Designing Process
The design process is based around reavealing the growing muscles a body builder would be working towards. The body builder will endlessly train for months on end with a strict diet regime consisting of a high protein content in order for the muslces to repair themselves. This makeup shows the anatomy of the positioning of the muscles and the texture of the muscle fibres. The other half of the body shows how the muscles look with a layer of skin on them, it shows the depth and shadows the growing muscles underneath have caused, as well as the loss of fat which would have softened the look of the muscles or hidden them completely.
Design Application
After the muscle that I had sculpted was moulded from silicone, it was painted with cap plastic and alcohol ratio of (3:1) with 4 layers. The silicone was measured out so that it had 75% deadener. (45g part A 45g part B, 60g deadener) and then pigment was added, the transparency was tested before adding more pigment. I will experiment again with this using more red in colour to resemble a more authentic looking muscle.
The cap plastic layers were tested with a pin before peeling away, it had some slight holes so another layer was painted on. It was still found it to be problamatic peeling away as the silicone would not lift with it, the silicone had to be prised out whilst constantly dusting with powder.
The cap plastic was very thin causing there to be rips in the flashing. The measurement was ratio 3:1, so next time I may use a ratio of 2:1 so that the cap plastic is stronger. However, there were still parts of the prosthetic that had a nice blendable edge. I really liked how the texture has come out, it looks more realistic than I expected.
Reds have been used mainly to create the muscle fibres, with darker tones using blacks/browns/blues to help create the depth. Anatomy books and web research was used as reference when designing these pieces. White is used to hightlight the higher areas of the mucles and around the muscles to represent the bone. I like the muscles coming through onto sections of the body so I would like to experiment with painting parts of the body trying different techniques.
Whilst researchy the anatomy of the body I came across various images showing the facial mucles so I have painted a small section of the face with facial structure but I do not think it would be as relevant to my project as body builders priority is to change their bodies, the facial muscles are not expanding like those in the body. However it was interesting to research the anatomy and movement of the face nevertheless.
A small amount of barrier cream has been used over the hairier areas of the model before any makeup was applied. The prosthetic piece has been applied with prosade, painted onto the prosthetic first, contacted with the skin in where the prosthetic will stick, left to dry with a hair dryer and recontacted for a strong bond. Alcohol has been used to blend out the cap plastic, in the areas where the cap plastic had ripped I have tried to apply more prosade to reduce the signs of any edges. I would have felt much happier with the prosthetic if it had a blendable edge throughout. I used reference images to refer back to in terms of positioning it anatomically correct.
For colouring the piece, skin illustrator has been used. I wanted to use this for its translucency to make the muscle look more authentic. It looked interesting as I worked more colour into the piece has it is very fluid like it ran into the lines of texture I created and began to look natural. In the photograph the colours look much more pink than it did in person which is a shame. The muscle prosthetics would look inertesteing placed around the body and painted realistically, I wanted it to look more glossy than it did after it dried which has encouraged me to consider what materials could recreate a wet look.
I started to paint the body around the muscle prosthetic which did hide it to some degree, however, you can still see the texture and the transition of the skin to the silicone piece which looked effective. I tried to recreate this texture by painting it in with grease paint, again I used anatomy books and images as reference to try to get the layout of the muscles correct. I like how I have used the different colours to create depth, the bright white really highlights the areas giving the illusion on a contoured muscle.
I was really pleased the the final result of the painting of the muscle fibers, it worked really well and I enjoyed painting it. I started to paint the face similar to my design which did not work. I needed to be much more intricate and detailed around the facial muscles, I probably should have taken a step back to take in the proportions of how it should look. The colours also started blended into one another too much on the face and ended up looking too brown.
I painted the other half of the body with how the muscluar look would be with skin covering the muscles, I found this difficult to get the colour right as I wanted it to be a deep tan, similar to how a body builder would look on show. As my model is already dark skinned many of the colours I was using did not show up on his skin. I managed to create the look anyway using more brown colours which I feel should have been warmer, and by highlighting areas too.
Exploring With Editing Images
In developing the experimental process, some digital effects have been added to the body paint. As technology is being used more in the industry I felt like it is necessary for me to begin to become more familair with techincal advances within makeup, and use it within my own as this is likely to be the case when I start work in industry. Ofcourse, I would prefer to create such effects by myself, however, these effects have really given me several different looks all of which work really well, and I have been able to switch from look to look very easily. Some of the effects make the muscles look fresh as the brighter reds come through, compared to the more earthy reds giving an older feel to the body paint.
As the makeup looks like a painting, these painting effects have worked really well to exaggerate the textures I tried to create with paint. I particularly like the image on the right whereby areas look to have inked splodges, I feel this works really well.
These images are very effective in bringing out the outlines of the features I have created. The left image looks similar to an X-ray image which makes the muscles really stand out. The left image really brings out the contrast in the outlines of the muscles and the body.