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. 

Star Trek Inspired: A Trill by any other name

My boyfriend and I decided to have a date night at the apartment, instead of going out. Because I wouldn't be subjugated to the public eye, I decided I could just wear whatever I wanted (i.e. time for a costume). And so being in the middle of a Deep Space Nine conquest, I thought it fitting if my sweetheart could come home to a Trill waiting for him, ready to delight his inner Doctor Bashir. 

These were my reference images: 

Here is my quick design: 

And so after I had sufficient amount of alcohol in me (to steady my hand of course) I took a black eye-liner pencil and went to town all over myself! 

How did I do it? 

     -I watch too much Star Trek for my own good
     -I get drunk too much for my own good
     -I used an eye-liner pencil and went from my hairline, down by my ears, jaw, sides of my neck, and finally, plunging into my neckline. I had a bunch of mirrors around me to help.
     -BUT MOST IMPORTANTLY.  I relied heavily on this tutorial, of which I highly recommend:
http://www.trekspace.org/profiles/blogs/tutorial-the-trill

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.

M*A*S*H Inspired: Hawkeye Costume

I've been wanting to do a Hawkeye cosplay for some years now, but always felt that I needed that iconic red robe in order to properly pull it off. Fortune smiled on me this week and I found one! So off to my costume closet I went, to pull together a test-run of a Hawkeye cosplay. 

Below are my reference images. I pulled details like the floppy hat, the robe, his golf club (not pictured here but often seen in the show), and of course booze. 

And this is what I came up with. 

I'm happy with it for now, considering the little time and money I had. Notes for next time: 

      -Need dog-tags and a real martini glass 

      -Do an Alan Alda make-up study (I think I could pull it off with a wig for his short black hair) 

      -Go outside and stop shooting indoors, for the love of god!

Questions? Criticism? 

Leave me a comment. 

Renaissance Festival: Costume Inspired by King Arthur Movie

It's Ren-fest time here in Southern California. I wanted to share my latest costume. 

Here's me with a Johnny Depp impersonator. 

Here I am at the German Soldier camp. 

Aaaaand here's me at the end of the day: drunk and satisfied. 

How I did it: 

Above is my original design, based the top off of Kiera Knightly's character in the movie King Arthur. 

Now enjoy some incredibly nerdy and hilarious pictures from a year ago:

(when I first started work on this piece)

For the top, I went to goodwill and bought a bunch of old woven leather belts and hot-glued them together, weaving in some extra leather scraps. It ties together in the back very simply. The bottom portion of the costume is a bunch of skirts chopped up and sewed back together, with touches of old scarves, burlap, and leather scraps. 

I bought my celtic torque necklace online (like what Kiera is wearing above) and put a scarf in my hair. 

And that's it! Easy, breezy, beautiful cover-girl. 

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.