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.