Black Books: I spent the day dressed as my favorite Irishman

In my ever continuing obsession with British Television, I have stumbled upon a delightful little show called "Black Books." I immediately took the characters to heart (while laughing my ass off as they dig themselves into deeper and deeper trouble). I highly recommend if you haven't seen it. 

Well. Long story short, I dyed my hair black. Let the record please state that it was an accident. 

However, in the aftermath, I discovered that in my usual morning cranky moods, I could pull his look off rather well. 

Oh Bernard. God bless your Irish heart. 

So I pulled together some props, smoked a couple cigarettes, and come up with this. 

Want to look like Bernard too?
Here's how.


Key elements: 
-A dark blazer
-A gem-tone shirt (dark red or dark blue)
-Dark messy hair (a wig would suffice!)
-A hangover and a scowl
-Props like books, booze, and smokes.


Here is my make-up plan:

I thickened my brows with a black eyeliner pencil. Then I applied a mauve tone under my eyes and around my mouth and jaw line. I applied a hot pink lip-liner on my bottom eyelids for that eternal hung-over/exhausted look. And finally, I took a rough sponge and applied a five o'clock shadow with a dark brown cream based make-up.

Then I made my hair messy, put on a wrinkled blue shirt with my Navy blue blazer and started drinking heavily and shouting insults in an Irish accent.

Hobbit Day: Frodo Make-up Test

So it's September 22. And those of those with the noblest of nerdy hearts know what that means.

It's Bilbo's and Frodo's birthday, and now all rolled into a simple and amusing geek holiday, called Hobbit Day. How did I choose to celebrate this holiest of days? Why, with second breakfast and a smoke, of course!

Quickly followed by an Elijah Wood look-a-like make-up test.


(My self-consciousness would like to add a side-note here... and that is I don't have my full costume on for this shoot because I'm in the process of cleaning it, so forgive me. Also, I can't find my tripod for the life of me, so these are very much... myspace-esque. Still. I am happy with the work accomplished, not so much the overall production and angles. One of these days I'll get EVERYTHING right and produce an amazing set of photos. But enough rambling. Onward to show-and-tell time.)


These were my reference images: 

This was my sketch.

2 hours, 150 shots later, and just a smidgen of photoshop... this is what I come up with:

(before I had blended all of my make-up)

(indoor lighting test) 

(dirt test)

(outdoor lighting and profile test. Also...I photoshopped my ears. SHH.)

(expression test. my favorite from the whole shoot.)

I'm quite proud but there are improvements to be made of course. My notes for next time:
     -lighten eye-brows
     -study more facial expressions (not just the constipated ones, although I DO think I do them rather well). 
     -probably going to get a wig, because my hair is own curly hair just too hard to control
     -clean costume (its still filthy from Burning Man, hence the black silk vest; not my usual brown one). I wasn't really going for complete accuracy on this little photoshoot, anyway. Just trying to get the face and expressions downpat. 





Questions? Criticism?
Want a step-by-step tutorial or even a video on how to do your make-up like Elijah Wood?

 Leave me a comment to let me know!

Tribal Style: Warrior Princess Make-up

So I finally watched the movie Avatar, and wound up inspired enough to try some sort of Tribal make-up. I wanted to provoke a wild-child sort of feeling with these photos, and I think I achieved that with the textured, thick blue paint, tinted lips, beaded jewelry, and patterned head-scarf. I wasn't trying to capture the look of any particular culture or try to be a Na'vi or anything (although what a fun day that would be! Alas, I am lacking the funds for all the materials I would need)...

I hope you enjoy, and that this inspires you as well. 

Want a tutorial? 
Leave me a comment. 

Gender Study: Female to Male Make-up

This one is an oldie but a goodie. 

This was just a quick indoors make-up test, playing with some old theatre stuff I found. I wanted to do a really dramatic transformation and I hope I pulled it off. 

How I did it:  

For the girl's face, I stuck with a neutral palette and started with a shade lighter than my skin tone and went around my eyes (on the tops of my cheek bones), over the top of my nose, and across my forehead, blending as I went. I applied a tiny bit of brown eyeshadow for a little bit of further definition and used a lip-liner to exaggerate the curves of my cupid's bow (the dip in the middle of my upper lip). A little dab of blush later, and I was done. 

For the man's face, I started with the eyebrows. I drew them in much thicker and almost straight across with thin strokes of a brown eyeliner pencil. Then with the same brown I used for the beard, stippled across and under the brow to give it a little more definition. I went a little around my eyes and at the sides of the bridge of my nose. I gave myself alittle bit of crow's feet, and smudged some eye shadow under my eyes, for a tired look. I also went over the lines on my neck, and even put a little dark concealer across my chest. Then I tucked my long hair into my hat, stuck out my jaw, stole my boyfriend's leather jacket, and pulled on a "grumpy" look. Ta da! 

A rule of thumb...

For a feminine look, you need high, arches, thin brows. It's important to have make-up to accent the eyes, to make them look larger. The goal is to look youthful. The accent is all on the upper half of of the face: hair, brows, and eyes.

For a masculine look: thick, straight, darker brows. A little bit of aging can help - crow's feet, circles under the eyes, droopier eye-lids. The accent is on the lower half of the face: a larger nose, thicker jaw-line, and of course facial hair.

It's not always true for all peoples, but that tends to get the idea across when doing this kind of work, either for theatre, cosplay, cross-dressing, photoshoot, etc, etc. This is just what I've learned, and what I use whenever I... need to be a man. Which doesn't happen very often. Sigh. 

Gender Study Make-up: Straw hats are for Men, too.

It's summer!
I recently got into a playful argument with someone after they stated that big floppy straw hats were gay.

Gay? 

They then went on to say that only movie-star-girls can get away with them.
Being a big fan of straw hats, I set out to make a point. The first thing that sprang to mind was the straw hat that Vincent Van Gogh wore in some of his paintings.



And so I drew inspiration from that. But instead of making a formal rebuttal or just continuing the playful straw-hat argument, I somehow found myself cross-dressing and in theatre make-up. (Why that seemed like a logical thing to do, I'll never know.)


Here is my original design.
I started off by over feminizing myself.

I pulled my long hair down, wore a simple cotton dress, put on eye-liner, bright foundation, blush, lipstick, and even some false freckles for a farm-fresh look to match my straw hat. 

And then I took a complete left turn and tried to channel my inner Van Gogh. 

My blending is terrible and the colors are weird, but most importantly, I did some nice stippling for a 5 o'clock shadow appearance (something I haven't done in several years)


So there you have it. One hat, one model, 2 genders. Accessories for all peoples of all races, creed, and sexes. Equality for all!

Ahem. Hat Marxism aside, I hope you enjoyed this.
Questions? Criticism? 
You know the drill. Leave me a comment.

Tribal Style: Raccoon Face Paint

Happy Cinco de Mayo! 

I don't know why, but I found myself ruminating on the day-of-the-dead skulls. I love how some women  paint their faces up, accented with flowers and scroll-work. 

Like this....

http://www.flickr.com/photos/shellycrash/2994098954/

     But it struck me that the dark eye sockets could be used for a raccoon style make-up. And so this monstrosity was born. 

     Part Dia de los Muertos, part tribal, and part animal. 

     When I started scrounging around for colors, I came across silver acrylic paint. I don't recommend this for face-paint (my eyes watered like crazy) but the shinyness of it was really cool. So without further ado, enjoy my simple design. 

Want step by step instructions? 
Leave me a comment.