Old Age Makeup - How to

I have been waiting for today's practical for far too long, old age makeup! Special effects is where my passion lies so i have been keen to get started. 

• As always it's vital you begin with a cleanse, tone and moisturize so you have a clean base to work with. 
• Apply a foundation base to the same colour of the clients skin tone, don't powder as you will be using grease on top of this base
• You can also pat a little foundation onto the lips to take out the colour and make them appear dry

• Even when you are creating a look like this it's important to cover up any imperfections. If you were working on a film the makeup needs to look exactly the same each time it's created so it's best to just create your own spots, scars etc yourself
• Now the fun part, making the skin look old! You will need to use a darker cream concealer like you would with contouring and apply it using a small brush into the lines of the face
• Ask the client to raise the eyebrows and draw in the lines of the forehead, under the eyes, cheekbones, around the mouth
• Draw it on quite harshly and blend it a little with your fingers, it needs to be quite noticeable as i found when photographing my look the lines didn't stand out due to the lighting
• It's incredible how much older you can make a person look even just by doing these steps but to go a little bit further we were taught to use a wrinkle stipple to create wrinkles around the eyes
• Using a makeup sponge get a generous amount of product and apply around the eyes, you can use a hairdryer to speed up the process as you need a couple of layers to get the best effect
• Stretch the skin around the area while drying and when its feeling a little tacky pinch the skin together to create lines, repeat this process 2-3 times until you get the desired effect
• Powder on top of the area and any other parts of the face that you want to look less shiny
• The final stage is to make the eyebrows grey! We used Kryolan grey spray and brushed it through the eyebrows, you can also do this in the hair or use a wig if you prefer!
  
  
  
  
  
   

Overall i am pleased with the results but as i said it needs to be much darker to show up in photos! I also think i need a bit more practice with the wrinkle stipple as i struggled to get the technique!  

French Pleat - How to

All you need for this style is a curling wand/tong, clips, smoothing out brush, back combing brush and a pin tail comb.

• Start by brushing through the hair to ensure there are no knots and tangles and part the hair in the center
• Take small sections from either side of the parting and clip them, you will add these to the style later on
• You will now need to curl the hair into a brick set, curl the hair into the direction you want the hair to go in and hold the curl in place using a clip
• Once all the hair is curled you can remove the clips and lightly brush through the hair, the curls are only to make the hair easier to style
• Starting at the top begin to backcomb sections of the hair in the direction that you curled it
• Using a smoothing brush lightly take all the hair over to the right side making sure the back is really smooth and flat then you can clip it in a criss cross technique using kirby grips, this will make it more sturdy than just sliding them in the hair
• Now you can create the cone shape at the back of the head, use your left hand to tighten the hair and roll it round your other hand to get the shape
• Secure it with some clips, you can always adjust the top of the cone shape once it's more secure if your unhappy with it
• You will have some remaining hair on the top of the head which you can just add into the style where desired, make sure you keep the volume from the back combing at the top!

Getting inspiration from Pinterest

During out hair lesson with Seema we talked about Pinterest and how it's great for getting inspiration, i already know this myself having used it for a while now. I always find really interesting and original images which i can never find elsewhere, i also love how you can make boards and save your favorites to refer to later! 

As well as creating boards relating to Great Expectations we were given some keywords and told to collect images relating to these words. The words i chose are Romantic, Cruel and Eccentric.

I made a board for each of these words which you can go check out on my Pinterest page yourself...

www.pinterest.com/daniipackman

I eventually narrowed it down to just 1 image per word, here are the images i chose. 

Romantic

When i think of the word Romantic i picture really soft and girly with accessories like the flowers in this image. You can also do a lot with plaits to make hairstyles more interesting, and how can you go wrong with pink? LOVE!

Cruel

I first thought of dark and slick hair. Something quite creepy and out of the ordinary. This is the first image i found and i think it fits the keyword spot on. Its super slick, shiny and not one hair out of place! The hair flowing over the face makes it look really edgy too.

 

 Eccentric

Eccentric is something different and quirky. I like this image because it looks quite crazy but could be simple to recreate. I love the fullness of the bun which would probably be the most difficult part, especially keeping it upright!

Michael Thomas

If you read my last blog post you will see that i discovered a really interesting artist called Michael Thomas. I found his Victorian Gothic Fairy painting on Pinterest and loved it so much i decided to do a little more research on him as he has a lot of amazing paintings to take inspiration from. 

Michael was born in Leicester in 1965 and has been working as a book jacket artist for 15 years now. He says that his typical style of work is realist/surrealist with a Gothic feel. 

I find his work so interesting and it really fits in with the current project i am working on which is Gothic Horror.

The picture below is one of my favorites by Michael. It's almost as if the little girl is Estella from Great Expectations and the ghostly skeleton beside her is Miss Havisham. 

 

Gothic Images

Another task we had set for us was to find 5 Victorian visual references that match our understanding of the term Gothic. I spent most of my time browsing Pinterest to do this as i seem to find more interesting pictures on there as opposed to Google Images.

This is the first image that caught my eye. Like i am sure most people do i associate Gothic with very dark colours, particularly black.

Victorian Gothic involves a lot of lace and intricate details like this piece of jewelery shown in the picture. 

I just thought it was absolutely beautiful and unlike anything i have seen before.


http://www.pinterest.com/source/etsy.com/

The next image i found is a really beautiful Gothic cape. I love all the different textures that are included like the lace and ribbon.

You can definitely see the Victorian qualities in this item of clothing yet it still manages to look a little modern. 


http://www.pinterest.com/source/roxx-online.com/

When i think of Victorian Gothic buildings this is the image i have in my head. Very grand looking with big arch ways and lots of windows. I particularly like the castle style pointed roofs, very Gothic in my opinion.

http://www.pinterest.com/source/authenticfauxhemian.tumblr.com/

I found this image very eerie with the darker colours and with the old pictures on the walls. 

The sofa looks quite grand and i love all the detail in it and the textures.


http://www.pinterest.com/katiesarah86/i-belong-in-the-80s-the-1880s/

I saved my favorite image till last! Again, i found this on Pinterest and it's a painting by Michael Thomas. 

In the Victorian times butterfly collecting was popular. Young boys would catch rare butterflies that would then be sold to Gentleman for quite a large sum of money. 


http://www.pinterest.com/source/saatchionline.com/

Miss Havisham

Great expectations has been recreated many different times, the 2 versions I have seen are the BBC television series with Gillian Anderson and the 2012 film with Helena Bonham Carter.

The 2 women both play Miss Havisham but in very different ways. Initially I loved Helena's version of the character, she's very theatrical and over the top which is what she does best but after further reasearch I came to realise that it didn't stay true to the classic Victorian look. The dress in the movie is very big and not a style a woman in that era would have worn though I did love the makeup and hair! She has very exaggerated dark circles around the eyes and dry looking lips which is how I imagine Miss Havisham.

Gillian Anderson had a much softer character from her personality to her dress and hair. Her dress was definitely more of a classic Victorian style, less material and quite sleek which I think adds to her fragile character. I wasn't as keen on the hair and makeup however, her hair was quite neatly done and her face was a little too pale for my liking. I like the dryness of this lips in this version as well as the film and the darkness of the eyes.

Characteristics

As part of the directed task this week we were given various characteristics and told to pick out 5 that fit in with our understanding of the text so far. It was pretty difficult to narrow it down but here are my words listed below.

• Gloomy conditions - cold, damp, fog, storms
• Mystery and suspense
• Unrequited love
• Fantasizing, dreaming, reveries
• Suffering

These words seemed to link in best to how i understand the story. I imagine gloomy conditions a lot throughout the book but particularly when Pip first meets Magwitch which sets the scene for the story. There's mystery and suspense from the start and i felt on edge quite a lot of the time when reading the book and watching the remakes. We see a one sided love when Pip meets Estella, even though we get a sense that she returns his feelings they are rejected over and over until the end where they meet again. Pip fantasizes of being a Gentleman and Estella's wife pretty much from the day he met her and when he thinks Miss Havisham has given him a golden ticket into the life he wants to lead he's left disappointed, suffering with the job he doesn't want to be in and with the thoughts of maybe never seeing Estella again. 

Introduction to Great Expectations

I first read Great Expectations when I was 16 during my GCSEs almost 8 years ago! Sure enough the whole book has vanished from my memory along with everything else i had been taught about it, SO here we are again!

I decided to give the book another read to refresh myself on the story and have to admit i found it pretty difficult to get into! I studied the notes on 'Spark Notes' to help break down the story and make it easier to understand which have been extremely helpful. 

I read through notes about the themes and symbolism which generally state the moral of the story is that love, loyalty and conscience are far more important than wealth and class. Pip finds that he is no more happy being a wealthy gentleman than he was a blacksmith and has learned to see whats inside of people such as Magwitch, though Pip was initially afraid of him and hoarded guilt from helping him he learns that he is a good person and means well. 

We watched part 1 of the BBC version of Great Expectations in class together and i went home to complete the series. The text was a little off from the book but all in all i was impressed. The story was mostly kept to Charles Dickens original story but there was one character missing, Biddy. 

When reading the spark notes i discovered that there is a symmetrical theme with the characters that runs throughout the story. For example Magwitch and Compeyson, the two convicts. Biddy is Estella's opposite, the women both hold an interest for pip but they clearly both have different ways of showing this.

Gillian Anderson played Miss Havisham who i imagined to be as pale and ghostly as she appeared on the series but i was surprised with how calm and soft she seemed. I was expecting her to be much more aggressive and loud but then on the other hand she has had her heart broken and is obviously very fragile.

I went on to watch the 2012 film and being a huge Helena Bonham Carter fan i was pretty excited to see how it compared to the book and the series. It began on a great start for me and the text was on point but i was really disappointed by Mrs Joe's lack of appearance. Her character is quite important in helping to understand Joe and Pip's relationship and why they are so close but i was pleased that Biddy had been included in this version.


Though i preferred Helena Bonham Carters version of Miss Havisham i thought Gillian Anderson's gown was more typically Victorian. I decided from watching both the series and the movie remakes i definitely give higher marks to the BBC. Everything from the costume, language and scenery was kept classically Victorian an the story was kept most similar to the original story which i think is really important.