50th Anniversary Playmate Search
Phoenix, Arizona May 2, 2003
Playboy Magazine is on a search for a special beauty
to play the part of Playmate of the Month for their upcoming 50th
Anniversary Issue. Their talent scouts are doing test shoots of
hundreds of gorgeous girls in fourteen cities across the United
States. This night, May 2nd, 2003, the camera shutters were
clicking in Phoenix, Arizona at a huge entertainment facility called Jillian's.
The climax of the days events was a star-studded party thrown in the
classic Playboy style, complete with a runway fashion show and of
course, bodypainted ladies.
Whose the lucky dog that gets to paint the models at
the magazine's bashes? Well this time it was yours truly. It
might have been fate that made me contact Melissa at www.azmodels.com
to see if she knew of any upcoming promotions that she was planning that
could benefit from bodypainting images. Lucky for me she was able
to refer me to the people at Jillians who were hosting the Playmate
Search. I introduced myself, showed them my portfolio, and landed
one of the greatest gigs of the year!
Some of the hottest contestants from the days test
shoots were hand picked to take part in the runway fashion show later
that night. Of these, two were chosen to be bodypainted and become
the stars of the show. Ironically, their first choice was none
other than Lynette
Brooks who I had previously worked with twice before (Star
Wars body suit and Monument
Valley back mural). I had encouraged her to take a stab at
trying out for the casting call and they were glad that she did.
The production manager of the event even went as far as to say that she
was one of the top candidates from the Phoenix sessions. If she
wins the contest, by the way, I will get a $5,000 finders fee and we
will all be having a huge party (painted attire required)! The
other model selected was the lovely Heather Compeau. This was the
first time that I had met her and she was a blast to work with.
This was the first time that she had ever been body painted and she
seemed to absolutely love it!
For Lynette's artwork I chose a paint-by-number theme
that was actually recreated from the cover of the March 1968 issue of
Playboy Magazine. I would have been just about ready to turn one
year old when this issue was released. I purchased this copy of
the magazine the previous month when I found it on E-bay for $5.00
(interestingly the cover price of the magazine is only 75 cents).
For Heather's artwork I chose to airbrush the Playboy 50th Anniversary
logo on a T-shirt made of nothing but paint. For both of these
projects I used Totally Tattoo body paints from Badger
Airbrush and for Heather's "outfit" I used a brand new
Badger 155 airbrush.
Among the Playboy crew that attended the event were
March 1999 Playmate Alexandria (Lexie) Karlsen and magazine photographer
Mark Edward Harris. Harris snapped some shots of me while I was
painting and then went on to capture some images of Lynette and Heather
in paint. Who knows, maybe one of his shots will make it into a
future issue of the publication. Playmate Lexie Karlsen is from
here in Mesa, Arizona and she was very gracious posing for pictures and
signing autographs.
More images from the event can be found at the website
below
http://www.eventvibe.com/phoenix/clubs/phoenix/pictures/050203/
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