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Warpaint advice


redpiano
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I'm trying to come up with an idea for warpaint to paint on a mini.

 

These are my ideas so far (face and legs)

 

Fairly NSFW 

 

http://i.imgur.com/4VPZi5b.jpg

 

I've looked at a bunch of photos of african tribes and maori tattoos and what not, but I've not fallen in love with anything I've seen and a lot of it is way to complex for me to paint at this scale.

 

So any ideas or criticism on the designs I've tried out in photoshop there.

 

 

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Do an image search for "woad" to begin with.  One of the first hits is a red-haired girl with great war paint.  "Woad warrior" turns up some good examples too.  From there you can branch out to "African," "Indian/Native American," "Aboriginal," "Wood elf," etc.

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Ahem, on goes academic hat.

 

Warpaint embodies symbolism for the warrior depicting themes and symbols part of his culture. Spiral motifs are common to depict life and death in some cultures while lines depict the same in others. The ritual painting on of the symbols bears as much signifigance as the symbols themselves. Some cultures go so far as to have death personified at the ritual to be driven out from the ceremony and to lead the charge (actually bringing death to the enemy).

 

All that is to say, figure out the cultural signifigance and the rest will fall in place. Is the paint a mystical set of armour (or at least believed to be). Is it to depict the terrifying beasts within? Or is your warrior the personification of death?

 

I like to think these things through before I paint and then it just flows.

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