Body Painting - Research

'The art of body painting covers a vast area of painted effects ... from a simple tattoo on the arm to the reproduction of a famous painting across an entire body or painting a model to look fully clothed' (Delemar 1995, pg. 77)

 - Delemar states that because the body painting process is very time consuming, it is essential to plan the designs on paper first then to experiment of a mannequin or model before the actual shoot.

 - The materials are special watercolours for the skin and a variety of sponges, brushes or any type of tool (including airbrushing) Stencils can be used to make repeat patterns, masking tape is good for a clean edge, natural or stipple sponges for stippling textures, feathers for marbling effects.

 - For painting clothes on the body i is best to use sable artists brushes, brushes and airburshing techniques

 - These are examples from the Delemar academy

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One of the most famous body painters is Joanne Gair, 'Gair allows us to see the human body as a canvas to be transformed' (Gair EDDDIT)

 - As a girl she was fascinated by the Maori culture and the way their tribal heritage was identified by skin adornment.

 - She started orking as a makeup-artists and body painter in the 1980s, her self taught body painting skill making her portfolio stand out.

 - She became famous in 1992 when working with Annie Leibovitz and Demi Moore for Vanity Fair

 - In 1998 she began her long standing collaboration with Sports Illustrated for their swimsuit edition of the magazine

 - In 2003 she begun to experiment with photography as well as body painting.

10 - effect of dried mud being removed

11 - promoting cell phones

12 - clay, pigment and gold leaf 

13 - experiment recreating Victoria's Secret underwear

14 - Vanity Fair - wings drawn with ballpoint pen

15 - advertising job

16 - SOHO style magazine. Real creations ink and sharpie pens

17 - Sports Illustrated magazine

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20 - recreation of Botticelli's Primavera

I think these images will help my body painting experimentation as they show examples of full artworks that have a purpose. I especially like the use of different textures and materials in Joanne Gair and I'd like to try using some different materials in my work.

Initial Ideas

This is the presentation I made of my initial ideas and workings for this project. I chose to study feminism and women's representation as it's a topic which greatly interests me outside of my studies and one which has a huge repercussions on the media making it applicable to makeup studies.



Following the seminars we had where I presented these ideas, my makeup ideas have altered slightly. Instead of focusing my 3 makeups on the three waves of feminism I will focus all my makeups into the third category post-modernist feminism as this will give me more room to to explore and experiment with ideas rather than sticking to three set makeups. I will just explore gender transformation as the theory of gender is the main focus of post-modernist feminism and this will hopefully give me more scope in my makeups. I would like to look at:

- drag makeup

- natural boy to girl transformation

- stubble and beards

- prosthetics woman to man (adams apple, brow piece etc)

 - bald caps and eyebrows

- androgynous / non-gendered makeup

 - mixed gender

Body Painting Experimentation

As I had never done bodypainting before our lesson on it, I wanted to try some of my own at home to quickly get the feel of it. I tried an ivy branch which I found more difficult then expected. 

The middle leaf was the first one I did and is the one I'm least happy with. The blending round the edge isn't smooth and I found it very difficult to do the small detail in the leaf as the colors blended very easily. I was using aqua colour for this which may be why the white couldn't really be painted on top of the green. However as I went on I think my painting got a lot better and I was much more pleased with my leaves lower down, the detailing and shading transition being a lot better. Overall the branch doesn't look real but I like the effect of the look and I improved a lot whilst doing it so it was a useful experiment. Next time I would paint all the lighter colours first and use much smaller brushes for the detail.

I also very quickly tried a body paint in biro pen as this was something I'd seen in a few books and read could be used quite a lot.

This was a very quick experiment so wasn't very detailed or neat but it allowed me to see the effect of biro on the skin. It means I could do a lot finer detail than with paints which I think would be useful for a lot of pieces and it would be interesting to see how paint and pen mix in one piece. I liked being able to create a feathered, thinner line by adjusting the pressure of the pen and I think this could make interesting textures. Overall although my experiments weren't the greatest standard of makeup they helped me understand bodypainting a lot more.

Bollywood - Research

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The word Bollywood is a play on the word Hollywood with the B coming from Bombay (also known as Mumbai) the word was coined in the 1970's from a magazine gossip column and has stuck ever since. However Indian cinema actually dates back to 1913 and Raja Harishchandra, the first ever Indian feature film.

The early 1920s saw the beginning to several new production companies, and most films made in this era were either mythological and historical in nature. In 1931 the first talkie film was released, which paved the way for the future of Indian Cinema. The number of production companies skyrocketed, colour films began to appear, movie palaces were built and there was a significant increase in the number of working class attending the cinema.

In 1947 the industry went through a lot of changes, with historical and mythological films being replaced by social-reformist films which often turned a critical eye on issues such as the dowry system, polygamy and prostitution. The 1950s saw film makers like Bimal Roy and Satayjit Ray focussing on the lives of the lower classes, who had previously been ignored in film. The 1960s saw a birth of film, driven by a desire to offer a greater sense of realism and understanding of the common man.

It was in the 1970s that the Masala film was born - the type of Bollywood film that is most famous and still used as a template today. Monmahon Desai is knows as the farther of the Masala film and the most famous director of the 1970s he says -'I want people to forget their misery. I want to take them into a dream world where there is no poverty, where there are no beggars, where fate is kind and god is busy looking after his flock' The Masala film follows the the basic practice of action, romance, melodrama and comedy with around six musical numbers in. This model still stands today although greater attention is paid to plot, character development and dramatic tension. It is in most cases, sheer star power that accounts for the films success.

25 - Prianka Chopra

23 - Katrina Kaif

24 - Deepika Padokune

 Bollywood actresses are mostly cast on their beauty and they can charge huge amounts (up to 20 million) to be the female lead in a big Bollywood movie.

Foam Latex Research

Foam latex is a popular from of prosthetic appliance because it gives a high amount of performer comfort. Materials such as silicone do mimic the texture and appearance of human skin a lot more realistically, but silicone has no breath-ability and an actor wearing silicone appliances will perspire a lot under the prosthetics when worn for an extended period of time. Gelatin, being another option, may start to melt. Foam latex is also a lot lighter than the other two options so a full-face appliance will likely weigh less than an ounce and when applied, it is almost undetectable by the actor wearing it. Although foam latex is the lightest and most comfortable appliance to wear, it is probably the most difficult material to work with overall.

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Problems

- Foam latex is opaque. Silicone and gelatin can be coloured intrinsically to be semitransparent or translucent, similar to real human skin. Therefore to create the idea of translucency, the appliance has to be painted with numerous transparent layers of pigment, most often with an airbrush, to look like real skin.

- Foam latex requires a heat cure in an oven and it can't be a normal kitchen oven.

- Foam latex gives off toxic fumes during the heat cure

- Foam latex is time and temperature sensitive, meaning it has to be watched closely, can go wrong very easily and can turn out different between each batch.

- Foam latex can shrink, the thicker the foam the more it shrinks

- Foam latex is delicate so rarely survives removal in one piece at the end of the day meaning there needs to be fresh appliances every day for the performer.

History of Latex

- Latex is a natural liquid that comes from the hevea tree grown in Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia and the Philippines and other tropical countries

- The tree is tapped and a small amount of latex (a few ounces) is collected from each tree before the cut on the tree congeals and heals itself. Each tree is only tapped once every two days.

- Over 95% of all natural latex is concentrated by a method called centrifuging. The result is a high quality product containing 60-65% solids.

- The remaining latex, which is less than 5% of the worlds production, is concentrated by another method called creaming were ammonium alginate is added to the raw latex, causing separation. The watery 'serum layer' is drained from the vats, leaving a higher concentration of latex.

- As latex is a natural product, its composition is dependent on different environmental conditions. The hevea tress and the latex are affected by how much rainfall there is in a given season, how many sunny days, how young the tress are etc. Therefore the quality of rubber varies from season to season, year to year and month to month.

- These fluctuations can be very difficult for makeup effects because the latex will behave differently every time. For this reason when GM foam purchases creamed latex it calibrates its own latex base. It adjusts the pH balance, then conditions the latex with additives and finally makes a special blend with other types of latex. This means GM foam can carefully control the cell size, foam volume, flow and gel time.

Debreceni, T (2009) Special Makeup effects for stage and screen. Oxford: Focal Press (pg. 169-72)

Gender Roles and Transformations in Film

Before the sexual revolution of the 1960s, there was little that might be called transexual cinema before the 1960s. Although many of the first transexual and openly transgender identified people were trans men the media tended to focus more on trans women. During the 1960s underground film makers cast trans people in roles not just limited to trans roles. However it still remains unusual to cast a transgender person in a transgender role, even if the filmmaker is going for a sympathetic portrayal.

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Women in revolt (1971)

This film didn't deal with trans issues but features the Factories three trans 'superstars' Candy Darling, Holly Woodlawn and Jackie Curtis as the leaders of PIG (politically involved girls) a feminist group torn apart by infighting, personal ambition and lack of coherent goals.

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In a year of 13 moons (1978)

The film has a bleak outlook on trans people. It features Elvira, formerly Erwin, who went for sex reassignment surgery shortly after the man she loved said he'd love her if she was a woman. He reject Elvira, as does everyone she ever cared for. It is a harrowing film and difficult between trans people partly due to the connection between surgery and butchery. However it is a eye-opening exposition of the challenges that gender-variant people had in this time.

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The crying game (1992)

The crying game promotes it's famous twist of the revelation of the leading ladies genitalia and the audience find this out the same time as the ladies lover. She had been born male. It is a mainstream film that rethought old stereotypes of trans people, encouraging the audience to empathize with the main character without only asking for sympathy.

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The adventures of Priscilla Queen of the Desert (1994)

The film follows a transsexual woman, a transvestite and a drag queen as they travel across the outback to resurrect their old cabaret act the other side of Australia. It was one of the most significant trans-themed films of the 1990s.

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Boys don't cry (1999)

Trans women became more popular as a subject for films and documentaries during the 1990s, but it wasn't until the end of the decade that major picture centered around the subject. It was based on the true story of Brandon Teena who was raped and murdered in Humboldt, Nebraska in 1993 after two acquaintances discovered he was trans. The film follows Brandon as he struggles to fit in with the local guys whilst keeping his gender identity secret, resulting in tragedy for which his community blames him.

Jacques, J (2015) 10 Great Transgender films [Online] Available at: http://www.bfi.org.uk/news-opinion/news-bfi/lists/10-great-transgender-films . [Last accessed 24th Feb 2015]

Comedy films often have gender transformation roles that mirror the pantomime dame role. Two famous gender transformations in films have been John Travolta in Hairspray and Robin Williams in Mrs Doubtfire

Hairspray

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This video gives a detailed explanation of the prosthetic and wig work that went into turning John Travolta into Edna Turnblad. It was very interesting to see the large foam latex pieces that clipped together to form the entire body suit, foam latex would have been used because it is very light and therefore the actor could move and dance whilst wearing the pieces. It was also interesting how eight different versions of the face were sculpted before one was decided upon and they were then split into separate prosthetic pieces to be attached to the face. Although I'm not doing such a heavily based prosthetic elements in my makeup it's very useful to see the way this would be done in films and the realistic result it gives.

Mrs DoubtFire

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This video shows the process of transforming Robin Williams into Mrs Doubtfire. The pieces looked like foam latex pieces as they were blended at the edges by using more material added on It was very useful seeing the prosthetic pieces fitting together seamlessly to look like one large piece over the whole face and also how they were a very opaque pink colour when they were applied but then had layers of colour and stipple put over them to form a more realistic skin look that had translucency. Again although this was a heavily prosthetic makeup it's very useful to see the transformation process and the work that goes into it and the areas of the face that need to be altered to appear more feminine, such as a softer jawline.

Adam's Apple

An Adams Apple is a anatomical feature which is more predominant in males. Because it develops during puberty, biologists classify it as a secondary sexual characteristic. The size of an Adam's Apple can vary a lot, with some being very prominent, others a lot less pronounced, they can even be pronounced and noticeable in some women.  The primary purpose of the structure is to protect the voicebox from injury as the voicebox is very delicate.

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The scientific name for an Adam's apple is a prominentia laryngea and it is composed of cartilage that surrounds the larynx. As the larynx grows during puberty, the cartilage enlarges to accommodate it, creating a bump.  Over time, an Adam's apple will grow quite solid as in young people the cartilage is soft and flexible whilst in older people is turns more bony.

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The thyroid cartilage is composed of two plates, called laminae that join in the front at an angle of 90 to 120 degrees. This is the protrusion that can be seen on the neck. The cartilage also provides vibrations of the vocal folds necessary for vocalization.

Variations In Male and Female Faces

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Male and female faces have fundamental differences that are seen across the majority of people, many of these differences can be traced back to ancestral roots through evolution. Dr. Stephen Marquardt studied human beauty for years and through surveys studying perceptions of facial beauty and analysis of the human face in history found that beauty is related to phi. He created an archetypal beauty mask which uses the pentagon and decagon as it's foundation and embody phi in all the dimensions. The mask is the 'perfect' face and the more closely a face fits the mask the more beautiful a person is.

The phi mask is actually a a woman's mask, therefore the male image and mask is actually a variation of the female one. Developmentally, all human faces are essentially feminine and men's faces change and alter through multiple exposures to testosterone. However, they start out the same as a female (pre-pubescent males look extremely similar to pre-pubescent females and if dressed the same are often mistaken). Generally the female face is considered more attractive than the male face and this appears to be for the primary function of male attraction. Female attractiveness advertises health, the absence of disease and the ability to bear good children. This is important as in history males would be the sex to chose the mate, leaving the females to 'attract' the mate. It's because of this that females are attractive to other females, just not in a necessarily sexual way, because the face of a woman who fits the phi mask should be attractive to everyone - adults, children and infants.

The male variation of the mask is similar to the female mask but different in significant ways - 'characteristic' male variations.The archetypal male face is typically more protective, intimidating and sexually dissimilar than the female face.

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Variations on repose frontal generally include:

1) Prominent supra-orbital (brow) ridges resulting in deeper set eyes

2) Flatter and narrower eyebrows

3) Slightly narrower eyes

4) Eyes less 'wide open' (eye lids slightly closed)

5) Slightly longer and/or wider nose

6) Slightly thinner lips (especially top lip)

7) Square/angled or larger jaw.

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Variations on repose lateral generally include:

1) Prominent supra-orbital (brow) ridges resulting in deeper set eyes

2) Flatter eyebrows

3) Eyes less 'wide open' (eye lids slightly closed)

4) Slightly longer and/or wider nose

5) More obtuse nose-lip angle

6) Slightly thinner lips (especially top lip)

7) Square/angled or larger jaw.

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All of these variations work together to make the male face appear more intimidating and protective than that of the female, the female face is more attractive and nurturing.

 Stephen Marquardt. Face variations by sex. [Online] Available from: http://www.beautyanalysis.com/beauty-and-you/face-variations/face-variations-sex/ [Accessed 12^th February 2015]

Other differences between men and women:
 - men generally have more body hair than women
 - Men's skin is thicker and oilier than women's skin; women's skin tends to be smoother
 - Women generally have smaller waists in relation their hips; that is, their waist to hip ratio is smaller than that of a men
 - A man's index finger (second digit) tends to be shorter than the ring finger (fourth digit), whereas women's index finger tends to be longer than the ring finger
 - Women tend to have lighter skin coloration than men, on average, by as much as 3% or 4%
 - Women tend to have a lower center gravity than men - that is, shorter legs and longer torsos relative to their height - as well as a larger hip section.
 - Women generally have a higher percentage of body fat than men
 - Women tend to have higher voices than men
 - Men tend to have a more prominent laryngeal prominence, or Adam's apple, than women
 - Women have enlarged, functional breasts
 - Men generally have greater muscle mass and physical strength
 - Men tend to have shoulders that are wider than their hips
 - Men's skeletal structure is generally heavier than women's
 - Men tend to collect fat deposits around the abdomen and waist (apple shape), whereas women tend to have greater fat deposits around the buttocks, thighs and hips (pear shaped)

Debreceni, T (2013) Special Makeup Effects for stage and screen. 2^nd edition. Abingdon. Focal Press (pg. 74-5)

Facial Hair Tecniques

 From my research into the variations between males and females I know that males grow facial hair and women don't so this is an important step in gender transformation. There are many techniques for adding facial hair that do not involve knotting. As I'm doing gender transformations I would like to try some of these. The time constraints of the project mean I don't have the time to knot a full beard which if this was a full makeup on a film etc. I would consider having done as a realistic way to add a beard. However I would like to try techniques to add facial hair. Laying hair directly onto the face has advantages in that it's difficult to tell it's fake as there are no edges to conceal and it's much quicker and can be changed easily.

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This picture shows the method for laying on hair:

1) Apply spirit gum under the chin in the desired shape for the beard
2) Take the hair from the hackle - hair needs to be mixed in colour or it will look flat and unrealistic.
3) Spread the hair onto the required area and tap the ends of the hair so they adhere to the gum. Cut the hair to the desired length.
4) Start with the darker colour underneath and get lighter as move towards mouth
5) When a large area has been covered, use a towel to press the hair firmly to secure the hair and get rid of any extra gum
6) Thin the hair out at the top and the side of the jaw
7) When finished use a large-toothed comb to comb gently through the hair
8) Cut the hair into the required shape.

This is an example of laying on hair which is a technique I could use for gender transformation if I wanted a full beard and didn't have the time to not it. It works well as lace can't be seen but is time consuming to actually apply which could be an issue.

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These pictures show the method for applying stubble. You can make stubble with just makeup (ie. greasepaint) which works from afar but doesn't look so realistic close up.

1) Spread the wax thinly over the face
2) Place a small piece of hair lace on the wax and press it on
3) Start at the side of the face. Dip a soft powder brush into finely chopped human hair. Stipple the brush onto the hair lace.
4) Pull the lace off carefully, leaving the hairs attached to the wax and making them stick on end.
5) Move round the face section by section. Take down the neck to the Adam's apple.

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 Experimentation

On my chin I experimented with using brown and black greasepaint on a stipple sponge for a stubble effect. I liked the technique and from afar it looks effective. It was also extremely quick and easy. Close up it's more obvious it's makeup.

On the middle section I tried the applying stubble technique with spirit gum. This worked well but remained very sticky for a while and made the lace difficult to work with.

On the far section I experimented with the stubble technique using pros-aide. I much preferred this to spirit gum as it dried matte not shiny, didn't remain sticky and more hair stuck onto the section.

 All three techniques were useful but my favourite was using pros-aide as I think it looks the most realistic and was the easiest to work with. For a much quicker, simple application I would use the greasepaint technique but for a more in depth girl to boy transformation I will use the pros-aide version of applying stubble. All together I was happy with my experimentation as it helped me decide on stubble techniques for my different gender transformations.

If a gender transformation makeup was to be done as a full makeup it is possible that knotting hair would be used to make a piece like a beard or mustache. In this case I would use human hair and a single hair knotting technique to create the piece. I did a small example of this in a square of knotting to experiment with how natural lace can look on the face and get an idea of the techniques that would be used in a full makeup.

I was happy with how the knotting went on this small section, I used a single knotting technique and synthetic hair I had left over (for a full beard it would be better to use human hair) The piece stuck well at the bottom but became slightly unstcuck at the top which is why the lace can be see. To change this I would cut the lace closer to the hair and use mastix as a glue. However this was very helpful in seeing how natural a lace beard could look on a gender transformation makeup and if I was to do a full girl to boy makeup I would definitely consider knotting a full beard as I think it could be very effective and natural looking.