It’s truly amazing what some people can do with their craft to manipulate, entertain and puzzle the mind. Elsa Rhae is one of them. She’s a film and media studies grad with a huge passion for face painting—and not like the kind you see at birthday parties (though she does that, too). Rhae has knack for recreating famous TV and movie characters like Captain Planet and a White Walker along with some pretty cool concepts of her own. While she’s been painting for less than a year, her talent definitely would suggest otherwise. And, she says, the whole thing was just a fluke.

I needed an elective to graduate with a film degree and I chose stage makeup for shits and giggles,” Rhae told Wall Street Insanity.

I then began to paint myself outside of class because class was boring and the Internet had more to teach me than my professor (though she was very nice). The response from my friends and family was amazing so I kept doing it.”

Rhae says that her most time-consuming look was recreating a White Walker from HBO’s Game of Thrones, a look that took three tries and more than three hours each to get just right. Her favorite? A beautiful, personal creation of what she felt like after a long winter called “Winter Wash.” While her 9-to-5 right now involves working on video concepts for a makeup company based in Chicago, Rhae says her makeup creations are something she does just for fun.

People tell me all the time I need to make money for what I paint on my face, but that would then turn face painting into work,” Rhae says.

I have no idea how this all started and how it has come so far, and I have no idea where it will take me. For now, I’m just rolling with it. I’ll keep going as long as people stay interested.”

Check out some of the awesome looks below done by Elsa Rhae and like her on her Facebook page here.