Ageing Using Liquid Latex

Ageing using liquid latex is a popular method used within the film and television industry. Simple, cost effective and not as time consuming as applying prosthetic pieces, it is easy to see why this is a popular choice for makeup artists and productions. 

As with all latex products, if you are using liquid latex for the first time it is essential you allergy test yourself by putting a small amount of the latex on your inner forearm and let it dry. You'll know if you've had a reaction as you'll start itching and going red. It's also worth using a barrier cream if you have sensitive skin as it can be quite harsh when you come to peel the dried latex off.

Before:

To begin the ageing on my own hand I ensured my skin was clean and moisturised, as you would with any face makeup, giving me a bare base to work on. Using my Kryolan Rubber Mask Greasepaint Palette I started by adding veining (using a blue) and a couple of age spots (using browns). 

I then began stippling on the liquid latex using a sponge. I did this in a light layer with my hand clenched in a fist to stretch the skin. By stretching the skin in the opposite direction of natural wrinkles, when you release the skin, the latex creates the wrinkles. Once I had applied the first layer of latex I sped up the drying process with a hair dryer and then applied a fine dusting of Graftobian Translucent Powder. 

I wanted it create more of an aged effect so I continued with adding layers of latex and powdering each one until I was happy with the effect.

As you can see by these images, the powder I used made the latex have a white tone to it. To overcome this effect, I simply waited until all the layers were dry and then used a baby wipe to dab off the excess powder. 

To match the colour of the latex to my natural skin tone I used a mixture of Airbase foundations. I applied these using my fingers to add subtle skin tones and to blend the latex into my skin. 

I love the effect ageing with liquid latex creates and how easy it is to achieve with a few simple products. As you move your hand you can really see all the wrinkles and how they contort your skin adding to the effect.

After:

Have you ever used a different ageing technique? 

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Depotting Lipsticks

It's a known fact that I own far too many lipsticks within my own makeup kit and my professional kit so I have decided to depot them rather than having them all lying around willy nilly. I decided to keep the more expensive ones in their original packaging as its far too pretty to throw away so the ones included here are only the budge ones. 

I have read a lot of reviews where people either melt the lipstick on a spoon over a candle or put the lipstick into the chosen palette and then microwave. I decided on the spoon over a candle method as I've heard bad things with microwaving and damaging the colours.

I began with my palette which is a bead box from Hobbycraft, get it here. You can put these in the microwave as there are no metal parts so they're great for both methods and really good value. 

This is a really easy way to depot lipstick, simply melt the lipstick on a spoon and pour into the individual compartments! Simple! Here's a few piccys to help you along, excuse the bright green mat...

Simple tools...

The first one...

Melt slowly so you don't burn the lippy...

Finished for today with spaces left for more buys...

How do you store your lipsticks? Will you be depotting your lippys?

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A day at the Races

Yesterday was the hottest day of the year, reaching 31 degrees in beautiful Yorkshire, which proved to be the perfect day to go to York Races. Having to be ready for 9am on a Saturday was a shock to my system but it definitely paid off with our winnings, a load of pink champagne (it is the races after all!) and an amazing French meal at Souz Le Nez in Leeds to end the night. 

I wore red dress by Monsoon and Kurt Geiger wedges, makeup was my normal look as I wanted to keep it airy and summery with products by Clarins, Illamasqua and Topshop (their blusher/bronzer combo is amazing for summer). 

I'll definitely be going back to the races, it's a great excuse to enjoy some Champers and Pimms and get all dolled up for the day. You might even get lucky and see Richard "Richard and Judy" Madely along the way! 

WINNER WINNER CHICKEN DINNER!

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Blog Lovin'!

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One of my favourite photos from 2013 World Bodypainting Festival taken from their Facebook page here. Take a look and get inspired!

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World Body Painting Festival

To the talented few, body painting comes as second nature; transforming the human form into an art canvas with paint. Unfortunately I am not one of the lucky ones.

Every year the World Body Painting Festival showcases the best in the industry in the idyllic surroundings of Austria, with competitors and spectators flying in from all over the world. From the 1st July to 7th July 2013 the festival wowed viewers and judges with winners from USA, Belgium, Russia and Italy. Photos and videos have not yet been released yet, and I for one am dying to see what they've come up with this year with themes of "Planet Food" and "Holy Geometry", but here's a round-up video from the 2012 festival to get your senses tingling...

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Joel Harlow - One of the Greats

Joel Harlow is an industry legend. His work has the ability to make viewers question if it is actually practical effects or if it's CGI, which is a dream for all makeup artists. Cinema Makeup School in Los Angeles regularly holds guest tutorials from industry professionals where they reveal their most helpful tips and tricks. If I won the lottery (or found a bag of money) Cinema Makeup School would definitely be one of my first stops, but until then I'll enjoy the multitude of YouTube videos and IMATS visits...

 

 

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The Beginnings of Sculpture

With so much going on recently I've hardly had time to think about blogging so will share with you a little of what I've been up to at university.



We have began sculpting and were challenged to create a sculpt for one feature. Most people chose to create a nose, whereas I decided to try a forehead piece. This is based loosely around Michael Westmore's Klingons from Star Trek. There is still a fair bit of work needed including adding textures. This will then be cast in gelatine so it will be fairly easy to blend with the skin.



The pencil sketch is a second design for a chameleon/snake hybrid mask we have to create for one of our final pieces. This will probably change as I work with my sculpt when I see what works better. I'm really excited to start this and to see it take shape.

As my pieces for various projects at university take shape I'll be reviewing them here.

Any feedback and constructive criticism would be greatly appreciated.

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Face Off Series 4, Episode 1

Last night marked the premier of Face Off Series 4. If you're not familiar with Face Off, it's basically like X Factor but for Make-Up Artists.

Each week begins with a Foundation Challenge, in which the contestants are usually given around 2 hours to complete a make-up based around a brief. This is then judged by a guest judge and the winner is given immunity from elimination that week.

The second challenge is the Spotlight Challenge. For this the contestants are usually paired up or work in teams of 3, they are then given 3 days to complete a full body make-up including costume, props and hair set around a given brief.

The Foundation Challenge

Here's 3 of my favourite looks from the Foundation Challenge; to create a make-up based around a chosen crown...

Eric F.'s the Queen of lost Souls - great thought process, so unlike any of the other contestants with great colouring and overall appearance. My personal favourite.

 



Jenna's Warrior Queen - love the added prosthetics, really believable piece.

 

Anthony's Queen - as a painter, Anthony's colouring is perfect!

Guest judge and mentor Michael Westmore crowned Anthony as the winner of the Foundation Challenge, saying his make-up "could shoot on film".

 

The Spotlight Challenge

 

Autumn and Eric Z: Jungle Goblin King

 

Eric F and Jenna: Desert Goblin King - My favourite!

 

Alex and Wayne: Swamp Goblin King

 

Michael and Troy: Volcano Goblin King

 

House and Katie: Arctic Goblin King

 

Anthony and Meagan: Mountain Goblin King

 

Kris and Alam: Forest Goblin King

 

Anthony and Meagan were crowned winners of the Spotlight Challenge even though they came across some of their own challenges during the 3 days, with Anthony being chosen by the judges as overall winner. Troy was the first contestant to leave the competition and it's always sad to see the contestants pack up their cases and turn out their mirror lights.

 

Some extraordinary talent within this group of contestants proves that series 4 may be the best yet. Rumour has it, next week's challenge is based around superheros, no doubt we'll see some more incredible designs and make-ups.

 

Which was your favourite creation?

 

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Oscar Nominations 2013

The 7 shortlisted films have now been whittled down to a final 3. Which consist of:

Hitchcock - Howard Berger, Peter Montagna and Martin Samuel
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey - Peter Swords King, Rick Findlater and Tami Lane
Les Misérables - Lisa Westcott and Julie Dartnell

As I have already blogged about Hitchcock, I'll concentrate on The Hobbit and Les Misérables here.

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

With 4 tonnes of silicone to just cast the faces of 13 dwarves, Richars Taylor head of special effects house WETA Workshop had a lot of work to do.

“We had to give them prosthetic hands to wear, we had to give them much bigger feet, and we had to give them much wider heads. That’s why we had to create these ears that stuck out, and the wigs created the illusion that their heads were bigger than they were,” explained director Peter Jackson.

"Because of the higher resolution from Jackson’s 48 frames per second (twice the visual information of the industry’s standard 24 frames per second) and the 3-D, prosthetics supervisor Tami Lane’s team used the same compressable material used on the underside of the space shuttle to smash the edge of the prosthetics down to a hundredth of a micron to blend it with the skin. Anything thicker and the audience might notice." Taken from NY Daily News.

The standard of prosthetics, make-up and hair has dramatically changed this year. From using yak hair for wigs and beards to smashing prosthetics with something only NASA should use, the new technological developments begs the question "What will be next?"


Les Misérables

This video pretty much says it all about Les Misérables. Amazing tallent and dedication from all the cast and make-up team! I cannot wait to see this and probably cry my heart out.

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BAFTA Nominations 2013

It's that time of year again; award season. The BAFTA nominations have now been released and tomorrow will see the Oscar nominations.

BAFTA Nominations for Make-Up & Hair are:

    Anna Karenina - Ivana Primorac


    Hitchcock - Julie Hewett, Martin Samuel, Howard Berger


    The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey - Peter Swords King, Richard Taylor, Rick Findlater


    Les Misérables - Lisa Westcott


    Lincoln - Lois Burwell, Kay Georgiou


Personally, Les Misérables does it for me. The high variety of characters from slaves and beggars to royalty and aristocrats, Lisa Westcott nailed them all. Not to mention the scene in which Anne Hathaway's hair is cut off was actually her real hair and not a wig.

The BAFTA's take place on 10th February and I'll definitely be tuning in. What are your predictions? Who scoops it for you?

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Lush 'Dreamtime' Bath Melt

I've been struggling to sleep recently with being stressed to high heaven so decided to treat myself to my favourite Lush product, 'Dreamtime'.

'Dreamtime' is an amazing bath melt from Lush, made primarily from cocoa butter. Mixed with a variety of essential oils including lavender, camomile and jasmine, this melt is pretty much guaranteed to relax you.

Just drop it into your ready run bath and lie back.

This is my number one Lush product: it's soothing, helps me sleep and relax, smells to die for and is so moisturising you feel like Cleopatra in a bath of milk. Every time I go into Leeds I make sure I pop in and pick one up, along with about another 5 things!

For a mere £3.15 this is definitely my must have bathroom essential. It also smells delicious just in the wrapper so makes a lovely bathroom fragrance.

Go on, treat yourself.

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A little slice of 'Utopia'

For one of our recent uni assesments, we had to design a makeup based upon the song either 'Utopia' or 'Strict Machine' by Goldfrapp. I chose 'Utopia' due to the links with Mother Earth, nature and paradise. And the fact that a lot of my peers chose 'Strict Machine' made me want to do 'Utopia' to ensure I didn't have similar ideas to anyone.

I decided to go down the research route of Thomas More's Utopia, Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, The Green Man and Mother Earth.

After countless hours of research, planning and practicing, these are my final photographs. I'm just getting used to using my camera (Canon 550D) so they're not as crisp as I would of liked. Any advice would be lovely! What do you think?

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Sir Anthony Hopkins as Alfred Hitchcock

One of the many films I'm dying to see this year as a makeup artist is 'Hitchcock'. Sir Anthony Hopkins alone makes this a must-see for me, you don't get to be a 'Sir' for making rubbish films. But the part that really grabs my attention is the fact Howard Berger is crating the prosthetic makeup.

For years now, I have admired Berger's work, so much so I wrote a uni essay about his career. He's transformed people into a variety of creatures from the horrors of "The Hills Have Eyes" to the fantasies of "The Chronicles of Narina: The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe".

This article from Co.Create gives a really good insight into the challenges a makeup artist can come across whilst working on a film. The video at the end is definitely worth a watch if you're interested in seeing the application process of the makeup.

http://www.fastcocreate.com/1682054/see-how-anthony-hopkins-was-transformed-into-alfred-hitchcock#6

It's an obvious watch for me this year, hope you all enjoy it, let me know what you think if you get a chance to see it!

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My Cookery Journey 1

Hello!

With it being Thursday, today was my designated evening to cook for myself and my parents. This week I chose a Steak Pie from "Maw Broon's But an' Ben Cookbook". Now this is quite an adventurous thing for me as I've not tried to cook anything other than pasta and rice before, but think a steak pie is a great receptive to be familiar with especially if you're cooking for a lot of people.

This is a great cookbook and makes me think of the home cooked delights I used to get at my Grandma's in Sunderland when I was a kid. The recipes are really easy to follow and it had a load of great conversion tables and charts in the front few pages. I'd definitely consider giving this book as a gift as the illustrations throughout add to the delight.

For my pie, I used Sainsburys Pre Rolled Puff Pastry and in all honestly it's probably the nicest I've had. I'm not usually a big pastry fan but I actually went back for seconds.

A simple, relatively cheap dish to make for a lovely winter warmer for the whole family. I absolutely adore this recipe and will definitely make it again.

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Hello!

Hello!

And more importantly Happy New Year! I'm Jessica/Jess/Jessie/Babs (depending on who you are) and this blog is one of my New Years Resolutions. Personally I'd take Christmas over New Year any day and never do resolutions but thought this year would be a good time to start. I'm currently in my first year of university studying Special Effects Makeup Design for Film, TV and Theatre in Grimsby, Lincolnshire but live in Leeds, Yorkshire.

Here I will tell you about what I'm up to makeup wise, university wise and just generally ramble and show you my baking and cooking attempts.

Hope to talk to you all very soon! Please feel free to leave your blog names/url's and twitters if you'd like, I'd love to have a nosey!

That's all for now! x