Hallowed be thy ween

A brief snap shot of our Halloween party last weekend. Some of the best outfits around town in my opinion. The theme was 'come as your worst nightmare' and so I got to lavish myself, Elinor and Nedly (my house mates) with my newly aquired make up skills. this is what i did to them and myself... Regarde:

the harlequin and the 1950's house wife

the extreme plastic surgery patient

show casing my other other skill... oh yes i carve, did you not know?.....

the pregnant teenage twins

some more outfitted party goers

this guy just took it waaaaay too far!

Jodi as a rather spunky Brittany Spears, and i revelling in the evenings punch....

morning after.... x

Casualty assessment

And so it came, our very first assessment of our 1 year complete make up artistry course. To say our class was nervous was an understatement, tempers became fractious and the tension rose as we were each given a different brief, followed by 1 night to plan our attack, and then execute the next day. A small brown hat full of scraps of pending doom was thrust at each of us as we plucked out a scrap of paper that contained our brief. Mine was first up, i picked a fairly modestly sized slither of white and unfolded it. 1 sentence only, 'A drug addict who has been shot in the head'...."hmm nice" i thought as i headed back to my seat, my head already filling with fantastically theatrical outfits, props and, oh yes, the make up.... that night Jodi, Elle and i headed to our best thinking place, the pub. 1 very fast beer gulped down we each headed home for a night of planning. This is my finished product:

So i created a wash of death on the skin using dead flesh make up, i shadowed the eyes heavily with greasepaint and added some pale veins around the temples. As she has only just died she wouldnt be too veiny just yet.

i created some seriously rank coldsores using porridge oats, latex greasepaint and skin illustrator in various colours.

track marks were created along with some bad bruising.

and the pièce de résistance, the bullet hole. Created using third degree latex that i sculpted into shape, filled with wound filler. Seriously thick gloopy, congealed blood was then added... i draped it around a bit so that it would drip in a specific way. oh yes and i greased up her locks with olive oil and added the costume, hand crafted from items from my wardrobe, along with the hoody that i made a few years back. Thanks to my debautcherous model Jodi. x

Casualty

The rest of casualty week went as follows: day 2 - death, acne, coldsores, trackmarks

Alice there, not looking at her best i must say..... day 3 - burns of all glorious shapes, sizes and degrees

a touch of sunburn, with peeling skin a few blisters

scalds

pretty bloody horrendous 3rd degree burns. Elin, my lovely model for the day. day 4 - bullet holes and open wounds

delicious stuff hey?? friday was the day of our very first assessment...pics to follow soooooon. For now i must sign off, i have a vomiting pumpkin to carve, and dips to make for our Hallowed be thy ween party tonight.... x

Bloody hell!

Here i sit, perched in front of my temprimentally screened Macintosh, in my humble little nest by angle poise lamp light, picking large globules of silicone form the back of my hand that is currently caked with fake blood and greasepaint...the tell tale palette of the humble makiage artisto... yes dear friends today was the start of a week filled with scars, bruises, acne, rashes, burns, dead skin, sweat, tears, bullet holes and open wounds...and thats just the students... I must say a big thank you to those folks who took the time to send me photos of their, quite frankly hideous, injuries via my facebook plea....please keep on the look out for me as i shall now be hassling you for them for the rest of my career.... Today we started with scars and bruises. Rrrrrregarde:

Jodi here, sporting a few scars, each one applied with a different product. The one closest to her ear, in my opinion the best one, was created using collodian, a harmless looking subject until you try to remove it....her scar was coloured with greasepaint. The other two were created using tubed scar gels, then coloured in the same way.

"i didnt mean it Phil, honestly i didn't!.."..... im not sure whats worse here, my photography or Jodis acting, still full points for effort love. I created a black eye using greasepaint and colours from my bruise wheel, i also created the cut in her brow using scar gel, greasepaint, wound filler and fake blood. Her little scratches didnt turn out quite right, but they were created using a stipple sponge and greasepaint with a touch of (my new favourite product) scab in a jar.

I then added a cut along her chest using silicone. The silicone was applied using a silicone gun, i then shaped the wound using a metal spatula and created the slit down the middle. The wound was then filled with grease paint, wound filler, and fake blood.

and yes, she got her own back......

cant wait for tomorrow. X

Fan-tash-tic

Ok so on to the goooood stuff..... this last week has been tash week. yes my friends that is right, my little mouse paws have been frantic, knotting 1 yak hair at a time in order to create a fine fettle of facial fuzz...... Behold:

to start, i drew out a patern for my tash, taped it to the block and covered with lace,

then the threading starts. One by one each individual hair must be moistened, looped thru the lace, caught up the other side with a teeny tiny crochet style hook, and the ends pulled thru the loop to secure. The knots must be as small as possible so as not to be seen,

once the whole tash is covered, it is then tonged with medieval torture equipment, cut, and styled into shape.

spirit gum is then applied to nearest, sexiest, specimen, patted lightly with a pad to make the gum matt so as not to bee seen thru the lace. The lace is then pressed on with a tail comb taking care not to crush the styled hair. The model is then instructed to stand against a white wall in front of a camera, and let the tash take over.... maybe you could encourage a friend to join in.....

or two.....

or it could just get silly.....

enjoy! x

Basic hair week

So after a couple more weeks of fun times at the Delamar Academy, i again return to la blog. Apologies for the non appearance but i have been incredibly busy preening, pruning, tonging and bending the delights of dolly head hair in 5 days of basic hair. Now, as a hairdresser of 8 years, you may think i was way beyond learning how to section a 'clean' section of hair with a red plastic tail comb....however i did find 1 or 2 things to test my mousey paws, and a surprising amount of pressure to create perfect curls with NO fish hooked ends what so ever.... here is a selection of my work from the week, my model being the delightfully dull Dolly. Regarde:

using heated bendy rollers to create ringlets

the elusive and tricky finger waves, delightful to behold, nightmare to master....

towered, bridal esque, up do....this took me a while as my 'anti bridal' gland went into overdrive...but i mastered it.

practicing my heated rollers....this is have done about 6 million times before, tho i still managed a fish hooked end or two....so a few more practices and i was back to a standard Monsieur Clarke would be proud of... there were many more bits and bobs from this week but this is and edited version as i have a TON of pics from every angle..... Our lovely teacher Pam Orange was brilliant and inspired me beyond belief with her tales of the stage. x

Swinging Sixties

After a day of snuffly fluey bed rest, the mouses tale continues.... Today the turn of the iconic 60s. Think Twiggy, Jean Shirmpton (half of the girls in our class didnt actually know who Jean was....nothing like it to make you feel old...) Brigitte...of the Bardot variety, Mary Quant, Biba, Rolling Stones, The Beatles...i could go on.... Laura was pinned into the make up chair today as i primped and poofed her into a Twiggy esque scenario... Contempler:

Laura here, with a pale base and a touch of corrective under the eyes. Lots of powder....

By now i had covered the lids with a white base, built up on thin layers, a very dark black socket line was added (several times, to get it in the right place....) this was then smudged a smidge under neath but kept crisp at the top. umm...had i added lashes yet?...yes, i had. I applied black cake eyeliner along top and bottom lashes, along with a few drawn on lower lashes. Then mascara...lots. The brows were groomed and filled in with a dark browny colour to thicken. I then tentatively applied the false eyelashes....surprisingly successfully...

To finish i added blusher in a taupey colour just below the cheek bones, and i mixed a very pale pinky, peachy colour and applied to the lips. I also backcombed the hair loosely and pinned the top section, very roughly, to give an idea of volume.

Laura was then instructed to stand against the wall and smoulder like never before, for my final photo...gal done good. X