Final Fantasy Images. . .

For me, I feel as if these are my strongest images from both of my looks. I am so incredibly happy and pleased with myself how my ideas and designs came together to create these 2 different looks. I think with this shoot, I really managed to capture Frankie's idyllic features. With the positioning of her chin and posture in the second image, I am so proud of myself as I feel as if I really managed to portray my make-up skills to create 2 stunning final images. By editing the lighting during the shoot as well I feel as if I managed to capture the depth of Frankie's hair colour which worked so well with my overall look.

Final Beauty Images. . .

So here they are, these are the final images for my Beauty Illamasqua look for GRASS, DARK, PURPLE, WHITE and GREEN. I chose these 2 images as I felt as if they really stood out due to the different positioning of my models face, to show the colour on the cheeks and detail on the eyes, representing my make-up techniques but more important my skills as well as captioning Frankie's true beauty. 

Illamasqua Products. . .

As this is an Illamasqua project, potentially working towards the Illamasqua competition, it was only right to use Illamasqua products to promote and to show my skills through using there wide range of products. From my kit these are the products that I am going to use. The combination of pure pigments and shadows will work well together I feel by using the technique of layering up to create more of a depth to the skin.

Precision Ink in Scribe - Pure White

Gleam in Aurora

Pure Pigment in Berber

Powder Eye Shadow in Livid

Powder Eye Shadow in Sex

Powder Eye Shadow in Taboo

Hair Flare. . .

For my beauty shoot to keep the attention and focus on the make-up, I am going to keep the hair design quite basic and just straighten it. With the different tones and shades of blue/green in Frankie's hair I think this will work well as it will compliment the make-up and really bring out Frankie's strong green eyes. In regards to my fantasy look, I intend to do something slightly different. Still keeping the hair relatively straight I shall figure out the hair design once the make-up is complete as from what I have learnt in the past my ideas might seem good on paper and in practise but when putting the final hair and makeup together it works better sometimes by being creative and playing around with the finished result. Here is a small mood board of some of my ideas in regards to the hair, with the colour, style of having it up and coming over the face slightly and different techniques.

Hair. . .

My model for both of my final shoots is m dear friend, Frankie Sassquatch. As well has having amazing bone structure, Frankie has dip-died turquoise/green hair so I thought this would be perfect for my shoots, especially my fantasy looks. At first I wasn't bothered about my chosen models hair colour but now that I have introduced the colour green to my main words, I thought this would be perfect. With Frankie's length of hair as well, this gives me the opportunity to do an up-do or have it down and straight for the beauty look, which is what I have in mind. I know this is a bad quality picture but it was the only one where you could clearly see her hair colour.

Design Process. . .

Face Charts. . .

As part of any design process, development of ideas through face charts is always important. My initial ideas were the following face charts but as one of my words was 'grass', and from looking at over grown nature, I decided to add on another colour which is GREEN, as this I feel will make my project seem more rounded as it will bring my words and colours together and more realistic.

My face charts were my first ideas of how I could picture my final shoots, I feel sometimes although face charts is a good way of getting your ideas visually across, sometimes I work better by doing
the shoot then doing the face chart after. In this case to show my more creative side as this is what Alex Box does a lot of the time, make the design up as I go along. The different between a face chart and a design on the face is incredible, my idea might not work well on the face so I intend to start off with the base and then develop my idea by layering colour and as I build up my look, so what works and add more/darker shades onto the certain areas that I feel are necessary. If it works for Alex, im sure it will work for me !

Over-grown nature. . .

As my project is leading towards the direction of 'Mystical Swamps', I thought a key aspect to look at would be ancient trees and the roots. I have always found them fascinating how these beautiful trees have stayed put whereas the ground has disintegrated the the roots have risen to the surface. The texture and direction in which they flow in is something I think would be interesting to include in my look. Initial thoughts are roots/ivy effect crawling up the neck and along jaw line.

Whilst looking through images of ancient trees with roots, I came across the thought of growing moss. As a child I always thought moss was so much fun, soft yet had prickly ends and used to crumble in my hands. This got me thinking.......similar to tree roots where they are sort of the hidden beauty of the forest and forgotten, moss over grows onto anything in its reach. Thinking back to this in regards to my final shoots, where we have to create some sort of character, and with my theme being "mystical swamps", I think I shall focus my ideas on creating some sort of forest creature.

For my primary research following on from the images I collected above, I went to have a look through the park round the corner from my house in Southampton and where as before I had just followed the foot path, this time I went down the little paths through the trees and came across this stunning little stream. I was quite surprised as I had no ideas it was there and yet how beautiful and idyllic it was. Looking past all the rubbish and waste that had been left there, I thought recording and blogging these images would be good so when it comes down to doing my final shoots I can look back at these pictures and remind myself of the mystical, fairy like feel the little stream had on me. 

Illamasqua Make-Up Show by Alex Box inspired by David Bowie. . .

On Thursdays 25th April, I traveled to London to attend an exclusive make-up show by Alex Box inspired by David Bowie. As soon as I had the opportunity I bought a ticket because I couldn't of missed this amazing chance to see my idol do her thing. I find Alex Box an inspiration not just as a make-up artist but an artist herself and as a person, the fact i met her, she recognized me made me the happiest girl!

♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

As I had the chance to attend the show, although Bowie isn't anything to do with my project as it is set in 1920s, I decided to take the chance to do a post about the show as firstly it was incredible, so inspiring but also because from watching Alex do her work, I noted down her techniques and picked up on different things that I had learnt from watching her. Even down to how she held her brush and positioning of the brush/hand when applying make-up. It is a dream of mine to work for Illamasqua, and in my mind the final designs for my shoots could be referred to the Illamaqua style as this is something that I am teaching myself. The ticket was £100, (totally worth it), but the ticket after purchased became redeemable, which basically meant it worked a as a voucher as we were given the chance to instead of receive a goodie bag of products, we were able to pick £100 worth of products from the new Bowie collection which hasn't even been released yet. These are the products I picked...

Overall, one of the best nights I have had in years. It was such a fun, friendly and inspiring night, I have come away motivated and driven to do even better in this project, and to achieve my dreams!

Chosen Words. . .

My 4 words for the project are:

      Grass

      Dark

     Purple 

     White

As I have blogged already my initial thoughts about my words and the sort of things that come to mind, I feel to gain more knowledge and an idea of what I want to achieve I should visually blog related sources to my 4 words. Focusing on make-up, fashion and art as this will help my creative mind.

Colour Mood Board -

After collecting images of my chosen colors and my words descriptive words, I can visualize more the type of avenue I want to go down for my final looks. I always find it useful to make mood boards like these because I feel that I can get my points and ideas across a lot clearer through imagery instead of trying to explain. I tried to find images that contained both purple and white to see how the colors merged together and worked, this have helped me think of shading techniques for my final shoots.

Freak. . .

When talking in class about my 4 words, after discussing with my classmates it sprung to mind the Illamasqua perfume, 'Freak'! The video has a dark, eary feel about it which is something that I will consider for my final shoots and the slight flash shades of purple work really well with the almost black background.

The amazing Alex Box talks about what they wanted the perfume to represent and the main aspects of the product, so this helped me a lot. Plus it is a stunning set, you can see in this video of behind the scenes of the making, I keep finding myself watching it over and over again. One thing that I find really interesting in the promotion video is the line, 'with the flowers coming together during the darkest hours', as Alex says it kinds of reflects on what the Illamasqua line is all about. With make-up being used for every day looks but at night time, the alter-ego comes out, pushing the boundaries and making people express themselves more through makeup as if you were a flower which blossoms at night. Also she mentions 'night time and self expression', which is one of the main aspects as to way the video and shoot was in quite a dark set, almost black as if it was set at night time. A plus side as well is that the perfume is actually really, really nice!!

initial ideas. . .

So to start the ball rolling of this project, in our last seminar before Easter break, we had to write down to ourselves 2 colours and 2 words that first came to mind....grass, dark, purple and white! Why, I do not know but at the time thats what was on my mind, weird i know! But from this we sat and discussed as a class all of our words and helped each other out with ideas and what peoples initial ideas were when thinking of my 4 chosen words.

Resulted in:-
-Vampire
-Rich
-Innocent
-Smokey
-Herb
-The World
-Spotted Horse?!
-Shadow
-Tones/Graduation
-Lockness Monster

 Here is a quick mood board that I created with images that represent these words, to give me more of an idea and insight of the kinda of look/colour schemes/key aspects ill be looking into.

Thinking more into the concept of my ideas, and from collecting images from ideas of my classmates, With these words collected together, my initial thoughts are swamps, bogs, dirt, but with some sort of mystical feel to include my colours, purple and white. Here is a mood board with these ideas put together, to help me vision the feel of my project as with most Illamaqua looks/campaigns, it isn't just about the makeup and how the model looks, there is normally a theme and a concept behind the whole look, some what like a storyline so I am hoping with these mood boards this will help me develop something similar. 

previous winners. . .

The competition offered a real international flavor  with finalists flying in from across the globe to compete. A part of the first professional awards from Illamasqua, the contestants created a fantasy look for the judges, made up of a panel of Dazed & Confused Senior Fashion Director Kaits Shillingford, Samanther Chapman of the online YouTube sensation Pixiwooo, Illamasqua's Creative Director Alex Box and joint Managering Director Joseph Corré. 

These are the winners from the 2012 competition  incredible work and to think the winners are all similar age to myself. The level of skill is incredible, the ideas are amazing and to think what they have created within an hour and a half gives me chills to think that one day I would potentially have to create something similar within the same time scale. 

Anastasija Bondarenko - Non-professional Make-up Artist

Lori Allison - Student Make-up Artist

Paddy McGurgan - Professional Make-up Artist

Kat Sykes - Illamasqua Head Office

Absolutely breathtaking!!!!

so it begins. . .

So for our new project, we have been set a brief and in result to enter the Illamasqua Distinction in Make-Up Artistry Awards...EXCITING!!

I have looked into the competition before during my first year at uni and felt quite put off entering at some point because the standard was so high, but throughout my second year of education I feel like now...I can give it a good go :D

The competition started 2 years ago in 2011 and the skill level difference between 2011-12 is outstanding, at this point I feel absolutely no pressure to do well...not! These videos show a clear insight as to what the competition is about, an explanation of the briefs set and what they look out for during the process of application and what you are marked on. All of these aspects I am going to keep in mind during my research and initial ideas.
2011 -

2012-