#HTE

Kayleen Pike’s Impressive Bodypainting Skills

What do you do when circumstances prevent you from doing the thing you love? Calgary-based Kayleen Pike loves cosplaying so much that she started a company, Canada Cosplay, through which she sells her custom-made hats and hoodies made for the art. But Pike, 28, also suffers from congenital arthritis in her hips. “I can’t sit and sew for hours anymore,” she told Self magazine, “which is a cosplayer’s life!”

Pike discovered the solution accidentally, at the last Edmonton Comic and Entertainment Expo. And, funnily enough, she has a flaky model to thank for it.

“I was working at my booth, and the convention staff brought a makeup artist named Lianne Moseley over to me,” says Pike. “Her model had bailed on her, and the convention staff knew I’m always down for anything.” Moseley painted Pike as Lady Deadpool, they became fast friends, and Pike’s love of cospainting herself was born.

“Painting characters on my body means I can stand instead of sit, and there aren’t even high-heels required,” she says.

Pike first tried her own hand at it in December. She picked the art up quickly, and launched her YouTube channel shortly thereafter. Take a look at some of her work:

Here’s a time lapse of her latest, a very convincing Robin:

Pike is currently cranking out roughly four shows a week on TwitchTV and is also on Patreon.