I've often wondered that about those Denise Lewis bodypaint pics (and trust me, I've studied them many times over the years
)
In the back view, as you say, it definitely seems to be just paint like the 'top', but if the bottom half of her 'outfit' was only painted on, we'd have had several nice full-frontal views...
I've never been able to make my mind up if it was either just paint, and then Photoshopped afterwards to cover up - in which case some lucky sod of a photographer got to see Denise showing everything
; or she was wearing a thong/G-string/whatever to cover up down below and it was Photoshopped out later.
It's a great set of pics though- I mean, she's obviously got an athlete's body, rather then a model's body, but I've always thought Denise is seriously hot