Humorously Disturbing Portraits of People With Oddly Malleable Faces Made of Play-Doh

Playdough Faces5

Portuguese photographer Tomba Lobos has created a couple of really disturbing, but very humorous portrait series that digitally replaces the normal faces of various people with blank-staring, malleable visages made of “caucasian-colored” Play-Doh. Lobos explained that he’s been inspired by such works as Videodrome by David Cronenberg and Chris Cunningham‘s music videos like “Rubber Johnny”.

I’ve also been taking some experimental photos using a regular 10MP compact camera and play dough. I’m a huge Chris Cunningham fan and I’ve been interested in creating hybrid images since I first saw Aphex Twin videos. I really loved that video from The Horrors, too! This time around I did these very rough portraits as an exercise. For one month I carried a handful of play dough with me. Every time I took a photo, I would take another photo to the dough, using the same light direction. Maybe in the future I’ll have the chance to do a more serious work using this same method!

Playdough Faces

Playdough Faces

Playdough Faces

Playdough Faces4

images by Tomba Lobos

via Booooooom

Lori Dorn
Lori Dorn

Lori is a Laughing Squid Contributing Editor based in New York City who has been writing blog posts for over a decade. She also enjoys making jewelry, playing guitar, taking photos and mixing craft cocktails.