Final Major Project - Through my eyes

My concept for this project is to look at a vast amount of well known fictional and non fictional characters in history and presenting them through my own interpretation. To me, it seems that the notable figures known to our society are always presented in similar ways, for example the vast majority of protagonists historically are male, however their defined characteristics could be interpreted as female. Similarly, characters in novels that have been created into media productions such as films or television series are conceptual and interpreted differently by whoever may have read the book. I want to take these characteristics that are well known to the masses and use them for my own creation of their character in an abstract way. By looking into experimental drag and theatrics makeup artists such as Mathu Andersen and Pat McGraph, I will be able to gain much more inspiration and knowledge in this form of makeup. I will also look into prosthetic artists such as Barrie Gower as I want my interpretations to be over exaggerated and abstract. Throughout this project I will be looking into how roles have already been presented in the media and even collecting information from people around me as to their personal perception of certain characters and taking this into consideration when designing my possible outcomes. I feel as though this project is very personal to my vision and approach to the subject. However, it also addresses a universal issue of characters being represented stereotypically without exploration of other possible genders, races and forms.

Beyond the fundamental

For this project we were given a subject or area to look into initially then could interpret this the way we say fit. For my subject and I was given the character The Hunchback of Notre Dame. When finding out what my subject was I immediately thought to research this character as look into the actual definition of the person rather than simply thinking of his stereotypical portrayal in the film version.         

                                                            Images of 'Quasimodo'

                                                             from google images

Drawing of him 

Definition of the character Quasimodo -Quasimodo (from Quasimodo Sunday^[1]) is a fictional character and the protagonist of the novel The Hunchback of Notre-Dame (1831) by Victor Hugo. Quasimodo was born with a hunchback and feared by the townspeople as a sort of monster, but he finds sanctuary in an unlikely love that is fulfilled only in death.

I decided that I wanted to stay away from the stereotypical representation of Quasimodo and simply take his back story and use this as inspiration for my own creation of him. I considered his segregation, isolation, sadness, loneliness and applied this to coming up with ideas and designs for my own creation.
I looked into a number of other characters who were presented in an lonely and misunderstood way and thought about how i could interpret it into my character which I will be making on someone els. I began to do drawings and small designs of how I would manipulate the face and body, for example adding padding under the clothes to make places appear larger or smaller. I can also do this on the face by adding prosthetic pieces to accentuate the brow, chin and nose to make it appear more cartoon like and 'uglier'.

Catalysts project

For the catalyst project I chose to focus on Abstract as my pathway yet also touching upon Modernism. I wanted to incorporate two opposing styles and designs in my outcome, and in this case I knew that I wanted to marry a victorian/old fashion style and a more contemporary/modern one. Following this idea, I researched into fashion and fashion designers that I would find inspiration in such as Alexander McQueen, Vivienne Westwood and Burberry. As well as looking into their fashion design, I also looked at their runway and editorial makeup for inspiration in the actual makeup I will be designing.

 I began to experiment with colours and designs through various sketches and paintings to identify the kind of style I was looking for. I eventually found that although my inspiration for this makeup piece was fashion (usually focusing on the garment),
fashion photography often involved the face being the focal point of the image. This, combined with the conventional style of vintage photography gave me the idea of putting quite a cutting, geometric shape onto the face. This would heavily oppose
the muted browns and greys of the other makeup surrounding it.
I wanted to ensure that my piece was a perfect representation of fashion and makeup and my main goal was for the final photograph to be heavily inspired by old portrait photography and I believe that although high fashion and old vintage styles juxtapose very much, they have a lot of similarities and a large amount of current fashion designers take inspiration from very old eras.

For my final piece i used a range of brown and golden eyeshadows to contour the face in unconventional places such as the nose and eye sockets to make the face appear weak dehumanised. I also blocked out the eyebrows to achieve this effect. I then used a white body paint to draw a mask like material around the face and down the neck as I wanted the makeup to appear layered by me using the sharing as an illusion that there is something underneath. I purchased a black wig which I styled myself to fit with the emotion I was attempting to portray in the look. I crudely cut the wig into a servere bob-style, then singed the ends using a hair straightener to create the effect of the hair pointing outwards at the bottom. Overall, I believe that the final outcome perfectly mirrored the victorian
quality I was looking for, while having the fragment of Modernism, creating almost an alien aura.

Live project

For this project we had to put ourselves into small groups and come up with an interactive piece of art from doing research into various artists, pieces and concepts. In my group, we knew that we wanted the viewer to be wearing or holding some form of interactive piece that would work with the experience of the installation so that they could have a personal connection with it. We came up with the concept of fragmented vision and virtual reality as inspiration so our first step was researching into various ideas to do with these subjects. We clearly knew it was impossible to create a virtual reality headset and considered creating a smaller, non digital version but did not want to just simply copy the idea of visual reality but use it as a starting point.

After primary and secondary research into these areas, we came up with the idea of making an immersive space full of projections and then creating a head piece to enhance the viewers experience. We wanted this head piece to be made from fragmented, reflective material as to bounce the light and colour off to create a strange warped vision. As well as this, we wanted to make a theatrical face or head piece which would not be something that could be worn by the public such as a makeup piece. We considered using abstract paintings to project onto the space as this was something that would be very visually appealing and colourful.

For inspiration, we all visited the V&A to see a piece called Glastonbury: Land and Legend which was an installation in the shape of a tent which was projected with filmed moments from Glastonbury festival, along with an audio of people explaining their experience there. Inside the tent, there were pillows for the public to sit on so that they could lay down and get a full experience from the installation.

Due to the fact that the 4 members of our group all did different forms of art and had different interests and skills, we wanted to final outcome to reflect all of these different areas to different people, depending on what their strengths were. Kiara, being a fine artist interested in 3D sculpture and making was looking into the physical construction of the head piece. Sadie and Beth, who are both painters were assigned to create the abstract paintings which would later be projected onto the space of our installation. As the field I am going into is makeup and prosthetics, My job was to deign and create the theatrical head piece/makeup which would be photographed with the final outcome. As our theme was all about fragmentation, cracking and distorting I had ideas of sticking pieces to the skin to add this sense of breaking pieces. However, after experimenting with this I decided to do intricate makeup to make the actual skin seem as if it is shattered and broken.

 At first I experimented with this idea on my brother at home to see what kind of techniques worked well to create a realistic cracked design. I did this using skin coloured foundation that was slightly lighter than the models skin to  highlight the areas around the cracks. I then used brown eyeshadow for the hollows of the cracks to make the under layer of skin appear to be deeper than the surface skin. Lastly I used a black body paint to draw the cracked pieces and slightly to shadow the underneath part of the skin.

(The final piece done on the day)

on the day i did the fragmented makeup on myself as we thought that it would be much more practical to do it on myself than prevent another group from moving forward with their project as when practicing the makeup I realised that it took over 2 hours to thoroughly complete. I again used the same brown eyeshadow and lighter foundation to accentuate the highs and lows of the fragmentation. I used a very fine angled brush to achieve very precise lines to make it as realastic as possible. When this makeup was projected with the moving images of the paintings done by Sadie and Beth, it created a very strange and interesting effect, almost making the face unrecognisable when photographed.

On the day of the presentation we set up projectors in an empty white room while having the curtains shut. This meant that the projected images were extremely clear and vibrant. Using this space also allowed us to create an actual space for people to come into. We also used turned white tables to help reflect the art in different positions. The actual projections of Sadie and Beth's art was created into moving GIFS by Sadie which heavily enhanced the immersive experience with and without the head piece. Before allowing a viewer to try on the head piece and interact with the art, we tested it ourselves and took photographs of the inside of the head piece.

I feel as though our piece was successful as when having the head piece on with the lights reflecting from the mirrored pieces, it did become a full experience.

Individualism

For this project we were instructed to create a final product for another student/client depending on what they wanted you to make. In my case, my client wanted a look that was very environmental and represented the earth and all natural things.  My initial idea was of a head piece that was an extension of the body which may be tree-like perhaps creating my own leaves/bark and incorporating these in. I discovered a drag artist who created something very similar to my visualisation (shown below)

Although this was my initial idea, there were a number of other aspects that were specified by my client such as the colour scheme which was requested to be pink/peach based. It was important to my client that the final piece be feminine and elegant as this is the main emotion and feeling they wanted the makeup to portray. Knowing this, I researched different types of feminine flowers that I found fitting to her idea.

I was heavily inspired by flowers during this project as they are not only visually feminine but also hold connotations of the female body or often perceived to be something yonic.

When looking into flowers and plants of these feminine colours, it reminded me of the work of Matthew Barney who creates pieces that consist an of elegant, light colour scheme, yet with a slightly edgy and even dark undertone. This came across when I noticed the small veins on the leaves, which gave me a feeling of bleeding. I knew that in my final outcome I wanted to convey a striking over look as well as it being very feminine.

I was aware that my client informed me that she wished for influences of David Bowie to be shown within the makeup, therefore I researched the looks of Bowie that I found to be most fitting for this particular project. I chose to look into this particular image as the colour scheme and softness of the makeup seemed like something that would be a good element of inspiration for my piece. I experimented with different sketches and makeup looks on myself to come up with something that would drive my idea further. One aspect that I particularly liked was the contrast of extremely white, chalky skin juxtaposed with the raw, rich red colour on the lips and cheekbones and was sure that I wanted to include this in my outcome.

                                     















Following this research, I did my first drawing/painting of what I wanted my final look to roughly look like. I then took this drawing and began to form it into something tanjible in the form of a head piece. I chose roses due to their clear innocence and beauty and also as I wanted to contrast them slightly with the severity of the makeup. I proceeded to experiment with this idea on myself, including vein like shapes to mimic the veins found in the plants I had looked at, along with a bold lip shape and colour, touching upon my Bowie influences. 

However, once doing this I knew that although I was happy with the head piece and the majority of basic makeup colours and shapes, I wanted to change some aspects slightly.

My final outcome was tweaked slightly from my previous trial in several ways. I softened the eye shadow around the forehead and completely blocked out the eyebrows so to draw more attention to the lips and colouring of the face (also to slightly dehumanise the face). I made the vein part of the look more prominent and brought it down further onto the body and back to elongate and feminise the overall look. Finally, I decided to present my finalised makeup piece on an androgynous male model as I believe that this was the perfect representation of the slightly odd, feminine look.

Once I had completed this look I decided to make a short film showing the intricate details of the makeup. I decided to do this as a form of portraying my work as I not only thought that my visuals perfectly matched the music piece I had envisioned it going with, but also allowed to explore every intricate part of the piece separately.