Till Death Exclusive NFT
and Metal Print

A UV Bodypainting Self-Portrait with my wife Lana Chromium.
It's the only time I allowed someone to paint me. Read the story below.
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We are proud to announce the first exclusive bodypainting NFT to be released by retired artist Dewayne Flowers ( FleshandColor.com ) and the talented Lana Chromium ( The Winner of Skin Wars Season 2 (Currently Streaming on Pluto) and owner of LanaChromium.com )

Till Death - The Story

I can't tell you how "Till Death" was created without giving you some personal backstory. For those who know me, read it one last time. If you don't care and want to know what you get with your purchase, Click Here to Go Straight to the NFT Auction

Till Death is a bodypainting illusion by my wife Lana Chromium and I. We painted each other in UV activated bodypaint and photographed it to create the effect you see. It has become one of our most viral images, hitting the front page of Reddit and causing a debate on how it was created.

I started bodypainting in 1995. I was 17. I weighed appromately 650 pounds (295kg). I came from a family of large men, I just decided to be the over acheiver of the bunch. I grew up large and ridiculed, as most growing up morbidly obese do. There are no real safe spaces when you are that big other than your own metaphorical box you mentaly climb into.

Being a natural introvert is one thing, but being forced into it by a world that hates you because of your circus act like size, is another. So it goes without saying, outside of school and work, my escape was to not exit the house and avoid any verbal or physical assaults that were waiting on me....out there.

But I had my art. I could draw better than most anyone in school and that gave me the only credit I had in society. How could you start bodypainting if you freak out with people? Funny enough, I couldn't ask a model to go be social - take a walk - have some coffee - you know, basic interraction with humans, without drowing in a sea of sufficating anxiety. But I could calmy speak to them about being a model for me - in my world. And it was at bay, my anxiety...while I painted. The world made sense in a paint session - outside I was lost.

In 1997 my weight peeked at 900 pounds (408kg), I was 18 (full time student and cashier - we're not all stuck in a bed), my mother convinced me to have Verticle Banded Gastroplasty and I did.

Skipping the debate on wether or not my weightloss was healthy, cheating, or anything else people will judge you for, it worked. Skip the nightmare lifestyle change and permanent side-effects of living with an altered stomach for 12 years, and finally, in 2009 I hit my goal weight of 220lbs. (99kg). I went from an 11XL shirt and a 72 size pants (The largest you could order and not have to go custom) to an XL and 36-38 jeans.

Feel better? You have to feel better. You MUST feel better. Sure. If that is what you want to hear. Loosing that much weight leaves behind a destruction that no muscle gain or "toning" up will touch. So after raising some cash through the community, I was able to have 4 of 8 needed skin removal surgeries. I have had 15lbs (7kg) skin cut from my body. I have 22 feet (6.5 meters) of combinded surgical scars all over.

That doesn't help with body confidence.

I have had people come in and out of my life and I was never "naked" comfortable with any of them. They just didn't make me comfortable. Then I met Lana in 2013 - everything changed.

Fast forward a couple years into our relationship, one night I am talking outloud about an idea, and Lana says, lets do it together. Now, before the words leave her mouth, I could feel the need to drown myself in emotional support sugar, my heart starts to race, and those nervouse sweat beads start to sparkle on my shaved head.

She just looked at me gently while running her thumb across the palm of my hand, and said, "I want to paint you.", and a cracked, "okay" dripped out of my mouth. So we made a date.

The story continues after the image below. Keep reading to see how it was made.

How Did We Do It?

Below is one of the images I am comfortable releasing that shows off a bit of my body and how the image was created.

Simple But Not Easy

If you do not see the image, Click Here To View It may not load depending on your phone or browser.

For starters, I chose a black light piece for the very opposite reason I am showing you the unedited shot. It hides the body. I knew as a photographer the camera, once properly adjusted to expose the glowing UV paint, would under expose the body and not show it. UV is a great choice to paint someone who has some body issues.

Number one, her hair: Lana's hair. It glows. Nothing special there other than what her stylist does when she colors it. It was a pleasant surprise during the test shot. There was no spray or computer work.

We started by looking up a pose we wanted to try. I think we found dancing photos and chose one we liked. We took a few shots of us in the various pose to see what bodyparts crossed each other. Once we had a road map we got started.

I wanted correct enough but stylized looking skeletons to help ease the process. It was going to be hard enough to aligh everything while trying to place each bone where they should be. We got close enough to make it look right.

The huge Reddit debate: How does this bone cross this part and still be shown, and that bone, and there's no way this bone would be visible, etc, blah, blah, redditchatter blah blah blah blah run-onn sentence!

Okay, so looking at the image above, you can see how its done. It took 100 photos, several hours, and me running back and forth to the camera, naked, to get it, but it happened.

We would block in large parts of skeleton on each other. Get into the pose, shoot, see what needed to be "erased" and what needed to be painted. You can see her bones that cross my bones, painted on MY leg. (You can see skin removal scars on my hip)

This shot was taken during the process. In it, I still have to paint part of my ribcage onto her arm and tweak other areas and continue shooting until we got one close enough to finalize in post production. But you can clearly see how it's done. It is simple, but difficult at the same time. It's the only one I can comfortably show the world. The rest is for her.

Once we took enough photos, I took it into Photoshop and did exactly three things. #1 I bumped the levels and contrast to make my body get the hell out of town and make the UV pop a bit more. #2 Cleaned up the background, removed any visible clutter from the shot. #3 I tweaked a couple of bones to get the alignment perfect. Without this, there were a few "fractures" in her leg and my ribs.

And that is the extent of how much computer manipulation went into the making of this image. It is not as much as the internet would like to claim, but there is some there.

So, that is the story of this photograph and how I over came my fears for that moment, with the only person who could have gotten me to do it.

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