The following is an interview with Athena Zhe, body painter, FX artist, and owner and CEO of Athena Entertainment . She was also a contestant on SyFy's Face Off. As told to Fawnia Soo Hoo.I was managing a couple of health-food stores before I started body-painting. I had this lady come in one day; she was a face painter and she always saw me painting menu boards. One day, she approached me and said, "Oh, I see you know how to paint... Can you help me do some face-painting for street fairs?" And that’s pretty much how I started. I did a couple street fairs, I got a hint of makeup and face-painting, and then, half a year later, she told me about the Face & Body Art International Convention in Florida. I went there, and I saw people doing amazing stuff, and I thought, Hey, why don’t I start body-painting now? It took off from there.You have to approach body-painting from a totally different perspective than face-painting, which is primarily for children. It's an art. You work with body shapes. You implement colors to make skin tones come out or eyes pop more. Or you match the theme of whatever the model's wearing, or what kind of creature she wants to be. So it’s a much bigger project than spending 15 to 20 minutes painting a face. It can take as long as 10 hours, depending on how detailed it is.