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CALGARY — Kay Pike stands in front of a giant lit mirror, dabs her brush into a glob of paint and touches it to her skin.

She’ll repeat the motion thousands of times over the next 12 hours as she transforms herself from a willowy blond artist to the dark-haired Man of Steel for a throng of viewers following along on the Internet.

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“We don’t talk about gender roles on my channel. In fact, when people say you should paint yourself as Superwoman, I’m like, ‘No. I want to paint myself as Superman,”‘ says Pike, who, when she’s done, looks like she could have been ripped from a comic book panel.

“It doesn’t matter. When you’re painting a canvas, you’re not thinking this is a girl canvas or this is a boy canvas.”

Pike is a fan of cosplay in which participants wear costumes and fashion accessories to represent a specific character from anime, comic books and cartoons, video games or movies.

Twice a week, the 28-year-old spends up to 15 hours turning her body into a different character for an Internet audience.