Academic makes 'first' Fifty Shades of Grey character image

Dr Skelton said she thought the image of Christian Grey was "quite handsome"

An academic has used descriptions and image-generating software to create the "first picture" of a character from EL James's novel Fifty Shades of Grey.

University of Central Lancashire's Dr Faye Skelton made the image using descriptions of how women said they imagined protagonist Christian Grey.

Dr Skelton said the composite, created with software used to make images of criminal suspects, was "a bit of fun".

She said she hoped the image would not "intrude on anyone's fantasies".

'Quite handsome'

The erotic novel, which recently became the fastest adult paperback novel to sell one million print copies, tells the story of the steamy relationship between billionaire businessman Christian Grey and "unworldly, innocent" literature student, Anastasia Steele.

Dr Skelton used the descriptions of 12 women given to a radio station to create the composite and said most had drawn "comparisons with famous film stars".

"While we don't want to intrude on anyone's fantasies, based on a small sample of women, this is the image of Christian Grey they have in their heads when reading the novels," she said.

"Personally, I think he's quite handsome - although everyone's interpretation will be different."

She added that the image "was just a bit of fun, but it does show the quality of image we can now generate".

The university's psychology department has been at the forefront of facial composite technology and created advanced software which uses the selection of multiple complete faces to create an image of a person.

It has been used by police forces across the world to identify criminal suspects.