The last film I got to see at Fantasia this year was the one I was most excited about. It just seemed so fun! The description did mention that a Hollywood remake starring Kevin Hart is in production, but I wanted to make sure I saw the original. ↓ Read the rest of this entry…
Right. So, I picked this movie at random, in the sense that I got the name confused with a completely different film I meant to actually see. I figured, meh, might as well watch it, it could turn out to be a fun accidental discovery!
I must admit, as a French Canadian, to having a great deal of fondness for animated films based on Chinese legends. I have Ciné-Cadeau to thank, a series of family films aired on Radio-Québec during the holidays since 1981. They opened my eyes with the 1979 animation “Le prince Nezha triomphe du roi dragon”, and I`ve sought them out since. (see here for English Wiki). White Snake had my attention from the moment I read the description.
Getting in on the Fantasia action later than I would have liked this year, and for reason, I kicked it off with what could possibly be my oddest movie choice to date. All I knew of it was the short descriptive blurb in the program, and paired with the colourful photo it presented, I thought it would be cheesy, light-hearted fun.
Day 4! Honestly, how could I resist. I’ve wanted to do a Jessica Rabbit cosplay for a while now, this felt like a good first step haha!
No one suggested this one, it was just for me.
If you saw the previous challenges, you’ll notice my hair is a darker red… I wanted to refresh my colour so I would have a more rich and vibrant red for my Jessica photos. Commitment, people. I then spent like an hour blow-drying and curling my hair to get it to fall just right. For real though, I admire people who spend this much effort on their hair on a regular basis, I rarely ever do it and just this was like, ugh enough.
While I was out shopping for hair dye, I managed to find a glue stick for my brows! I applied a few layers while I was doing my hair, and let it dry completely. I had a hard time telling if it was perfectly smooth just like that… in retrospect, I should have powdered them to see the results before going in with foundation. Speaking of which, turns out my Makeup Forever HD cream wasn’t opaque enough to completely cover up my dark brown eye brows. Still though, quite an improvement from my first attempt. I think next time I’ll try either airbrush or Kryolan’s Dermacolor.
Either way, I dabbed on the HD cream foundation with a beauty blender again, contoured with the usual Shade & Light palette and highlighted subtly with the Senegence Pearlizer. I love that thing.
With a liner brush and pale brown powder, I traced out the rough shape I wanted for the eye-shadow. I didn’t wanna go full vertical like Toon Jessica, so I extended out to the sides a bit. I went with Urban Decay’s Electric Palette for the purple, Shadowsense – Onyx for crease and liner, and OCC pearly loose powder for the center of the lid.
I painted my brows on using Shadowsense – Garnet and tried to make them as symmetrical as possible in the time I had left… I had to get my ass to work. Glued on a few individual lashes from MUF and mixed 2 Everlasting Liquid Lipsticks, Nazh Fur Atoo and Outlaw, then added a dab of Pearlizer to create a plump effect.
Ta-daaahhhhhh!
I absolutely love drag makeup. It is crazy, over the top, larger than life, and insanely creative. Even more so when it comes to Club Kid Drag makeup, it is next level in-your-face, and creative on a whole nother level 😀
Alex Padowicz suggest I do this makeup. I was so down.
Here is the results along with inspirations, followed by what I used.
Me
Venetian mask of Pierrot
I’ve never glued down my eyebrows before, but from what I know, the most effective way to do it is with a glue stick. Sadly, I had none, and it was raining outside so I decided to try a very thick hair gel instead. I used several layers, but it didn’t give the best result. It was alright for a first attempt.
I decided to create a sort of Pierrot look, I have no idea why but his face had been stuck in my head for a bit. If you don’t know Pierrot, he is a character from a late 17th century French pantomime called Comédie Italienne. Essentially, he is a sad clown and it’s a french thing 😛
For the white base, I used my trusty Vibe European Body Art airbrush makeup in plain white. I wanted to avoid disturbing my brows as much as possible, seemed logical.
For the creepy yellow tones, which I doubled for contouring, I used my Kat Von D Shade & Light palette yet again, this time in the medium brown tone. It has a yellowy quality to it that I liked. I highlighted with a pearly white OCC loose powder, it had stunning blue tint reflections and I am so sad they didn’t pop in the photo. That’s what I get for not having proper lighting. For the rosy cheeks, generic pink blush with shimmer.
For the eyes and all the black details, I am ashamed to say I used Walmart purchase cheap-o Halloween tube makeup. I felt so dirty, but I couldn’t find my Makeup Forever one so bleh. I set the black on the lids with black eye-shadow from MAC, otherwise that shit would have creased like a mofo. It did the job.
Lips were largely overdrawn and reshaped using NYX Liquid Suede- Cherry Skies, and then outlined with Shadowsense – Onyx. The cheap black paint wasn’t smooth enough to get a proper lip line so I broke out the fancy shit, and before you ask why I didn’t just use that for all the black detail, it’s because it’s kinda pricey and I don’t wanna waste it’s long-lasting magic on a makeup I’ll have on for the time it takes to snap a decent selfie!
I used some fancy blue false lashes from Elise and Dollarama jewel stick-ons to finish off the look, and wrapped a scarf around my head and neck to kind of mimic Pierrot’s little black hat, grabbed a fake plastic rose and stuck it under my bra strap. Voila!
I am pretty happy with the results. I was a bit intimidated by the concept at first but I think as a first drag attempt on myself it was passable. Either way, I had a lot of fun creating this!
I’ve seen a few versions of this sort of thing. Each have beautifully glamorous makeup with either a zipper glued to their faces, unzipped to reveal gore or something else underneath, or flesh shredded all around to frame a perfect face. While these images are stunning, I have seen them a thousand times in the last few years. So when a friend suggested it, I wanted to do something slightly different.
I don’t claim to have come up with this idea on my own, I could swear I’ve seen a similar concept in the last year or two. I have failed to find the image I’m thinking of, which is why I am not including it as source of inspiration.
Either way, here is my creation, idea suggested by Quinn Kurenda.
I started off with super clean skin, and then sculpted scars where I felt the more obvious makeup lines would be seen. So eyebrows, eyeliner, lips and cheekbones. I used a two-part silicone (3rd Degree) to get this done quick and easy, since I had no prep time to make Pros-Aide transfers or anything. I made sure to blend in the edges as much as possible before it set, because once you start painting, that shit stands out and can really ruin the makeup.
For foundation, I had to use my airbrush. The downside to using silicone is that nothing wants to stick to it properly. A brush or a sponge tends to remove the product as quick as it puts it on. To spare myself that headache, airbrush was the solution, and I was able to get a smooth even base with Temptu Pro foundation. I chose a shade or two darker than my actual skin, to give it a ‘fake tan’ kind of look.
I then used a pale gold loose powder from OCC to create highlights (the colour name is sadly smudged off the label) and then punched up a couple of spots with the SeneGence Pearlizer. I wanted ridiculously overdone highlights. I then added a bit of contouring with my trusty Kat Von D Shade & Light palette.
I added a bit of rosy flesh colour to the lips, but not enough to have them look painted. I wanted to keep them ‘natural’, just like my eyes, save for a bit of black mascara.
I used alcohol activated makeup to paint inside the gashes to add depth, and around them a little to show redness. Illustrator Palette is awesome for that. Punched it up with Fleet St drying blood (I didn’t want it getting everywhere) and a bit of Graftobian Blood Gel to help it stick to the silicone.
And that was that. And for some reason, my friend Mark Pragai offered to come create a ‘moving image’ of my makeup with his fancy camera, but somehow it turned into a short hahaha! Thanks Mark, I love it <3
I’ve shared this on my Facebook and Instagram pages, but felt it might be cool to put it on my blog as well.
The idea behind this is simply that even though I’ve always admired everyone participating in the Inktober thing, I’ve never found a way, even though I wanted to, to be truly inspired and motivated by it. At the same time, I was asking friends what sort of makeup they would like to see me do on myself. I was bored with my face and I needed a kick in the but to stretch my makeup wings outside the confining boxes of what other people needed me to do.
Soooo…. why not combine the two? I realize it’s a bit late in the month, but I didn’t want to wait another year to get this started. If I can manage it, I will try to complete two makeups on days I have more time, to end up with a full 31 days of creations! I am using ideas in my original post’s comments, the ones that inspire me anyways. I may find some other sources to fuel my creativity as the month goes, we will see.
The first look I decided to do: A recreation of this iconic Greta Garbo photo, suggested by my mother, Marielle Teasdale (thanks mom). I’ll explain my process, as well as the products I used.
Me
Greta Garbo
I decided to go all out and tweezed half my eyebrows off. You’ll forgive me for not replicating her brows exactly, but I just didn’t have the heart hahaha I love my bold brows!
For foundation, I wanted hardcore full coverage so I used a beauty blender on my face for the first time. I chose Makeup Forever HD Cream foundation and went to town, then set it with Essence ‘All about Matt’ compact fixing powder.
To reproduce the contouring effects (particularly around her nose) I broke out my Kat Von D Shade & Light palette, making sure to really define the bridge of my nose and connect it to my brows. I added some shade on the edges of my forehead a little as well, and my cheekbones even though you can’t really see them in this shot… I just wanted to ‘finish’ it properly.
Me in colour!
For the eyes, Greta has a bold line drawn straight in her crease. As nice as it looks on her, I wanted to soften it up a little, so I took the liberty of lightly blending it up toward the brow bone, but kept the rest of the lids crisp and pale. I used Shadowsense – Garnet for the crease, Candlelight for the lighter shade, and Onyx for the liner. Lashsense in black for mascara, with some Makeup Forever individual lashes to finish it all up.
For the lips, I used Kat Von D Everlasting Liquip Lipstick – Nahx Fur Atoo as a base/liner, and really shaped the outline to extend my lips a little more and exaggerate the peaks. I lightened the lower lip with Nyx Liquid Suede – Orange County, and then added a bit of shine with Tarteist Glossy Lip Paint – Goals.
Voila, I look like a classy, poised, and accomplished Lady (lol). I’m really happy I decided to do this, I had so much fun. I`m gonna continue to push myself this month and see what else I can dish out!
It’s a musical. It’s a Christmas story. It’s a zombie movie. Not usually three things you see mashed up together, but this is what this movie is. It was enough to get me to click the play button to watch the trailer. And yeah, despite it being a zombie movie, I wanted to go see it. I could only hope it would live up to the teaser, and that the comedy and songs would distract me from the potentially scary stuff.
The moment I saw the trailer, I was sold. Classic 80s action/horror tropes, overly cool one liners and superb character designs! I mentioned to Keith I was gonna go see this one, and he pointed out they had previously released a short film with Chuck Steel so I had to check that out before seeing the movie. I am so glad I did, I laughed so hard.
Before getting into my thoughts of the feature length movie, feel free to check out the trailer right here, and the short film Raging Balls of Steel Justice right here. Go on, I promise you`ll appreciate them.
