Editorial Images

Catwalk images

Henna inspirations

 

I really love the work of Henna created in these designs. It will be difficult to create this look with transferring onto the skin through printed images however I just want the look to be subtle. I will not have enough time to put all the detail in so want to create a look around the time I have. I have decided I am going to blend the face down through the body by painting in between my transfers to give an almost vintage wallpaper look to my model. I am also going to transfer the majority of the images onto my models skin the night before so save her having to endure one long session.

Styling

These images have been taken from Maizee Dunn - Fashion Designers portfolio. I have known Maizee for a few years and when designing my shoots I knew I wanted to use some tribal influenced clothing. I remembered Maizee had designed these clothes for her third year project in Fashion Design in Bristol. For my catwalk image I had in mind a clash of patterned clothes so these garments are perfect. I also imagine my editorial model to be topless and wearing a pair of tribal print leggings- again perfect. In stores over the last couple of months there has been a very tribal/ethnic feel about the clothes and accessories. So I think it would be suitable for both my catwalk and editorial images to be linked in style.

I met with Maizee in Bristol recently to have a look at some of her pieces to be used in my shoots. I have borrowed some carefully selected garments from this project and in return I will credit her work.

I think it is important for me to start using connections and people I know at the same level and working together to get our work out there.

Make up for catwalk

I knew for my catwalk make-up that the hair was going to be a big impact piece so I needed to keep the make-up simple yet effective.

I had recently been on a MAC website on facebook and remembered seeing an image where they had created this look on the eyes with a white stripe. They had used this look and were showing it backstage of a catwalk show. Unfortunately I have been unable to hunt down the image again.

I felt the white of the make-up above the eye-lid would compliment the hair which would be painted white with supra colours on top of the fullers earth.

The lips and inner eye liner here look coral but actually its just using a light pink/very natural colour I want to use to compliment the pink on the ends of the hair.

I also want to keep the skin quite dewy looking in referral and from inspiration of one of my MAC videos at the very start of my blog.

Issues.

Okay! So I began to have issues. I tested and tested my idea of transferring Japanese and traditional style tattoos onto the skin and it was failing incredibly. Some came out in perfect transfers and others- nothing at all. I felt I was at a dead end. I began testing and realising which types of print would transfer correctly and decided it was time to start thinking of a back up plan.
Here are some images of when I was testing..These actually came out really well unfortunately others did not. It was really trying.

I desperately wanted to still incorporate the idea of tattooing. I realised that the bigger and stronger lines came out and anything in black ink. I was now only down to limited funds and felt very under pressure to produce the look at I had originally envisaged. I was browsing through mycourse and caught the image of Kimiko Yoshidas work with the henna type designs. This inspired me to start looking into transferring henna designs onto the body and I started researching Mehndi.

I felt that prehaps the henna transfer idea would actually blend a little more with the hair and make up and felt that if i was using the bright colours of the japanese and traditional style it may look a bit cheap. I want to incorporate the beauty of the collaboration of cultures in my work. I felt now that I wanted to be inspired by this colour scheme also.

The second issue was that I had been wanting to use the idea of texture and scarification into my work. I didn't actually enjoy the use of beans and peas on the body and felt I could not make it look professional enough and wanted to stick with the theme I had been envisaging. The reason I was looking a lot at the Ganguro make up was the way in which it was a modern and beautiful interpretation of a tribal 'witch hag' look. I particularly liked the way in which they used stickers on the skin to give a cutesy textured look. I figured this could be something to base my idea on and started researching more attractive ways of creating texture on the skin similar to that of the scarification.

I felt that the idea of using beads and jewels would be great and would work well in creating the new idea of interpretting scarification. Scarification is now just about the position of your tribe but also about the sensuality of the feeling on the texture on the skin. What would be better than using jewels to represent this to not only feel nice but to look nice.

As I am on a tight budget I began rummaging in my treasure chest (which I actually own) of old necklaces, bracelets, buttons and ribbons. I began pulling apart some old costume jewellery along with some feathers and began to design my new make up creation.

I decided that rather than the spots I was using around the eye I would expand on this and use the scarification/texture technique instead.

NEW EDITORIAL FACE CHART



Face templates for editorial

So originally I started with this design originating from looking at the Ganguro girls and their dark skin with white make-up and vibrant hair. I liked this design as it was quite strong and involved a lot of body painting and had a very tribal feel about it. However, the design didnt feel right and I still wanted to build on my idea.

 

Next I began playing with the idea of having the same tribal style design on the face as the Ganguro but taking it one step away by experimenting with a different use in colour. Again I liked the idea but felt I didn't want it to be so obviously 'Tribal'.

 

 I then began experimenting with the idea of using the position of the make-up used on the eyes and lips but using the dots to also incorporate the symbolism of the zulu tribes with their spotted tattooing and face painting.

This idea stuck with me for a long time until I started experimenting with the idea and found that the liners I used to create the dots bled and I also felt that as beautiful as it was they did not stand out enough from the face. I wanted to create depth and texture.

I had stuck on the idea of using a white face as a background to excentuate the colours of the dots but I needed a new idea after trying it out.