In The Industry:
Body paint can be used in many different parts of the media makeup industry, most common being in fantasy films such as”Guardians Of The Galaxy”.
(Picture from Google Images)
There are also opportunities for body paint artists to show there work through the annual Prosthetics Event. The MUA’s spend the majority of the event preparing their looks and they are judged at the end of the day to find a winner. The winner of the body paint competition usually wins supplies to help them in their career- usually brushes and body paints- but there is also a chance that an industry professional that attends the Prosthetics Event will be impressed and possibly ask them if they want a job.
I googled the average salary for a film makeup artist because body paint is mainly used here. Almost all of the websites I researched into all said similar things about the makeup artists’ salary heavily depending on their level of experience, but the website Makeup Artist Salary in 2024: Salary Trends (and Job Description) For – hollywood mirrors , was particularly helpful in describing the variety of wages for a film makeup artist. It said, “Salaries for film and TV makeup artists can vary greatly depending on the scale and budget of the production, as well as the artist’s experience. Entry-level makeup artists may start around £18,000 to £25,000 per year. More experienced artists can earn between £25,000 and £45,000 per year, with top-tier professionals earning even higher salaries.”
Through the same website I was also able to find out the different requirements and responsibilities of makeup artists in different parts of the industry. The requirements of a succeeding film makeup artist- according to this website- include understanding on-set etiquette, application techniques and consistency. The responsibilities of a succeeding film makeup artist include script analysis, time management and good continuity.
Case Study One:
For the skeleton aspect of my design of my body paint look, I looked at the dancers in parts of the 2024 movie “Rite Here Rite Now”, showing the band Ghost in one of their tour concerts from 2023. The credits of the movie list Aisha Schroeder as the body paint artists for the skeletons.
Both of these pictures are screenshots from performances of the Ghost songs “Dance Macabre” and “Twenties” that are available on YouTube.
These skeleton dancers will help a lot in my research for a few reasons, the main reason being the positioning of my model. The dancers have lots of different dance moves throughout the movie and this will help me because I can learn about how the bones sit in a body paint when a model holds different poses. Another reason that Aisha Schroeder’s work of the skeleton dancers body paint will help me is because it is anatomically accurate- the neck, chest, shoulders and arms will also be anatomically accurate in my own body paint design, so the designs of the dancers are very convenient to have. Ghost is my favourite band, so being able to have part of their show as one of my research subjects will help me to remember the techniques I will need to use in my assessment even though only some of my design features bones.
In the performances the dancers have full torso and back bones painted on which I will keep in mind in terms of technique and design. However the arm and hand bones are only painted on the top of the arm, so I don’t think painting bones on the underarms will be necessary as long as my models pose doesn’t show the underarms. Having bones painted on the underarms anyway will possibly be confusing in the final pictures, so I want to avoid that doing that regardless.
Case Study Two:
My second case study is the work of body paint and makeup artist Samantha Helen,
https://www.essentialsbysamanthahelen.com/pages/about
According to this website, “Samantha is known for pushing her looks to the next level with techniques acquired through her vast experience in the industry.” I think her work is very interesting and informative because it offers professional grade body paints as well as body paint brushes- all for a relatively affordable price
I like how vibrant her work is and I will definitely be considering her techniques in my work. I may also buy one of her body paints if I can experiment on if it will be more opaque than a body paint I already have.
Research- Practices, Technique & Evaluations:
The first practice I did was using the airbrush to create the colourful pattern down my arms and then using new paintbrushes to draw on the bones. I followed the pictures from my first case study as well as a skeleton hand template as references for this practice;
I thought that this practice went well, I understood the technique very well so I was very confident in my abilities. I also made sure to write down the ratios of the colours and their counterparts:
I understood from this practice that I would need to add more yellow to the green and orange so that the colours are more vibrant, much like the flowers of the festival. I also needed to make sure that I use an airbrush with a bigger range so that the dots are more visible, if they are too small they may appear muddy and over blended on camera.
For my second practice, I wanted to adapt a technique to use on my models face. Because some airbrushes have a higher PSI (pressure of air per square inch) it would be potentially dangerous to use the airbrush around my models eyes and ears. I found a circular sponge and decided that I could use replicate the same dots as the body on the face without posing a risk to my models safety, so I gathered mine and some of colleges face paints:
Once I had made a lather with the face paint, I pressed the sponge down onto my arm and twisted it as I lifted it because this made the pigmentation better:
I found this technique quite easy, the only thing I realised is that I needed to be careful that the face paint wasn’t too runny:
For the third practice I did, I attempted to paint the spiderwebs on my face chart design. For this I used two different brushes- both thin but one bigger than the other:
The first two practices were done with the bigger brush, I liked how chunky the outer lines were but I didn’t really like that chunkiness on the inside lines;
The third practice was done with the smaller brush. I liked how precise the lines looked but I still thought that it wasn’t interesting enough;
I then decided to practice the spider webs using both brushes, the vertical lines being done with the bigger brush and the horizontal lines with the smaller brush;
I liked this design a lot and I thought that it would look best in my assessment because it added more dimension to my look. I practiced this look two more times on my arm/ hand so that I could know for certain that this is what I wanted to do;
The third part of my practice was preparing my skills for completing the circular eye makeup. I took a big and small flat brush to compare their appearance when I paint a straight line with half-circles on top.
The half circles were done by lining up my brush to the line I had already painted and making an upside down U shape. I thought that my second practice with the smaller flat brush was better since this technique would be used for eye makeup, I decided to use the back of my hand to create the circular shape to go over the eyes;
I think that this looked good in general and I liked the outcome, I was very confident from this point that I would perform well in my assessment.
Prices:
| Flowers for headdress | £18 |
| Headband for headdress | £2 |