UK artist Steve Payne has created an awesome set of celebrity portraits by photoshopping their heads, quite seamlessly, onto the bodies of old Russian generals. The original paintings, by English portraits artist George Dawe, show Russian generals who had successfully fought Napoleon in the Patriotic War of 1812. In over a nine year period, Dawe completed over 300 portraits.
“One thing I've always wanted to try is to incorporate someone into a painting, mimicking the painterly brush strokes and making everything fit and work nicely and look natural and stuff,” Payne says. “There's an art to head swapping, I've seen so many awful attempts. The most important things to consider are anatomy, perspective and lighting. If you can get those things right, you're more than halfway there. My artistic ability serves me well with this stuff, I can just tell if something looks wrong.”
Here are twelve of our favorites.
