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Painting the nude figure is a challenge.
Though you don't need more skill for this than for painting a clothed
figure, you do need to take a different approach.
First of all, apart from the hair, facial features, and any residual clothing
on the figure, only one colour is used - flesh tone.
This colour may vary in value from light to dark, but it remains basically
the same all over the body. The problem lies entirely in the varying of
these values of light and dark to produce a convincing effect.
What is a flesh tone?
How is it achieved? Most suppliers of paints provioe a tube or can labelled
flesh tone. Many of these are very good, and we can use them, adding only
white to lighten them, or brown, or even blue, to darken them.
Alternatively, by using artists' paints from an art supply shop, we can
make up our own flesh tone.
A very easy one is made by combining Raw Sienna, White, and a touch of
Alizarin Crimson. Another, equally good, can be made from Yellow Ochre,
White, and Cadmium Red. Adding a brown - try Vandyke Brown or Burnt Umber
- will give nice rich shade colours. Adding more white produces values
suitable for highlights.
What are the problems of painting small-scale nude sculptures?
How do they differ from pictures? Pictures are seen from one view and
one angle. Sculpture can be viewed from many angles.
Why can't we just paint the figure a single flesh tone all over? For two
reasons: firstly flesh tone tends to wash out detail; secondly this would
rely on existing light sources to bring out the light and shade. Although
this is what happens in reality, a sculpture is not a real person. It
has to be made to look like a real person. Light sources vary and are
unreliable. An artist has to make his own lighting effects. In paintings
the light source often comes from one side of the picture, allowing the
forms of the objects depicted to be modelled in light and shade. In sculpture
we have to do something of the same.
Light source.
The aim is to make the figure independent of the existing light. But the
important thing is that it should "model" the figure, emphasising
the hollows and the high places.
Our imaginary light source will come from above, because light naturally
comes from above, but from which direction? Because we will view the figure
from many angles, let us assume a sort of multiple light source, as if
emanating from above the figure as a number of rays from angles of say
15-20 degrees from the vertical.
Five tones.
This light can be made to model the figure, to emphasise the contours
of the body by the use of various flesh tones. Five flesh tones are needed,
and we have to blend them so that they graduate from one to the other
with no hard lines.
Three of these five tones are: a mid tone, to simulate the overall flesh
tone of a person, a bright highlight tone where the light will catch the
highest points of a figure, and a dark tone for the deepest shades. And
we need a tone between each of these. Thus: highlight - lighter in-between
tone - mid tone - darker in-between tone - dark tone.
Basic tonal painting
Clearly the highlights will be placed where the light will catch those
parts of the figure which are most prominent. So that's where we will
place the lightest tones we have. The darker tone 2 we will reserve for
those parts away from the light, the undersides of the figure. The darkest
tone of all we will reserve for the creases of the figure especially on
the underside.
[the sheet continues in the oil painting section]
Sculptural lighting effects.
[Tim Richards is the sculptor of many Mascot kits]
Tim Richards is an extremely skilled artist, and his knowledge of artistic
anatomy is truly remarkable.
If you examine a Tim Richards figure carefully you will notice that a
lot of modelling has been done which is very subtle.
The neck is often carefully modelled, and the collar bones are visible,
the shoulder-blades can be seen, of course, and the line of the spine.
Depending on the figure many other points of anatomy are brought out:
typically ankles, wrists, elbows, knee-joints, toes and fingers, the line
of the shinbone, the deltoids, the adductors of the thigh muscles - oodies
of detail. All this is accomplished with a true sense of the feminine.
Naturally in painting the figure, some of this subtlety is lost under
the relatively deadening effect of flesh tone. We have to bring it back.
This we achieve by "sculptural" painting.
Those parts of, for example, the shoulder blade which are raised have
to made lighter than those parts which are depressed, which have to be
darkened. And this irrespective of the light sources we have chosen and
painted in the previous section.
For example, if the figure was reclining backwards, we might assume that
all her back should be in shade, and be painted a darker tone. But this
is not so. Because some of the light that emanates from above and reaches
the ground is reflected back upwards, the underside of things are illuminated
as well. This reflected light, though weaker, permits us to model the
underside of the girl.
 Equally
even if the figure is kneeling forwards so that her back is towards the
light source, we cannot assume that everything there should be painted
in light tone. We may have to darken the deep line of the spine, or the
base of the shoulder-blade, and lighten the equivalent raised area in
order to emphasise the modelling.
Finally those places where clothing meets flesh can be emphasised just
a little by darkening the line where they meet. This can be achieved at
the same time as the highlights and shadow areas are done for the main
forms of the body, or they can be added later, using dry-brush technique.
Naturally in painting the figure, some of this subtlety is lost under
the relatively deadening effect of flesh tone. We have to bring it back.
This we achieve by "sculptural" painting.
Those parts of, for example, the shoulder blade which are raised have
to made lighter than those parts which are depressed, which have to be
darkened. And this irrespective of the light sources we have chosen and
painted in the previous section.
For example, if the figure was reclining backwards, we might assume that
all her back should be in shade, and be painted a darker tone. But this
is not so. Because some of the light that emanates
from above and reaches the ground is reflected back upwards, the underside
of things are illuminated as well. This reflected light, though weaker,
permits us to model the underside of the girl.
Equally even if the figure is kneeling forwards so that her back is towards
the light source, we cannot assume that everything there should be painted
in light tone. We may have to darken the deep line of the spine, or the
base
of the shoulder-blade, and lighten the equivalent raised area in order
to emphasise the modelling.
Finally those places where clothing meets flesh can be emphasised just
a little by darkening the line where they meet. This can be achieved at
the same time as the highlights and shadow areas are done for the main
forms of the body, or they can be added later, using dry-brush technique.
At all times, when painting female figures, softness and subtlety of effect
are needed. Avoid too deep a shadow tone. Above all, avoid black (even
when painting a dark-skinned girl - wonderful effects can be obtained
using shades of brown, but pure black is the absence of light and flattens
all detail).
If you feel that the figure is still patchy, or the modelling is too strong,
you can always weaken it with a glaze of a lighter colour. To do this,
prepare a wash, a thin mid-tone mixture, and brush it over the figure
after it is dry. This glaze should pull, the colours together while leaving
the blending visible beneath.
Adclitional highlights and dark shading can be applied afterwards if necessary,
especially with dry-brush.
If you feel that you have failed, and the whole thing looks awful, it's
not a disaster. Most model shops sell paint-strippers suitable for models.
You can take the whole lot off again and start over. You won't spoil the
metal figure beneath (though the stripper may effect some types of glue,
so some reassembly might be needed).
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