Ahead of this weekend’s World Superbike round at Silverstone, BMW rider Leon Haslam underwent this gruelling (you try to stand still and on your feet for three long hours) body painting session to promote his home race (dad Ron also has a race school at the English circuit).
Currently sixth overall, (with Yamaha MotoGP rider Ben Spies tipped to take his place in the team next season , that will be run solely by BMW Italia) Haslam sportingly agreed to strip down to the waist and have his BMW Motorrad Motorsport team leathers painted onto his torso and arms by double World Body Painting Champion, Carolyn Roper.
It took Carolyn over three hours to replicate Haslam’s leathers on his upper-body, but the end result was quite spectacular and well worth the wait.
Carolyn’s unique style and attention to detail has firmly established her as one of the World’s leading body painters.
By the time she had finished, it was practically impossible to distinguish where Haslam’s leathers stopped and the body paint started.
Haslam then joined one of the UK’s leading portrait photographers, Gary Prior, for a photo shoot in one of the Silverstone garages.
Prior has photographed some of the biggest names in sport, ranging from David Beckham, Lionel Messi and Jonny Wilkinson to Andy Murray, Jenson Button and Maria Sharapova.
Speaking about his body painting experience, Haslam said: “It was frustrating having to stand in one place for three hours and not see what was going on, but I couldn’t believe it when Carolyn had finished applying the paint and I was finally allowed to look in the mirror.
The body paint was unbelievably realistic and the attention to detail, right down to the sponsors’ badges, was incredible.
Carolyn is amazingly talented.
”“It wasn’t raining so we walked over to the garage for the photo shoot with Gary, we got some pretty funny looks on the way over.
The shoot was good fun though and Gary’s images are fantastic.
All-in-all it was a great experience, I’m always up for trying new things so was more than happy to say ‘yes’ when Silverstone approached me with the idea.
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