Warpaint

[John Long]

I am about to begin painting the woodland Indians for my vignette. I feel comfortable with the fleshtones. My problem comes in when I think about the warpaint they used. Would it make more sense to paint the figures as usual, then add the warpaint in semi-transparent layers. Or basecoat in the vairous colors, and shade and highlight accordingly. I'm leaning toward the former, but would like to hear some other perspectives. I'm an oil painting type by the way.

 

[slaj]

John , I'd go for the former too but keep in mind ( and I stand to be corrected here!) that it might not have been the best resistant paint in the world. So I'd go for the faded type look with flesh showing through. My views anyway

 

[Robin]

John

I think I would paint as normal then add the war paint, I get teh feeling that would be more realistic.

Robin

 

[Larry R]

I agree, have done it both ways with Mohicans and the former looks the best and most realistic

 

[John Long]

Thanks guys. The former technique seems to be make the most sense then. I think that's what I'll do.

I forgot to ask in the original post, what about handling the tattoos?

 

[Larry R]

to me, the tattoos I saw seemed to stand out like they do now only in black. Osprey has a book on north american woodland indians that is pretty good, but it only covers those tribes. I am sure there are others, there are some pretty good referance books out there that cover all indians even at the library

 

[quang]

John,

I made this screen capture from the 'Dances with Wolves' dvd as a reference for painting my new bust. I thought it might be helpful to you too.

Note how the 'war paint' is SMEARED on the skin (body paints were earth/vegetal dyes with animal fat as a binder). Check out the skin tones and also the very low contrast between the red paint and the naked skin.

Happy painting

Quang

 

[John Long]

Thanks Quang. That is exactly my concern. I don't want it to look like housepaint.

 

[Guy]

John, I share your delima with warpaint. I have the Pawnee (I mis-named it in my "workbench" and called it a Huron). I was very pleased with the flesh tones that came out with the bust and become intimidated when it comes time to apply warpaint. It has set on my desk for a couple of weeks now, waiting for me to apply the warpaint. If it doesn't work.......alot of time gone down the drain. I plan right now to use the drybrushing method with red and the flesh should still be visable thru the warpaint. I have done a google image search and have accumulated quite a few images of different applications of war paint, both like the photo Quang posted and also much starker color contrast too...........hmmmm.....which way to go?.........I have a couple of damaged Native American 90mm Indians I may try my technique out on first. Let me know what you decide to do with yours

 

[John Long]

Guy, here is what I intend to try. Paint the flesh as usual, then add vermillion war paint to the upper head with a little grumbacher #1 added. Then I'll go with the black and add some stripes across the face from cheek to cheek. I'll have to be careful to let the initial flesh dry and cure fully beforehand. I may get to it this weekend. Let me know how your technique goes.

 

[Guy]

John, here is an image I pulled from the image search I did showing an Algonkian Indian with heavly applied war-paint. I guess that if war-paint has been worn for a long period of time it would become thinner as opposed to freshly applied warpaint would naturally be brighter. Ceromomonial warpaint applied with car and time would I think look brighter as opposed to warpaint applied quickly while on the trail.

 

[Anders Heintz]

Great thread! Ive done a couple or three indians with warpaint, and I faced the same dillemma. What I did was to paint the flesh like always and then paint over it. And yes, I faced the...hmm Im pleased with how it looks now, maybe I shouldnt do the warpaint. But I just started doing the warpaint and it worked out ok. Its the starting part that is the difficult part.