Body Paint/Costuming Query

[shanmonster]

I'm planning a rather strange and dramatic dance for a big show in October. I want to do a lot of work focusing on my abdominal muscular control. I'm thinking of using a slim-fitting costume in dark browns, blacks, and possibly some peacock accents which leaves the abs and back completely bare. I think body paint in dark bronze, gold, and/or chocolatey-brown would go along well. Do you have any suggestions, or can you point me to some applicable photo galleries? What is the best way to highlight subtle muscular control for a large audience?

Comments

[threemilechild.livejournal.com]

Just judging from my cat, if you want to highlight shape, don't go for black. Especially in photographs, you'll just end up with a vaguely Shanmonster shaped blob. You could probably get away with it if it were a very shiny black, but that would probably only work from some angles, depending on the lighting. I'd imagine very dark browns would have similar problems.

I've seen a lot of contortonists use gold body paint; maybe it's because they want to look like statues but I'd suppose it might be because it tends to show up well.

I'm not sure exactly what your dance is going to entail, but if you're going to do sort of moving ripple-y things, you might want to experiment a little with stripes going in the other direction; stripes always make it obvious when fabric isn't flat.

[shanmonster.livejournal.com]

The fabric won't be covering the parts of me doing the muscle work. That's where the body paint comes in.

[thisblogsucks.livejournal.com]

During my years of painting miniatures, I found the best way to bring out muscles and highlights was a black wash. Using watered down black paint, I would douse the figurine liberally and allow the paint to accumulate in the miniature's grooves. Really helped bring out the detail. Following that logic, I would try adding darker tones in muscle recesses - maybe a subtle gradient away from bulges? That's my best guess.

[shanmonster.livejournal.com]

I was thinking of something along that line: maybe burnt umber in the recesses and gold along the bones and muscles.

Then again, http://www.desertsin.com/pix/ds31.htm looks pretty neat. I might experiment with something similar in the rib patterning.

[f00dave.livejournal.com]

Damn! Now I want one of those, too! ;-]