Meet Claudia. Meet Quentin. Love hurts...

This is the second half of the unit this term and it is based on gothic horror and 2 fictional characters, Claudia and Quentin.

Claudia is a young woman obsessed with horror films, has an obsessive personality and a fear to even step outside of her front door, all necessities needed are brought to her by neighbours and friends and so she sits inside and watches films and dreams of being a pop star. She is into fashion and always incorporates part of the film she is obsessed with at the time into her style. She has a boyfriend named  Quentin whom caters to her every need and is the perfect loving boyfriend. Only thing is he's a figure of her imagination and so technically doesn't exist within reality.

The idea is to create these 2 characters based on horror/gothic influences, but still ensuring the images would fit into a high fashion magazine. Aswell as this we also need to think up a possible song in which we believe our versions of Claudia and Quentin would fit into.

Practising Havisham...

Heres a mixture of images of experimentation for Miss Havisham both hair and makeup. 

This is my final hairstyle that I created. My aim was always to create Miss Havisham as a younger woman on her wedding day, or a few days after and so i needed her hair to be fairly neat and put together, and at the same time stick to Victorian influences  to ensure i kept to the period look the brief outlined that we must create. 

Hers the first makeup look i played around with based upon ageing using contouring. Although i like how this came out i decided it wasn't the sort of direction i wanted to take with my Miss Havisham look.

Further exploration of my final hair design adding more backcomb and height, and deciding whether or not i wanted to use a hair rat. I decided i didn't want to and so i had to create volume and height with backcombing and layering of the sections of hair.

This is experimentation of red eyes as i wanted to create my Miss havisham on her wedding day having just been stood up and so i wanted to create really red and crying eyes with neat hair.

This is another hair design i practised for my Miss Havisham, i wanted to create barrel curls on the head leading to the back of the head however i really disliked this hairstyle its far to flat and looks slightly more milk maid esque than i would have liked. Although i really don't like it i thought i should document it as this is what helped lead to my final hair design.

technical lesson- creating a victorian shape...

Products used:

• brush
• water
• sectioning clips
• sectioning comb
• hair grips
• bun grips

The aim of this lesson was to create a victorian hair style and then begin to decay it, whilst keeping in mind the idea of the type of silhouette we were creating. As you can see from the top image i began to back comb and pull some sections looser, however this is as far as i got, i would have liked to have added some dead flowers/petals and possibly some lace over the face, although this is what i will do for my silhouette shoot. I really like the shape i managed to create, i managed to achieve the volume by back combing and layering the hair, rather than adding a hair rat.

Firstly i created the french pleat at the back of the head after sectioning the hair from the back of the ears. When creating the french pleat i concentrated on ensuring the shape from the neck into the hair flowed neatly. 

From here i sectioned hair along the hair line from the temples round to the ears. I then split this section into 2 sections and rolled it using the same idea of a barrel curl and pinned these 2 sections on the hair line. Using a bun grip i then merged the 2 sections into one, and repeated this on the other side of the head.

Using the sections of hair between the 2 temples i separated these into a middle parting and added to curls on either side of the parting.

With the middle section of hair i split this into 3 sections, in the shape of a triangle. I then backcombed these sections one at a time and pinned them in a bouffant shape. After pinning down one section i then interviewed another section through or around each pinned section and pinned that.

Finally i got the 1st 2 curls on either side of the parting and brought this back onto the lifted shape onto the head and pinned them. 



I really like the shape i managed to create and Im going to take this idea forward to help me form my final hair design.

technical lesson- experimenting with Havisham...

During this lesson we continued to play around with our ideas for 'Miss Havisham'. My partner Chantelle worked on me and began to play around with some of the ideas she had and this was the outcome:

I then went home and began to experiment with my ideas of 'Miss Havisham'. I firstly went for the idea of an aged and haggard Havisham.

Products used:

• Kryolan foundation palette
• Natural collection brown eye shadow in 'walnut'
• Revlon lipstick in 'black cherry'

To create this look i firstly applied a foundation base to the face and neck area. and blended this well into the skin

From here i got the shadow and a pointed brush and began to apply the powder shadow into the natural creases in the face such as the frown lines, crows feet, laughter lines etc. Aswell as this i also took the shadow down the neck and onto the collar bones to contour them and make them appear as though they are jutting out of the skin due to malnutrition. 
I then added the lipstick with my ring finger beneath the eyes and onto the lid patting it into the skin and  using the socket bone as my guide.

technical lesson- creating a french pleat...

Products us

• hair grips
• bun pins
• sectioning comb
• brush
• hairspray

When creating a french pleat firstly started with one side of the head and comb it tightly round to the centre at the back of the head. When it was all smoothed enough, I used 6 grips and started at the base of the knock and gripped the sleeked back side of the hair in place in a line of 3 X shapes.

From here i went on to start to comb the other side of the hair towards the back of the head. From here I put 2 fingers against the hair grips and began to wrap the hair around my fingers, until it was all pulled neatly enough to begin pinning.

I then used the bun grips and began to pin them down the side of the french pleat to secure it. Then with the piece of hair left at the top I curled it around and pinned it to the top of the french pleat to create a neat curl.

 From here i sprayed some hairspray onto my fingertips and smoothed the whole thing over 

technical lesson- creating cuts and bruises...

Products used:

• Kryolan bruise palette
• Small pointed precision brush
• Vaseline
• Fake blood
• Wound filler
• Plasto wax
• Sealer
• Coffee grounds
• Palette knife

Bruises:

To create the bruise around the eye i firstly used the Kryolan bruise palette and a small pointed brush. I used the navy, purple and burgundy colours from within the bruise wheel. I then went on to slowly add the colours one at a time amongst each other using a dabbing motion with my brush and then using my ring finger i patted over the top to blend more. I started in the inner corner of the eye and worked my way outwards underneath and then bang from the inner corner outwards on the lid, ensuring i didn't go an higher than the brow and no lower than the eye socket bone, i repeated this until i had achieved something that i believed picture well and realistically. As the final step i added vaseline under the eye onto of the bruise i created to help create the illusion of slight swelling.

Cuts:

Firstly i got some plasto wax and warmed it up on the back of my hand using my palette knife until it reach a butter consistency. I then placed it onto the skin in my chosen position, ensuring i blended out the edges. I then sliced down the centre and lifted some parts in the centre to make it look like flapping skin. Once i was happy with with the shape of the cut i had created, using the sealer i covered the entire area that has plasto wax on, including all edges and inside the cut.

Once the sealer was dry i added the wound filler and coffee grounds into the centre of the cut. This made it really dark in the centre and adds depth. Using what was left on my brush I lightly brushed this on to the skin around the cut to create redness.

Once this was done i used the fake blood and put it into the cut to ensure it glistened, i then let it run down the face naturally in the direction it wanted to ensure it looked as real as possible.

technical lesson- ageing the skin...

Products used:

• Kryolan foundation palette in lightest shade and medium shade
• Illamasqua matter primer
• Old age stipple
• Eyebrow brush
• Small angled brush
• Small pointed precision brush
• Foundation brush
• Buffing brush
• Makeup sponge
• Hair dryer
• Illamasqua fixing powder

For this i firstly added a pale base and buffed it into the skin. 
From here i got the darker shade from the foundation palette and began to draw lines on the natural creases and folds of the face, such as crows feet, laughter lines and frown lines.
I also added the darker colour to either side of the nose to make it appear slimmer, and also beneath the cheek bones and brought this line down to reflect the idea of gravity. I then blended all these in and continued the process until i felt they were dark enough.

I then added old age stipple with the makeup sponge to area around the eye to create ageing/ crepeing of the skin. I achieved this by pulling the skin tight between my thumb and index finger, i then added on the stipple, ensuring i added a few layers. I then used to hair dryer on the lowest head at a good distance away and began to use this to completely dry the stipple (when it goes clear). From here i then stop pulling the skin tight and begin to pinch it together and the stipple creates a wrinkled effect as you can see on the bottom picture, after this i then powdered the face and stipple to make the whole thing seem more realistic and apart of the skin.