Everyone has heard the stories about directors falling in love with their leading ladies. But can it happen in animation? You bet!

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SPACE.com designer Miguel Herediahas created this tribute to Julie Strain as F.A.K.K.2. Click to enlarge.

Strain is the inspiration for the lead character of Julie/F.A.K.K.2. SPACE.com’s Don Lipper interviews the dynamic duo behind Heavy Metal 2000, which premieres on Starz! at midnight, July 14.

SPACE.com: Julie, you were clearly the model for the character Julie, right?

Julie Strain: Right.

SPACE.com: How did that happen? Did they design the character based on your look, or did you match Kevin’s preconceived notion of what she looked like?

JS: It happened just because I was sleeping with the boss. [Laughs.] But I’m kind of like a real superhero at 6’ 1", so for Kevin to be my husband and be making the Heavy Metal movie and to use someone else’s face and figure would have been completely ludicrous.

So he took a lot of pictures and started painting from the pictures, and he sent them to [creative partner] Simon Bisley to get his take on them, and it just kind of grew from there. [The character] definitely looked better in the paintings than [I do in] real life, but, that was the mercy of the paintbrush. Bigger hair, bigger breasts, smaller costume, meaner, bigger snarl, lots of muscles and a big, round, liposuctioned butt.

But it was definitely an honor and a dream come true and it just kind of unfolded. It’s such a part of our everyday life that it seems like it’s real at this point, even though it’s animation.

JS: I’m just glad he had the sense to put my genetics to a visual use. To be loved and drawn by the same man is a unique and erotic experience. It allows me to be different people.

Kevin Eastman: As a writer, I tend to lean on people I know to sort of help me, inspire me to bring a character to life, and I really never met anybody that could help me with the vision of this character until I met Julie.

Julie Strain, the person that she is, not only charismatically or personally but the way she approaches life and the things that she does, was kind of like the real-life superhero that I felt F.A.K.K.2 would be.

SPACE.com: Have you worn any of the costumes, Julie?

JS: Oh yeah, I wear the costumes all the time. I do lots of photo shoots, and I’ve done appearances at the San Diego Comic Book Convention for the past three years. As F.A.K.K.2, I wore it to the big signing for the soundtrack. And on the DVD [cover], I wear the costume, and the girl that plays my sister Carrie wears her costume, and we do a photo shoot together, so you can see both the characters together live in the animated costumes.

So it’s kind of interesting, we tried to play on it as much as we could, and get the best use out of the costumes. They were very annoying to wear, very hard, like the shoulder pads and straps and guns and knives and things kept falling off in between every shot, so it was a lot of work. I actually cut if off and ripped it off my body at one point, swearing to never wear it again, but, I had to wear it like five more times recently for all the game magazine covers and stuff like that.

SPACE.com: Kevin, what’s it like seeing a bunch of guys drooling over your wife?

KE: I chalk it up to their intelligence. The first time I met Julie, I didn’t know who she was and she [just] knew I was a cartoonist. Somebody told her I created the [Teenage Mutant Ninja] Turtles. She didn’t even know what the Turtles were. She thought I was some kid from the Valley who used to draw cartoons.

But the point is we fell in love at first sight, found our soulmates, [all of the ] amazing things that you think will never ever happen in your life until they do. I’ve never felt, number one, threatened in any way, because I know what we have is so amazing.

Secondarily, she’s a walking art form, and that’s the way she expresses herself creatively. Whether it’s modeling, acting, nude or not, her photography, that’s her art form and her way to be creative. I couldn’t imagine if anybody ever tried to take away what I love to do to express myself, drawing or painting or whatever, and I would certainly never ask her to change. I think we’re very comfortable and very supportive and it’s pretty amazing.

SPACE.com: Julie, how has this movie been different for you? Does the fact that you've been part of the creative development change how you feel about the project?

JS: It’s like having triplets, you don’t look up. You just keep changing diapers until it walks. It’s easier for me just to be talent.

SPACE.com: Is there a next step for the animated Julie?

JS: The game that comes out in September will be the first of three, and I do the voice in the game and the character is me, and I do local appearances and so forth. So yeah, Julie Strain and Heavy Metal will be heavily intertwined for the next couple hundred thousand years.

SPACE.com: What are your next publicity events for F.A.K.K.2?

JS: I’ll be at San Diego Comic-Con on Saturday, July 22. And then I’m going on a long, long vacation.

SPACE.com: What's it like seeing yourself in a game?

JS: I’m mesmerized, watching the game promo. It rocks to think of a whole building of people at their computers drawing me. It makes one dizzy to comprehend it.

SPACE.com: How do you think gamers will react to you?

JS: The gamers are gonna love it. They get to control me, make me their woman and take me through battle.

SPACE.com: Now that you're in the "world's sexiest video game", do you think you can give Lara Croft a run for her money?

JS: That Lara Croft is hiding from me. She knows who rules this planet.