Like some of the comic book characters who inspire her hobby, 17-year-old Sophie Stark has a bit of a split personality.
One day she is a straight-laced "smart girl," attending leadership camp and contemplating medical school. The next day, she's a "scary girl" made up to look like a molting zombie or a revolting supervillain.
Stark, who has a robust and growing social media following, is a self-taught make-up artist. Through the magic of YouTube tutorials and a mystical, God-given talent, she has developed a skill for painting her face and body that almost defies description. Her cast of make-up characters includes Wonder Woman, comic book supervillains Red Skull and Harvey "Two-Face" Dent, and animated spy Sterling Archer, among others.
Stark, a senior at Signal Mountain High School, seems to relish her smart girl/scary girl personas; and sharing her creations online has resulted in something of a cult following. You can check out her work on Instagram at @sophiegstark.
"People just kind of stumble upon my Instagram photos," Stark said in an interview this week. "It's blown my mind to have people from all over commenting."
Some of Stark's fascination with make-up might be genetic. Her father, Gerry, an engineer who designs prosthetic devices, used to dress Sophie and her two older brothers in elaborate Halloween costumes. In fifth grade, for example, Sophie went trick-or-treating as a zombie bride. Other years she was a lemur and a unicorn.
Always artistic - she used to craft toy lizards from beads - Stark began to dabble in theatrical make-up when she was a freshman in high school. That year, she showed up at school as a vampire for Halloween and followed that up as a Terminator character, complete with subcutaneous cyborg parts, for Spirit Week.
"People reacted strongly," Stark recalled. "It encouraged me to do more."
Middle schoolers at Signal Mountain Middle High School would stare with mouths agape at her make-up, Stark says, and teachers have urged her to keep it up. For a girl who always had self-identified as a quiet, grade-focused student, the support gave her a lift, Stark says.
"I'd never gotten that much attention before," she explained.
Soon, Stark was spending hours in her bedroom using her face as a canvas for make-up art - the more outrageous the better. She has gotten to know every contour of her facial structure, and she's learned to use colors and shadings to create three-dimensional effects.
"I think of myself as a visual perfectionist," Stark said. "I'm my own worst critic. Halfway through every project I think it looks terrible."
Stark said she hopes to start collaborating more with her dad, using his expertise in designing human prosthetic devices to created moldings to alter the look of her skeletal structure. Over time, she has gone from using Halloween store body paint to using professional-grade theatrical make-up products purchased in Atlanta.
"I'm lucky to have parents who consider make-up art supplies," Stark said.
Sophie's mother, Lisa Stark, said her daughter's hobby is ironic given that as an infant the family called her "shaky baby" because of her habit of freezing and shivering when she saw something scary. Lisa Stark notes that her daughter is also a talented seamstress, having won first place three years in a row for clothing design in a statewide fashion contest.
Despite her prodigious skills, Sophie Stark says she isn't focused on pursuing a career in make-up and costuming, although she hasn't ruled it out. In school, she is on an academic track and is drawn to science-based college majors.
"I've always been a realist," she says. "It (make-up) is a niche job."
Meanwhile, she is enjoying her minor celebrity as a social media magnet and planning her next facial transformation.
Stay tuned to Instagram.
Sophie "Scary Girl" Stark may yet have some surprises up her sleeve.
Contact Mark Kennedy at mkennedy@timesfree press.com or 423-757-6645. Follow him on Twitter @TFPCOLUMNIST. Subscribe to his Facebook updates at www.facebook.com/mkennedycolumnist.