Invaders. Time will tell.

A Day in Haight Ashbury

The Outsidelands festival was over and my girlfriend Jennifer and I had a day in San Francisco to check out the city and celebrate her birthday a little more.

The day started off perfect as a tourist, complete with a San Francisco trolley car speeding by, a sight that never gets old!

We stopped at the headquarters of one of my body paint sponsors, Kryolan to check out the latest products and visit with our good friend Joe. As always, much laughter was shared, and make-up was bought!

Then it was onto famous Haight-Ashbury, the hippie haven of a bygone era… okay now it’s just cool shops but still….

We found parking, but needed change for the meter, and low and behold, there was a shop right on the corner to get change… a DONUT shop, and you can’t get change without buying s something…so a pocket full of change and a amazing donut later, we were ready to explore!

We started to explore and realized all we had eaten was that donut and right in front of us was Escape from NY Pizza! Sadly Snake Pliscomb had already escaped.  The pizza however was amazing!

After we ate a slice, we ventured in the mecca of bizarre and unique shops that is The Haight. The shops included...

Loved to Death, an awesome scientifically goth store full of bat skeletons, insects and an array of jewelry and home décor cast from bones…the staff was friendly but decidedly pale of color, which lends credence to my girlfriends theory that the shop is in fact run by Vampires. P-kok Planet a crazy clothing store, and t-shirt shop called Body of the Sheep that was filled with some of the wittiest Star Wars parody designs I have ever seen! Another neat find was Distractions, a steampunk megastore where you could purchase everything from leather top hats to old fashion opera glasses!

To end our day we had Post birthday crepes followed by an awesome cappuccino at Stanza coffee, complete with decorative latte foam art - which is the best cappuccino either of us have had since we were in Spain.

We then headed back to L.A. and marveled at the size of California since we seemed to drive for days!!

Pashur at Outsidelands 2013

Held in the famous Golden Gate Park in San Francisco, Outsidelands is a 3 day music festival, with a killer line up! The festival was so amazing that you quickly forgot about the chilly weather! One of the really cool things going on involved painters through out the park working on massive murals, sponsored by Juxtapoz magazine. Painting in a place surrounded by art and music, makes for a great weekend!

Over the course of the 3 days, I had several people return each day to get painted by me, it felt pretty good! Some of the more unique designs were Monster faces and a dinosaur eating an eyeball. Now if only someone had asked for a monster eating a dinosaur, that was eating an eyeball….oh well, there’s always next year!

During my breaks, I was able to network with other companies, and gain some more exposure for my art. While walking the grounds I saw several other painters - however they didn't have the 2 hour line that I had, so it was nice to know people favored my art! On my breaks and after I finished painting  I got to see bands perform such as... Paul McCartney, NIN, Hall & Oates and the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Such an interesting mix, and I enjoyed them all!

While body painting several Red Hot Chili Pepper fans, I told them that the Red Hot Chili Peppers original band name was the Habanero Homies. They all bought it hook, line and sinker. Of course before they walked away, I revealed to them that I was just kidding….or did I?

Two negative parts of this gig were...
Many people were pushing "Save the Earth" vibes, yet most people treated the grounds like their personal garbage can. The second negative was that trash that was littering the grounds came from over priced, underwhelming, disappointing food!

My evenings were spent at the Marriot Marquis hotel -  it had an amazing view of San Francisco from  the 39th floor lounge, The View. You could see the whole city, and what a cool city it is.

Pashur at Sturgis 2013

It was the 73rd Annual Sturgis Motorcycle Rally in South Dakota, and I was ready to paint! Originally my plan was to paint at Hogs & Heifers, but at the last minute they were unable to open, so I ended up painting over at the Glencoe Campground with fellow body painters, Lacey & Dawn.

I was pretty  proud of all of my body paintings, in fact, the Travel Channel interviewed one of my body painted clients, and one of my customers was interviewed and photographed for Buffalo Chip magazine! Not bad for a few days of work!

I had promo models walking around downtown Sturgis to show off the work that I was doing, and they proved to be quite popular!

Many of the customers were blown away at the level of body painting I was doing - and several of them loved the body painting so much that they slept in the body paint and came back the next day for just a touch up.

Lita Ford rocking the venue!

Usually when I body paint, models love music playing in the background. Well, while body painting at Sturgis, I had live music being rocked out in the same room by Lita Ford, Skid Row and The L.A. Guns. So much better than the ipod!!

Skid Row

L.A. Guns

On Wednesday night I made it over to a place called “ Titty Alley,” ( it’s really called that!) an area where biker women flash for drinks and other craziness. Imagine a biker version of Mardi Gras on Bourbon Street. Trust me, when these woman flash, you better be giving them something!!!

During the evenings, The Flaunt Girls, a burlesque type troop,entertained the teeming masses with killer dance moves mixed with some rather amusing cheese-ball comedy.

I was only there for a few days, but what a few days it was!! I heard great music, painted some great art, and had a blast!

Next stop... Outsidelands

Pashur at Lollapalooza 2013

This was my first year body painting at Lollapalooza in Chicago, what a kick ass time! I love my job!

Once I entered Lollapalooza gates in the heart of downtown, it was a rock take over of Chicago with streets blocked off and about 8-10 stages surrounding  the famous Chicago fountain. The Original High 5 Man, a hysterical character dressed in crazy colors and looking like a redneck super hero, was on the scene giving high fives to everyone in sight. Yeah, I high 5’d him, how could you not????

Pashur painting - the long body paint line awaits.

Lucky for me, I was set up right next to a stage where bands were doing small sets and small doses of Q&A - so I was able to hear cool tunes while I body painted and learn a bit about the bands without ever leaving (which was great as I had a crazy long line - see the long line in the pic?). Thankfully I had two cool assistants to keep the line from dissolving into chaos and chat with the patrons while they were waiting to get painted.

Over the three day event I did around 300 small body paintings, ranging from cute to bizarre, including requests such as Unicorns farting rainbows, Bass Nectar elephants, T-Rex spewing a rainbow, a clown eating pizza, an angry fish and a wicked lotus flower. Hey, it was Lollapalooza.

"New Order" playing their epic tunes.

One of the perks during my breaks was that I got to check out a few bands perform on the other stages. I feel lucky to have seen New Order perform several of their classics, along with Queens of the Stone Age, Ellie Goulding, and NIN perform! Not a bad way to spend your break time. The best part was on the last night after I was done body painting, I was able to attend "The Cure" concert and see them rock out for their entire show. It was incredible. INCREDIBLE.

"The Cure" rocking out!

Unfortunately I didn't get to see The Killers, Imagine Dragons or Indie Pop because of how busy I was, but I did get to see two bands that rocked out in the booth I was body painting in. The bands were (1) Wild Cub - who had an 80's retro sound, and (2) ReignWolf - a solo artist with a passion for gritty rock. It poured out of each song. At one point he played the drums, guitar and sang at the same time... impressive.

Food highlights included a hot dog from a place called Chubby Weiners and scoring a free cheeseburger from a chick I painted at another festival! Woo hoo!

Next stop: Sturgis!