Body Paint



""I didn't feel naked.""

- Rebecca Romijn-Stamos on her Mystique "costume" in X-Men.

Exactly What It Says on the Tin.

People for whom their body is their canvas... literally. Older Than Feudalism as there's evidence for body painting in ancient Roman historical documentation. The complexity of designs can range from a single color all over, through designs and patterns, pictures and artwork to even paint so detailed and accurate that the person looks like they're wearing clothes.

Most commonly seen painted on attractive women for added Fan Service, or on fanatical sports fans, especially when weather in appropriate to be wearing only paint, to show their devotion to their team.

Contrast Painted-On Pants, where the clothes are just so tight they look painted on, and Form-Fitting Wardrobe, which is the next step up.

Advertising

 * Air New Zealand have released safety videos featuring naked employees.
 * This Delta Faucet commercial.

Comic Books

 * Artificial Human Girl One from Top Ten has an interesting variant of this -- her skin shifts color at will, with its default being purple. Since her creators were a pair of horny fanboys, she was also engineered with a compulsion to not wear clothes -- she makes do by just creating patterns on her skin that make it hard to notice she's nude. (Note that the obvious sister trope is not in play -- when she realizes her boss is colorblind and can see past her tricks, she decks him.)
 * Of course her boss, being a sentient dog in a humanoid exoskeleton, tells her that her naked body means as little to him as a dog's would to her, so she forgives him. However,
 * Later have the same situation, as well.
 * In an issue of The Avengers, some dude on the street tells She Hulk that he loves her "green body paint" and asks if she needs any help removing it. Jen, naturally, responds by stuffing him into the nearest trashcan.

Magazines

 * Sports Illustrated did a few bodypaint-swimsuits for their annual swimsuit issue a few years ago; they were so popular that they have continued the practice every year since.
 * The cover of the December 1984 National Lampoon had a woman covered in body paint that made it look like she was wearing a business suit (albeit quite a form-fitting one).
 * Demi Moore wore only body paint in her picture on the cover of the August 1992 issue of Vanity Fair, as seen here.
 * One printer ad, telling you what you see at different dpi levels, uses a picture of a woman apparently wearing a one-piece swimsuit. At the highest dpi level mentioned, you see that it's painted on.
 * Car and Driver magazine, believe it or not, once published a comparison test issue with a cover depicting two nude female torsos painted as national flags. A lot of people probably wondered what, if anything, that particular issue had to do with cars or driving.

Music

 * The recent video for Right Said Fred's revival of I'm Too Sexy involved four women in body painted uniforms. In a rain storm.

Tabletop Games

 * A Shadowrun book set in Germany had at one point two people who appeared to wear Painted-On Pants (or rather, full-bodysuits), but really were completely tattooed. These books were pretty weird...
 * A similar cyberpunk RPG series had library-mages, mages that used the power of ancient texts to power themselves. The example given was of a bibliomancer (a mage using the power of the bible's occult elements) who had tattooed the entire thing on her bare skin for more power.
 * In the Sandstorm supplement for Dungeons and Dragons, a type of elf called the Painted Elf lives in the deep desert, decorating their bodies with clay pigments to indicate their family and tribe while keeping them cool.

Western Animation

 * The last episode of Camp Lazlo is about Scoutmaster Lumpus painting his whole body to make him look like he is wearing clothes so he won't do his laundry. Everyone found out about this, so they did what Lumpus did, giving them free time to do everything that is impossible to do (solving world hunger and even creating time travel). Soon, Lumpus was recognized as a genius because of his body paint idea, until a thunderstorm hits.
 * During the Futurama episode "Roswell That Ends Well" Fry uses a can of spray paint that actually creates a army uniform.
 * Similarly, Amy loses her top during a beach episode (Season 2, Episode 3: "When Aliens Attack"), she has the professor hand her a spare, which turns out to be a can of "All Purpose Spray". This is the same generic phlebotinum used in the army uniform above.
 * Hamton tries this when forced to walk home in the nude in an episode of Tiny Toon Adventures. Too bad he overlooked his backside.
 * This isn't what leads to his downfall, however: It's a car splashing him.

Real Life

 * There are a variety of businesses that have women wearing only body paint as employees, including catering services, waitresses in bars, models and so on.
 * Ben Nye the theatrical makeup company does 'make-up as costume on young female nude' on a semi-regular basis. The artists work is amazing.
 * It varies from place to place, but body paint can technically categorize as clothing because it's a layer of something worn over the bare skin.
 * Several years back, a gentleman did an entire Star Trek: The Next Generation uniform out of a black jockstrap, black slippers, stick-on rank pips and comlink, and everything else out of stage makeup. And then he went cruising the convention parties to much squeeing.
 * Stumpen, singer of the German metal band Knorkator has the entire left side of his body tattooed. As the band was well known for its over the top hilarity and weird stage costumes, he often performed in nothing but his underpants.
 * Common for the Brazilian Carnival, especially since a goal of a lot of the dancers is to wear as little clothing as they could feasibly get away with while looking exotic, so there's an industry of people who get paint Jaguars and other designs on these ladies.
 * Part of the point of the the annual Fremont Solstice Festival nude bike ride preceding the actual parade, aka "Solstice Cycles", in Seattle, WA (Warning, link NSFW). Inspired by a similar international ride. Body paint designs vary from the rudimentary and minimal, to extensive and highly artistic, to bodypaint "cosplay".
 * The yearly Sports Illustrated Swimsuit magazine has nearly as many models wearing Body Paint as opposed to actual bathing suits.
 * One SI editor was eating breakfast on location with Rebecca Romijn and some of the crew and said he was halfway through the meal before he realized the bikini top Romijn was wearing was just paint.
 * Featured artists at more adult festivals and conventions often do body painting. If their paintings and prints are out of price range of most attendees, they can count on easy extra income decorating skin, sometimes nude.
 * On a less adult side of things, face painting is an extremely common thing at festivals and carnivals, for much the same reasons.
 * Naked women simply covered in paint with no theme to it is a subset of the paraphilia of women covered in various, often viscous, substances. ("Wet and Messy")

Film

 * Rebecca Romijn's actual costume as Mystique in X-Men (2000) and its sequels is just blue body paint with judiciously-located pieces of textured lizard-skin make-up appliances.
 * Ahnk Su Namun's costume in The Mummy 1999 is a loin cloth and body paint (and really long hair). Apparently the director was prepared to digitally cover her up more and was surprised that the censors allowed it as-is.
 * The same couldn't be said for the airline versions and the trailers.
 * In the 1980s Pilot Movie The Invisible Woman, Alexa Hamilton used a large quantity of flesh-colored body paint to hide the fact that she had become invisible.
 * In The Pillow Book Nagiko paints her book onto people and sends them naked to the publisher.
 * Kippur begins and ends with a scene showing the protagonist and his girlfriend rubbing paint all over each other while making love. Not sure what this had to do with the rest of the movie.
 * In a heart-wrenching scene in the movie Pleasantville, the protagonist helps paint his mother with her still-grey makeup to disguise her sudden colorfulness.
 * The Na'vi in Avatar love this stuff; Jake wears it in his initiation ceremony and pretty much everyone wears it during the Final Battle.
 * Kari Wuhrer gets this treatment in Vivid, not that it looks anything like clothing.
 * Likewise Ann-Margaret in The Swinger, though she has a bikini on underneath.
 * Better Than Chocolate: Maggie and Kim play with this.
 * Goldfinger. Jill Masterson ending up painted solid gold. Spawned a myth (Summarily busted: You don't breathe through your skin, people -- but if you're allergic to metallic powder, watch out) and thousands of imitators.

Literature

 * Robert A. Heinlein's I Will Fear No Evil had Eunice Branca, whose husband was an artist. He would very often paint her body.
 * She wore an entertaining paint job to work one day that was intended to confuse her boss as to whether it was skintight clothing or paint.
 * In L Sprague De Camp's classic SF cycle Viagens Interplanetarias, one of the humanoid cultures on planet Krishna lives in such a hot climate that the people forgo clothing altogether, and only wear jewelery and body paint.
 * In Keith Laumer's story "Wicker Wonderland", CDT diplomat Jame Retief decides to do a little diving beneath a Poonian floating city. To do so, he strips down and the diving suit is spray painted onto him. Various color schemes are optional.
 * The Race from Harry Turtledove's Worldwar series have no need for clothing (at least in climates like they're used to) and therefore display rank insignia through body paint. By the 1960's, when the aliens have been living on Earth for a while, rebellious teenagers in the US start adopting Lizard "clothing" for the shock value.
 * There's a kind-of example in Rudyard Kipling's Just So Stories, when the Ethiopian (who has pale skin) and the Leopard (who has a plain coat) decide they need camouflage, and so the Ethiopian paints his skin dark and the Leopard's spotted, just as they remain to this day.

Live Action TV

 * On Just Shoot Me, Nina pesters Elliot for a photoshoot to bring her back to the spotlight. He ends up shooting her in gold paint, then she insults him. To get even with her, he tells Nina that the paint won't come off without a special solvent, and that trying to wash it off will burn her, so she ends up walking around in gold the entire episode.
 * On Las Vegas, one of the casino's bars featured cocktail waitresses who wear painted on tops.
 * Very cruelly subverted in 1000 Ways to Die. A woman named Wendy who worked in a factory used some glowing paint from her work as Fetish Fuel during intimacy with her husband. It turned out that said paint was radiactive (more exactly, made from radium, and few later Wendy died from bone cancer -- and some of her co-workers died as well. The other ill women who survived filed a succesful lawsuit, and became the "Radium Girls"
 * On the makeup F/X game show Face Off, painting nude models is one of the more common challenges, and body paint is also used in many other costumes.

Music

 * Storm Thorgerson, the creator of many of Pink Floyd's album art, has a design called "Pink Floyd Back Catalogue" with six of the covers painted on the backs of models. The image can be found at his official site under Work→Non Moving→Posters.

Tabletop Games

 * The Savage Orc variant of Warhammer Fantasy Battle Orcs wear magic warpaint that provides mystical protection roughly equivalent to light armour, except that it can potentially deflect cannonballs - which is a good thing, since they otherwise wear nothing more concealing than a loincloth, due to the heat where thy live.

Web Original

 * Skippys List references this. "43. Camouflage body paint is not a uniform."
 * There's some literal Pokémon Cosplay photos floating around the internet of a girl wearing a full-body paintjob of a Mudkip.

Web Comics

 * Precocious has one of these somehow. Except that when the model, Sydney Oven, arrived, the painter, her future husband, used her as the BRUSH. Her opinion? 'How many other families are able to hang a nude portrait of the mother over the dinner table and get away with it?' Said to...the parents of her son's classmates.
 * The Dragons in Draconia Chronicles don't have any kind of clothes or jewelry, only tattoos and Body Paint. Those get more elaborate for formal occasions. Queen Oscura's "crown" is an complicated tattoo on her thigh that she can make visible at will.
 * Fanboys: Sylvia appeared to be wearing body paint while cosplaying Midna.

Western Animation

 * In an episode of The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh Winnie the Pooh, Tigger loses his stripes, so he has his friends paint some new ones on. The weather abruptly turns stormy the moment he steps outside.