Pinup Zombie

vegasvisionstudios · Sep 11, 2009

With Halloween coming up I thought I would share a couple from a fun shoot we did a while back for a model who wanted to recreate Zombie Pinup, a classic pinup illustration by Polish photographer and artist Zdzislaw Beksinski.
Body painting was done in the studio by a local emerging body painter and I fashioned the brain from ground pork and raw rice noodles frozen in a brain shaped jello mold. Add a little Hollywood blood and it smelled like hell but looked real good.
Lighting was a basic 3 light isolation on the 2 wall cyc in the studio per the chart below the images. While these were shot with a balanced pair of key lights we often shoot this setup with a single key light inside a 7' octabank for a beautiful soft light that evenly illuminates head to toe even with me standing in front of the box to shoot.

The Original Inspiration

1.

The Re-creation

2.
Additional fun with brains

3.
Low Key Portrait
1 Octabox and hair light on duvytyne

Big Mike · Sep 11, 2009

I'm not crazy about the first shot. The lighting in the 'inspiration' is pretty hard and dramatic while your photo has much softer light. Something about her look/expression is off putting as well. I think it's much better in the other two shots though.

Is that corset painted on? If so, it looks pretty good but I can't say that I like the rest of the body painting. It looks like it was done with a brush & roller, rather than carefully airbrushed like what I'm used to seeing for model body painting.

I really like the last shot with the dark BG. It suits the mood/feel much better IMO.

Thanks for the lighting diagram & explanation, I love seeing that along with photos.

vegasvisionstudios · Sep 11, 2009

Yes I lit the shot soft because I have a personal aversion to shadows on the bodies of models when shooting isolations. It comes from years of shooting flat lighting for stock. Keep in mind the original was an inspiration we were not looking to exactly knock off the drawing.

Personally I preferred the poses that were more like this but the first one I posted was the models choice. Since she was the paying customer she got what she wanted.

Yes the corset is painted, as I said the body painter was a newbie (brought in by the model) I thought he did a passable job but no where near the quality of work of the body painters I normally would hire. I have had the pleasure of working with some of the best in the industry, unfortunately this was not one of those times. His lines for garters and such where indeed hand painted and it does show.

I also agree about the portrait, it is my favorite shot from the session and hangs in the studio.

512 · Sep 11, 2009

not bad :thumbup: i like the one that hangs in your studio and the #1.
have you tried to partial desaturate the images to get a lighter green (like the skin coloro of your "inspiration") ?

vegasvisionstudios · Sep 11, 2009

512 said:
not bad :thumbup: i like the one that hangs in your studio and the #1.
have you tried to partial desaturate the images to get a lighter green (like the skin coloro of your "inspiration") ?

Yea I have played with all types of color and saturation levels on them but find that my personal prefference is toward the deeper color and contrast.

Derrel · Sep 11, 2009

The flat lighting paired with the deep green body paint makes her body seem shapeless and formless, and the strong white backlighting competes with the darker tones. Soft,flat,shadowless lighting just doesn't seem to coordinate with a macabre, ghoulish subject matter.

The similarity to the original illustration's model is very high, and I've got to hand it to you--that is one fine-looking fake brain!

vegasvisionstudios · Sep 11, 2009

You all really are not used to seeing commercial work in here are you. In my world we shoot things in the studio that can be used as design elements. When you see a image from me on white it means a designer somewhere will be building it into a design. In that case my finished image is but an element. However in this case the original was also on a white background so it seems fitting.