A team of digital artists has created what they claim is the real face of Jesus, using the latest 3-D computer technology and he is nothing like the man depicted in Renaissance paintings.

Using the Shroud of Turin, the linen sheet believed to have been laid on the body of Jesus in his tomb, the image of Christ was made.

Months of painstaking work went into the reconstruction, which is the first of its kind.

The History Channel recorded the results for a two-part documentary, The Real Face of Jesus, broadcast this week.

The Telegraph quoted Ray Downing, lead artist on the project, as saying, "If you want to recreate the face of Jesus and you want to get the actual face of Jesus, you only have one object and that's the shroud."

Downing further added, "I have a lot of information about that face and my estimation is we're pretty darn close to what this man looked like."

The face they have created looks very different from the image on the Shroud because it has been transformed from 2-D to 3-D, Downing further added.

He also said, "The shroud wasn't hanging on the wall - it was wrapping a corpse. The face is hidden in there. By imitating those distortions we could take the image and put it back into shape and figure out what the face looked like. It gave us a blueprint." (With Inputs from Agencies)