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

1920s

Yesterday we mastered the 20s...well, mastered isnt quite the word...it turns out that waxing half an eyebrow to the forehead is actually the most difficult thing IN THE WORLD!!! regard:

The lovely Jodi. Here, i had waxed the bottom half of the unruly brows, to create a thin, highly arched 1920s style brow. I then applied sealer. After this. i mixed a pale foundation and applied all over the face, followed by the palest pan stick. This photo looks pretty good but about 4 hours later the poor girl looked like she had some sort of eyebrow specific leprosy....

By now i had filled in her dark smokey eyes, lined them and applied lashings of mascara. i love that when we watched the demo of this, our tutor said "in the 1920s women were just getting used to make up, it was a new thing so would have been applied quite crudely"....i clearly ran with this notion! I had also by now drawn in her elongated and 'sad' looking brows. A touch of blush and those tight rose bud lips in a deep plum colour.

and the best bit of the day....the wig. Everyone seems to love the wig bit....Jodi gets especially excited when the wigs come out, and she seems to look good in all of them...damm her....

Thanks Jodi. x

18th century

Aaaaaand it gets better!... Today was period make up, starting with 18th century. Think Marie Antoinette, The Duchess, "let them eat cake", debautcherous drinking, masquerade parties, hand fans etc etc..... you get the picture? Please remember that ours was a theatrical version so highly exaggerated: The glorious Elle before

Soaping out the eyebrows, and then covering with concealor and derma colour, in an attempt to make the little creatures disappear

The rest of the face has now been covered with the palest theatrical pan stick i had using a damp sponge. I then pencilled in the brows, higher than the natural ones, and painted them in with cake eyeliner. The whole lot was powdered beyond belief before, after and during, this process

By now i had lined the upper lashes and smudged, applied mascara, and blushed her cheeks with a bright pink. I then drew on her tiny little rose bud lips and filled with lip liner. Elle has incredible bee sting lips, which made her rose buds a little plumper than the norm, but i think it really added to the look....umm....what else?...oh yeah, the all important beauty spot to finish

and the icing on the cake (literally so it would seem...) the wig!

such a fun day, thanks for being my patient model, and swapping some bloody good Aussie tales Elle! x