An artist is leading a wave of creatives in London using their skills to design 3D masks for social media selfies.
Clara Bacou started painting watercolours and now makes Snapchat filters that superimpose animations on users’ faces. When the users pull an expression, the masks move too.
The picture and video messaging app has 12 million users in Britain.
It has said London is a hotspot for the design of its augmented reality filters.
Ms Bacou, 23, a Central St Martins graduate from King’s Cross, has created a mask inspired by Chinese imperial guardian lions and a Pokémon Go-style dragon companion.
For the project she teamed up with animator Yizhen Ng and Hamid Ibrahim, who builds the digital skeleton for the animation.
Separately she designed a golden “seafox” mascot for Galantis, the Swedish dance music duo.
Ms Bacou said: “AR filters go past language, that’s why people want to use it all around the world, the same way we share images online.”
