She is gorgeous, tall, and has striking features. Her beautiful dark-brown skin along with her flawless style makes her the perfect supermodel. This supermodel whose pictures started to appear on Instagram had been the subject of a lot of controversies. Shudu, who is all set to change the face of modeling is nothing but a digital supermodel. Yes, she is not real! She is the brainchild of photographer Cameron James Wilson created through CGI.
The birth of Shudu
Before turning to create a virtual supermodel, Cameron James Wilson worked as a photographer for 10 years. He was on the search for new ways of artistic expression when he got inspired by Barbie dolls. As a kid, Cameron was interested in Barbies and had a particular liking towards South African Princess Barbie. This barbie doll served as the biggest inspiration for Shudu and when combined with his love for fashion, a supermodel was born.
Creating this supermodel who looks perfect in all pictures with her exceptional sense of fashion is not at all an easy task. There is a lot of effort and planning involved in creating an image. A single image ready to be published requires many weeks of planning and at least three days of full work. Even though 3D technology has evolved a great deal, there is a deficit in available software to adequately portray someone like Shudu and Cameron is helping other 3D designers to create such resources that can give rise to diverse characters just like Shudu.
The Popularity and Controversy
The acceptance by people on the internet was not something the creator had expected. Since the first image of Shudu appeared on Facebook, people had been intrigued by her beauty and there were a lot of queries, even from supermodels in the fashion industry, wanting to know her identity. Many first believed that she was a human model, including Tyra Banks who had reposted the image of Shudu gathered admiration from different people. She rose to popularity when Cameron tagged Fenty Beauty in one of the images as Shudu appeared in an orange shade lipstick by Fenty Beauty. Reposting of this image by Rihanna made it go viral and invited a huge amount of attention from all over the world.
Nobody can escape the criticism on social media and Shudu is no exception. Many had criticized the fact that Shudu, a black model, is contrived by a white man. A lot of people opined that this digital supermodel takes away that chances of real-life models and adversely affect their careers. There are also opinions that a white man is trying to make a profit from black women by commercializing and capitalizing it. The unexpected popularity of Shudu also brought in unexpected criticisms for Cameron.
The sole idea behind creating Shudu was a form of self-expression for Cameron. He painstakingly creates Shudu by applying his knowledge in photography, makeup, and fashion.
The Diigitals is considered to be the world's first all-digital modeling agency, which is all set to tap the potential of 3D fashion modeling and explore the myriad of its applications. The Diigitals is trying to remove the boundaries that exist between reality and digital. The beautiful creation of Cameron, Shudu is the face of this change.
Shudu is an amalgamation of the various ideas and interests of the creator himself. Cameron's interest in fashion, photography, gaming, and sci-fi all contributed to the birth of Shudu. She is not the only digital model created at the Diigitals. There are a few more digital models like Shudu that has already taken birth at the Diigitals.
You can follow Shudu on Instagram here @shudu.gram
Conclusion
Conceived by the creator to champion diversity in the fashion world, Shudu is not here to take the place of human models. Shudu is the 3D rendering of the artist's way of self-expression. Even though she has garnered quite the popularity unless she is the face of any campaign, Shudu is simply an artistic masterpiece. The work involved in creating a CGI model is so intense that there is no room for doubt that a digital supermodel will replace real-life models.