djarii · @Djari328
10th Sep 2018 from TwitLonger
My story & experiences with body painting
So I was tagged in a hate thread today about somebody who bodypainted on Twitch, and I wanted to leave my thoughts. Apologies if it gets too rambly or personal, but I want to share this.
Not that I should have to, but I want to preface this with some background on me.
I have been interested in makeup since I was old enough to be allowed makeup in school. My first makeup I wore to school was a Halloween paint stick that came in a kit at from the pound shop that I somehow magyvered into eyeliner because it helped me feel more myself at school. After that my mum bought me a kohl eyeliner and I've been wearing and loving makeup ever since. It has helped me express myself and given me the confidence to blossom into the person I am today.
My story ever since the very beginning has always been a creative one, even at the emotionally lowest points of my life I have turned to my art to help push through, I grew up with a pen and paper in hand and that lead me to pursuing art after I left high school.
I studied fine art in Portsmouth and broader art in Edinburgh (I was planning to attend Edinburgh College of Art, but then stumbled upon Twitch). I entered the NYX Face Awards twice and was a finalist in 2016. (The NYX Face Awards is a yearly makeup competition that happens all over the world and is considered to be pretty prestigious, ran by the HUGE, awesome brand NYX Cosmetics.)
I discovered bodypainting when I started digging deeper into creative makeup and I fell in love with it. (One of my fellow Face Awards top 20 was an accomplished bodypainter - misskatemonroe.co.uk) I had promised myself after I didn't win the Face Awards that I was going to put the time and effort into learning and cultivating creative makeup. Twitch introduced me to cospaint, which is the aptly named cross-over between cosplay and bodypainting; namely painting yourself to appear like a character from pop culture. I have always loved and admired cosplay, so I started by doing facepaints of my fav characters on Twitch and then gradually teaching myself about bodypainting. Bodypainting really brought me back in touch with a creativity I thought I had let go when I started streaming full time.
Since I've been on this journey, I have spent time and resources to learn and better this craft for both myself and for my community who has loved and supported me through it. I went to a bodypainting class in Ireland held by my dear, dear friend and mentor @JordanHanz. I bought stacks of books on building cosplay costumes and read them all over and over to learn prop building to better accompany my work. I've teamed up with other artists and even bodypainted a model (and amazing, loveable human Mel) LIVE for the launch of World of Warcraft: Battle For Azeroth in collaboration with Red Bull.
For me bodypainting is not a viewer grab, (while I do acknowledge it absolutely does bring in a whole new audience, I'm not blind or stupid!) it's just another extension of creativity I want to share with my community. It's not trying to manipulate the fragile minds and wallets of kids, I'm not an evil succubus woman trying to get rich by 'painting tiddies'. I am just a girl who found a niche and fun little hobby that she wants to share with the world.
If I'm going to be fully transparent, as write this, I have a horrible knot in my stomach and I can't not cry about it. I'm often asked about the difficulty of bodypainting on Twitch, the truth is that I struggle so much to bring myself to do it simply because I deal with the fear that people are going to laugh at me, they are going to insult me, degrade me, and they do. Anyone who knows my channel knows I'm forced to leave subscriber mode ON because sometimes it's a waterfall of ignorant toxicity. Comments like 'art btw' or 'lul can I paint my dick on strim too kappa harhar' actually really suck, because they point fun at a craft that in my heart I know I love. Bodypainting for a lot of people is alien, Twitch was once a gaming platform that has exploded in all directions and is now the home to a whole plethora of content and it's gonna take a minute to adapt. You're not going to like, or support every type of content the platform offers, but I want you to know my perspective when I see these types of comments that you don't NEED to post.
We as people need to grow as people and understand that not everything we see is going to be to our personal tastes, and we might not agree wholly with certain things, but if it doesn't hurt you, and it doesn't hurt others, resorting to degrading that person is just not the answer. If you disagree with the content of a creator on Twitch, report and move along quietly. Only Twitch can decide if something is or isn't the kind of content they want to back. You don't know the stories behind eachother creator, their motivations or feelings.
Bringing this back to the reason I decided to write this post in the first place, a post was made about a bodypainter on Twitch and it became a really long hate thread. I don't want to ever see that happen to another human being. Reading the comments made me feel physically ill, so trying to imagine how it felt for her is crushing. Nobody deserves that.
I know and I will never expect the world to be a perfect place, there is always going to be hate on the internet, but I hope that little by little we can change the minds and hearts of people who would otherwise contest this little creative outlet that makes my soul feel full.
Sophia