You might have already witnessed several international illusion make-up artists on the internet who transform human faces and bodies into jaw-dropping figures.
India, too, has slowly started to join the brigade. It has now been graced with a one-of-a-kind make-up artist who has won over thousands of fans on Instagram with her stunning celebrity transformations.
Named Priyanka Pawar, this artist from Ghaziabad has turned her face into that of Hollywood Actress Jennifer Aniston to Kargil War Hero Vikram Batra. The list is long and is adding up each day. And for these looks, Pawar spends up to 11 hours a day!
“I love transforming myself into these celebrities and characters. To be able to get a new face using make-up and techniques, I find it both challenging and exciting,” said Priyanka to Life Beyond Numbers.
Many of her videos have been going viral, garnering hundreds of likes. Her followers flock to her with praise and keep sharing her extraordinary skills. She even partnered with Netflix for one of their promos.
Priyanka’s love affair with makeup started several years back. One fine day in 2018, she decided to quit her earlier corporate job to pursue a career in the makeup industry. Initially, she was into bridal makeup.
“I quit my job because I was always interested in make-up and creativity. I first learned basic make-up but I always wanted to do more,” said the makeup artist.
This hunger for going off beat led her to try her hand in illusion makeup. And during the lockdown last year, she invested her free time in practicing it. She posted her experiments online simultaneously. Then one of her transformation videos finally grabbed everyone’s attention.
“I’m a self-taught illusion make-up artist and practiced to understand depth and shadow work and then gradually moved to recreating faces. I was deeply inspired by famous illusion artist Mini Choy. But my first major work that received the limelight was when I recreated the face of Sushant Singh Rajput after his sad demise. I was very moved and decided to do it as a way of respect,” Priyanka shared.
Her followers were thrilled with Sushant’s look. This motivated her further, and she thought of recreating characters from Harry Potter as it is her favorite series. Since then, she has been adapting several popular looks.
To create these transformations, she starts by collecting several photographs of the celebrity she plans to imitate. She then carefully studies the bone structure and mainly uses make-up products such as concealer, foundation, and highlighter for shading and contouring. She also uses wigs, bald caps, and contact lenses to get the exact look for further perfection.
“I do a lot of research and choose the front face photographs. I study depth and face cut. These are 2D make-up so the transformation is visible only from the front side and it takes 10-11 hours to get one look. The most challenging part is to create the nose as it requires lot of attention – making it wider or narrower, hiding nostrils, etc. Lips are comparatively easy to make,” the artist said.
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Besides this, she also creates other unbelievable makeup transformations that can give anyone a shiver down their spine.
“It feels wonderful when people enjoy my work and leave such great comments,” she said referring to the massive response.
With her growing popularity, Priyanka has recently launched an online prosthetic makeup master class.
We just can’t wait to see her next transformation!