Another crazy fun job by the Skin City team!
Starting your day at 8:00am is normal for most, but when you live in Las Vegas, it can be rough for people who double as acrobats, a bartender, and an artist to get up before noon. But true to Skin City style, we arrived bright-eyed and bushy-tailed ready to paint model Benoit Beaufils as a Gargoyle for National Geographic’s “Brain Games”.
With myself, artist Ragen Mendenhall, and talent director Ross Gibson on board, we got started by applying all of the necessary prosthetics then moved on to body paint. Painting with some of your favorite colleagues definitely makes an early call-time bearable. We laughed, painted, giggled, painted and finished up by 10:45am. Right after taking some in-studio shots, Ross, Ben and myself headed over to Caesar’s Palace to meet the crew!
Everyone loved the paint and couldn’t help but break out in exclamation once Ben stood in a fabricated pillar made by one of our talented prop guys, Roy Christensen. The pillar truly brought the paint to life along with Ben’s grumpy, gargoyle demeanor. After all of the cameras were set up, it was time to shoot!
Ben was placed near an already-existing statue and fountain right out front of one of the most well-known hotel/casinos on the Strip — so there was definitely a lot of traffic. The whole idea was for Ben to stay as still as possible, wait to for the right person to walk by, and then -ARGH!- come to life and scare the bejeezes out of unsuspecting tourists!
At first, people seemed a bit wary, but once Ross & I started luring in the crowds and offering to take pictures with the “statue”, it started picking up. Some of the reactions were priceless, one man refused to believe Ben was really a person, another woman who was more than 20 feet away was even startled when he moved. Another young, hip bystander attacked Ben with her purse when he started moving. A nice family also took part of the fun by egging on their little ones to go up to the statue, and when Ben reacted, the youngest was so terrified I overheard him say, “That was so scary I think I pooped my pants!”
I reluctantly admit this, but Ben even managed to scare his own crew and got Ross & myself pretty good, which is a true testament to how realistic he looked as a stone monster.
The day ended by having a bite to eat at Serendipity 3, next to Caesar’s Fountains. Walking into the bar area and seeing a gargoyle peacefully reading the food menu, ordering a chicken sandwich reminded me why an 8am start-time isn’t all so bad. Where else can you make a living painting your friends as monsters and get to watch him scare people all day? Only here, at Skin City Body Painting located in lovely Las Vegas!