Timed Assessment - Designer

On Wednesday, 1st December, we had our final assessment. I was the designer & Jay was the make-up artist. We had practiced my design a lot over the past week or so. We had both had our parts & own input in developing my design. I liked working like this because it meant that we really worked as a team & listened to each other by using each of our strengths opposed to me just giving her a design & expecting her to just do it. Seeing as we also live in the same halls, this  I had a lot of confidence in my make-up artist because she has done it & practiced it to perfection nearly every time.  Although you BOTH kept forgetting to include the beauty mark! How!? I do not know! 

Jay brought in all of her own kit & I brought in all the extra products that I bought separately. This includes;
Red lip liner
White eye liner
Benefit mascara

 I think Jay did a brilliant job doing my make-up & she got it spot on, just how I wanted it. I believe Jay works best under pressure, although she wouldn't say that herself. She might get a bit hot & bothered when doing it & start to panic, but with my other assessment too, she's always produced her best bits of work at these times. Here are the pictures from the shoot;

(All images taken by Jamie-Ann Kale)

I'm so pleased with how my images came out, and we actually remembered the beauty mark this time! The skin colour match is spot on to match the colour of my skin, the colour blend from pink to purple in the forehead & cheeks is brilliantly done & the white mask looks so even. I couldn't be happier with the outcome. I'm so pleased that I got partnered up with Jay because we get along so well. However, next time, I wouldn't mind being partnered up with someone out of my friendship groups because I want to try to work with as many different people as possible. 

Timed Assessment - Make-up Artist

On Wednesday, 26th November, it was our timed assessment! I was the make-up artist & my partner, Jay, was the designer. We worked well as a team and made eachother feel confident & believed in eachother. We came to lesson very prepared and got on with it as soon as we could. Obviously, I was a bit nervous seeing as it was my first timed assessment & I had to do the make-up first! I can honestly say that it wasn't that bad, we had music playing in the background & were allowed to have small chit-chat as we went through it, so it was a very relaxed environment. I believe this is the best version of my partners design that I had produced & I think she will agree with me on that one too. I'm very happy with how it came out because it was all blended smoothly & it complimented eachother. Here are some final outcome pictures that I took;

Final Practise Of My Partners Design

My last chance to practise my partners final make-up in lesson was on Monday 24th November in Kat's lesson. It was the chance for some last minute experimenting that I needed to make sure that my partner was confident in me to do her make-up design the way that she desired. She also added a few extra bits like paper eyelashes that we used on her eyebrows that I hadn't worked with before so it was good practise. Here are some pictures of how it went;

This was the set up of my workstation. I had to use an extra tray for my make-up brushes as there wasn't enough space for it on my mirror station. You can also see the face charts & notes that have been created by my partner for this assessment. 

This blending of the colour went alot better than my first attempt. As you can see, it is alot lighter in colour because I didn't use as much product & also it all blends into each colour a lot smoother. You can also see the blocked out eyebrows in this picture.

I hadn't used the paper eyelashes before so this was completely new to me, but when didn't put them on the eyelashes, we put them on the eyebrows. We used these to hid away the eyebrows so it would be an overall soft colouring to the face. With the eyebrows on show, this didn't work. We placed the eyelashes slightly under the browline so they would cover over the hairs. Looking at it now, it does look silly but at the time, we thought it worked well as it curved round with the makeup. 

With everything that needed to be done to my models face, done. We then had the decision of where to add the pearls. She at first, wanted a small line of small pearls going around the eye sort of like eyeliner but then thought it would be too tricky to actually create. So I suggested to get some bigger ones and have them either inside the eye, or outside of the eye. These are the two pictures in comparison. 

We decided to go with having them on the outside of the eye because it made the eyes pop out more whereas we thought it made the eyes look too close together with them on the inside. I believe that I managed to create this look well seeing as it was changed at the last minute. I'm pleased with how it came out & was confident to go into doing it in our timed assessment. 

Practising My Partners Design

On Monday, 17th November, I was given my partners face chart for the first time & had to try to create it that was that she wanted it done. For a first attempt, I don't think I did too badly. We had already talked about what she wanted me to create and what was needed so we were both very organised for our lesson & managed to set up our station straight away. My partner, Jay, brought in her face charts & also some notes that she had made to pin up on the mirror to look at whilst creating this look (we were the only pair to have done this so it made us look good, professional & like we had our work together). Jay also brought in a block of soap & some eye shadows that she included to her look which weren't in that make-up kits. Here are some pictures from the practise;

In these pictures, you can see how my work station was set up with the notes on the mirror & my model in her chair. I also included a close up of the make-up that I used so you know exactly what I used.

In this picture, you can see the different thought process that we had when deciding whether or not to have a bit orange point at the brow or a smaller point. We decided to go with the smaller one. You can't see very well in this picture but I did block out my models eyebrows before applying that eyeshadow colouring to it but her eyebrows are so dark that it didn't work too well. Our tutor, Kat, gave us a little tip that when blocking the eyebrows, we should push them upwards so that they stuck to the skin rather than going with the hair and having hair stuck on hair. 

I will admit, I didn't quite read the face chart accurately as I did do the blush around the eyes too strong. This was because I used too small of a brush with too much product on them & I didn't have the right sized to blend it all properly.  

  For the lips, I used two different eyeshadow colours and made an ombre effect, red round the lip lining & orange blended into the middle. I like how this overall makeup turned out, even though there are corrections to be made but for a first time, I am pleased with the outcome. 

Feedback

I've recently had a few meetings with two of my university tutors, Sharon Lloyd & Kat Vogart about how i've been getting on with my blog & what I can do to improve it. I thought it would be a good idea to make a short blog post about it and write this down to see if I can keep up with these changes from now & further on in my blog. 

My first meeting was with Kat, on a Monday morning during her lesson. Whilst looking quickly through my blog, she said some good and bad points that I have within it. The good things she said about my blog was that she can see that I've worked hard on it. I've not always put in the time to create my blog, due to work commitments & socialising with my new university friend, but when I do have the time to do create a post, I tend to make sure it's up to a high quality with a good balance of writing to images. As you can more than likely tell from looking through my blog, I tend to have gaps where I don't post much then suddenly, I'll have done five in one day. 

The bad things that Kat picked up on was the fact that I didn't look deep enough when finding images. I usually get my images, whatever it may be fore, from the internet or possibly a magazine/newspaper. I tend to look through Google search for a bit then find the one I like best which is normally at the top of the page, just like what everyone else does. Said advised that I dig a bit deeper to get images that noone else has on their blog and that other people possibly haven't seen before. This is easier said that done but I have been trying harder at this since I was told to do so. One thing that I do believe is bad of me, is my time management. Due to my other commitments, I don't always put my blog first. However, when I started this course, just like everyone else, I didn't know anyone so I was trying to socialise as much as possible which meant putting my blog to a second priority. Another factor that didn't help was FRESHERS! I went out every night of freshers and I felt the reciprocations of that for the next month! 

I can promise to my blog now that once I come back from Christmas holiday, I will put my blog to my first & main priority. This is because I will have already made friends, so I don't have to concentrate on that, & I would have settled in a lot better. 

My second meeting with Sharon took place on a Tuesday morning, also during her lesson. She said that my blog showed a good amount of in class practise & that I create good face charts that show my thought & development. However, that there isn't enough face charts to show on my blog. She also added that I don't show enough work on my blog which is only showing half of my potential whereas I could be showing a lot more. This really made me realise that I haven't produced enough work for my blog & that has let me down. This really quite upset me because I'm always one to be on top of my work & to have it at a good standard level. 

Overall, I believe these meetings helped me because they did give me that little kick up the bum that I need to really get my head down & concentrate on my work. However, I do believe that if I had these meetings earlier on in this project, than I would have been able to address them more at the beginning compared to nearing the end of it. 

Prosthetics Event

We had the amazing chance to go to the Prosthetics Event in Birmingham on Sunday 16th November. It was a long drive up there and took nearly 3 hours but we made it just in time.

http://www.theprostheticsevent.co.uk

When there, we watched a seminar hosted by Neill Gorton of him creating a character from 'Guardians of the Galaxy'. These are some images that I took during the development of it;

The Reel Eye company who work with contact lenses were also there to show how adding contacts can change your makeup creation just that little but more.

Fangs FX were also present to show how false teeth can finish off a look too. I never really understood how important these two facts were until I watched this. It does really change the whole outcome of the desired look. 

It was an amazing opportunity to see how something like this makeup peive can been thrown together in just 2 hours. It has helped me to understand a bit more on how prosthetics work and how they can be used to change a desired look. 

When there, we were also lucky enough to spot a makeup stand that we're creating an Elizabethan look. These are some pictures of what they were creating; 

It was amazing to see this be done, and also by a student that was at the makeup school. It was just pure luck for us that we had this to look at when there! 

Overall, we had a good but tiring day up in Birimingham & I feel like I have gained knowledge from doing this experience. 

Final & Chosen Face Chart & Inspiration

This was my third & final face chart that I created; 

For this, I decided to have a foundation matching the skin colour of the model apart from the mask like white going across the eyes, bridge of the nose & temples. Like my previous face chart, I wanted to keep the mask white but I made it a bit more dramatic. In this, it shows that I have had the eyebrows drawn in but when practising my design, I changed it to have them blocked out so they are white with the rest of the mask. This is to keep the historical aspect of the  Elizabethan makeup. I got more inspiration for the mask from this picture;

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/bryonygordon/6795324/Lady-Gaga-an-over-hyped-star-for-the-21st-century.html

I like how she put her own special twist on such a simple, classic look. She used a rich red to match the red jems that are placed on her face to create the mask.

The lips that I have designed are using two colours from the Kryolan Supacolour pallet, the deep red, purple & gold. I made them ombré by having the red on the outside & blending into the purple with the gold slightly applied on top of the purple in the mouth crease. I like how it's done this because it's made it feel much more contemporary by adding more colours. Another thing about my design is the blusher I've used. It goes around my hairline in a heart shape and follows round into my cheek bones to add a slight contour. I did the heart shape in the hairline to resemble how sometimes, the Elizabethans would use jewellery to fall from the hair onto the forehead. This is what my practise of my design came out like; 

I really like how it turned out because my artist did an amazing job at getting it spot on to how I wanted it. However, we did forget to add the beauty mark on the left side of the cheek & I've also changed it to add black false eyelashes. I did this because I feel like my eyes are being blended in when I really want them to stand out. 

I produced another face chart to show the slight changes between my third, and what I thought was my final face chart & my actual final face chart. This is what it looks like; 

I really love my final contemporary design because I believe that you can still see the Elizabethan aspects in it but you can also see how I've made it contemporary. I hope that another practise comes out exactly like this.