Evaluation of my HND Year 1 Studies

I have come to the end of my HND Year One Studies feeling really please with my self and my level of progress.

Make up Artistry has now become a full time part of my life and I have become constantly proactive through my day-to-day life over the subject. I have realised I have a passion for more then just ordinary make up but now a new scale of artistry including body painting, theatrical and even hair which I had the least knowledge of before starting.

I have achieved and changed a lot during year one HND studies for one thing I feel I have developed a new found confidence in my work and have learnt to be able to push my self to a creative level that I would not have stepped on before. This year of studying has helped me to become more daring with my work and encouraged me to be far more brave with what I am producing, I noticed this change as we entered into the second term particularly in my fashion lessons I felt a lot more eager to be creative and a lot more accepting of my mistakes. I feel now that I also find it a lot easier to identify my mistakes when I am working and can make more corrections on my own. This is due to a new level of understanding within make up artistry and hair styling. Before I would not always understand where or why something was not quite right with my work.

Another achievement is my newfound respect for time management. I was not aware of the level time that would be needed outside of college hours and this meant learning to manage my time successfully balancing college hours and work hours. Sometimes having to turn down work, social time in order to do the best possible with my HND. What was particularly hard was managing the workload from college against my work schedule, this year I now don’t commit to anything before checking my calendar, which has helped me to manage my working life with my HND college hours and homeworking hours. This is something I realised as we entered the second term enabling my time management to become a lot more organised and professional.

I have always loved working in a team environment and I have found this relatively easy to do this year with my class. I realised early on that I can not only learn from my teachers but also many of my students as we are all better in some things then others and have different level of experiences. This is something that has been valuable to me. I enjoy working with people and feel I have improved my people skills since starting my HND, I have seen proof of this with my face painting work as I feel a more confident people person and a more professional artist.

My independent learning this year has been very strong, I have learnt to enjoy the curriculum and I feel this helps with being able to achieve quality independent learning, in particular my blog, which I have really found a pleasure to write. My blog has even helped me to achieve my current freelance position at Charlotte Tilbury, managers there found my blog very impressive, it helped to show a level of enthusiasm for make up.

For next year I would like to improve the quality of my work, I feel I can sometimes tend to over think things when designing or making next year I want to improve on having a clearer structure on paper or in my head before committing to a project, being a perfectionist this can cause stress during the completion of a number of my projects because I look at alternatives to my ideas often.

To conclude overall I feel I have made extremely strong progress as a make up artist and have a much wider understanding with the skills I have learnt this year. I have a new found appreciation for time management and workload management, and now feel eager to learn more about make up artistry. Next year I would like to improve on my creativity levels and my planning and preparation to produce the best possible final make up looks and designing. I think this will help me to be more confident in what I produce as an artist. I also want to be even more proactive in my spare time with make up artistry as one thing I have learned is that practising makes perfect and identifies problems quickly. 

Final Make up Design

I have finally designed my final make up design for my mask making project. Its been a bumpy ride but I feel I have finally created a simple look that is well suited to my theme and portrays the emotion I feel is needed for my theme. 

I took inspiration from photographs I came across in Cosmopolitan magazine. Taken of High altitude natives. For them the Eagle plays an important role in traditional beliefs and society however because I had given this importance to my mask I wanted to create make up and hair that resembles ordinary natives rather then elements of eagle for example with a theatrical make up look. 

I found looking at original images of natives really useful and helped me quickly Identify the key features I wanted to incorporate into my make up. 
What I came up with was relatively simple however I feel it is a really powerful and stunning look. 

Final Make up Design

Creating the Look

Above are practise images of the final make up design I created based on the photography I stumbled across of High altitude native women. To begin the look I cleansed and moisturised to prep the skin. 

As I established in my previous post I decided to create the brushed up brow look for my final image. Achieving this using spirit gum had to be done first because of the rolling of the spirit gum onto the skin which means theres always a chance it will ruin the foundation. 

To create the brows I used a mascara wand to apply a minimal amount of spirit gum to the brows using the repetitive rolling method. This helps to get the sticky texture and get the hairs as flat as possible. When this was done I used a cotton bud with some MME (Spirit Gum remover) I used this to neaten up the edges were spirit gum was visible. This was done by rolling back and forth along the edges until the spirit gum had pilled off. To complete the brows I applied Mac brow pencil to define the hairs as well as deepen and darken the brows for more definition. However I did this step last when the base and cheeks were perfected. 

So after the first stage of the brows was completed I created the base mixing my La Maquillage pallet to create a medium coverage cream foundation. This is key to the look because the cream is needed to give the blush something to grip onto. I spent a lot of time on the base perfecting it and making sure I had an even coverage. The look is so simple and so I want to ensure that there are no errors. 

To give the cheeks a native blushed appearance I used Mac blush in Melba This was a perfect cool pink rosy colour the other blushes I had were either too warm or to bright I found this to be the most perfect choice. 

The lips for this look are to be kept natural in keeping with my reference pictures for inspiration. However I did give them a little moisture by applying Charlotte Tilbury Lip Magic.

Because I had spare time I decided to play around a little with the look to be sure I was happy with my final design. I took inspiration from the make up for Christian Cotas fall 11 look and applied a similar toned purple eye shadow to create a slight winged effect. I liked this a lot because It gave the model a more ethnic look to the eye. The wing gives the eye a more native elongated shape.

I liked this eye design however all together it made the face look to busy and there was a lack of balance. Taking this eye make up away actually made the look a lot better.

I have realised that less is quite often more and overdoing it does not always help!.

Hair Inspiration and Design

I have also looked at Vintage Vogues and present Vogues for inspiration on the styling of the hair for my Eagle Warrior themed photo shoot. These images are a selection of my favourite through going as a far back as the 80s from French and British Vogue. 

I would like to create a hair style that is some slicked into a strong precision style and possibly wet look texture. My models hair is short. And I want the focus to be on the strength of character of the eagle warrior. I feel that a hair style that is slicked into shape possibly even finger waved at the front will create a militant and powerful style that will really suit the idealised personality trait of a traditional. 

Below are some traditional images of Native American Men and Women. Generally a middle parting seems to be essential for the styling of the hair. This is something that I will incorporate into the final look. I will need to make sure I get a sharp and precise middle parting to make the look as striking as possible. 


Here I have practised the style that I want to create on my dolly head. Here I have used a wet look gel to slick down the sides of my dolly head first dampening the hair a little using a few spritz of water. This helped to flatten any fly-aways and perfect the slickness of the hair even before adding gel. 

My main focus for this style because its a simple one will be to make sure that every key point is perfected. Because it is such a simple and clean style there will be know room for eras. Such as the middle parting which will need to be dead straight an uneven or unclean line will be really unforgiving on camera. 

I have not included a picture of the back of my dollies head because I have tied it into a really small pony tail. My models hair is cut very short above the neck and with the ends I plan to slick them down as smooth as can be. 

The product I plan on using is a wet look gel. I have decided to use this because looking at the images of genuine native american men and women. I noticed that there is often a really strong sheen and shine to the hair. Similar to the picture of my hair practise. I want the wet look texture of the gel to help incorporate this shine into the hair styling. 
Once I have prepped the hair and have moved onto the make up I will leave a hair net on the hair to make sure that it remains as slick as possible. Hair spray will also be used to provide staying power for my look. 

Cosmopolitan Magazine March edition

Cosmopolitan Magazine March edition

I found these two photos in Cosmopolitan magazine. There was a spread on various cultures. These women are high altitude natives who were photographed going about their daily duties. 
This was very handy for my not only for hair inspiration but also for my make up inspiration. 

Native influence on past Vogues and Catwalks| Further Development

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During my research I spent a lot of time looking at how my theme has influenced Catwalk trends and Vogues in the past. I found that it has been a recurring theme and saw some really inspiring vintage images. Above are from vogues going as far back as the 60s with models such as Twiggy and Jean Shrimpton sporting native american inspired beauty looks. This has been a really useful source for me I particularly like the look worn by Twiggy. I love the use of the tanning and bronzing which gives the entire look a very native feel. 

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This look is another I really love mainly because the strength of the blushed cheeks. It comes from Christian Cota's Fall 2011 collection. The campaign was inspired by High altitude Natives.4 

This is an element I want to incorporate into my final face design and I feel the strength in the cheeks helps to give off a very native feel. 

The hair for this campaign is also very relevant to hair inspiration I found in my previous post. A middle parting is a key element to native style. Looking at these last few extra campaigns has helped me to cement my hair idea. I will be creating a similar style incorporating a middle parting and a high fashion slicked down style. This will be my way of using traditional native american styles of hair whilst updating it for high fashion using a wet look gel to give the hair a modern shape and texture. 

Make up look inspired by Christian Cota's Fall 2011 look

I felt compelled by this beautiful look from Christian Cota and wanted to develop a look incorporating the blushed cheeks to give a high altitude native feel. In my mask making development I spent a lot of time mind mapping natives particularly those in America that live life in a high altitude environment amongst mountains, bears and cold cold weather. 
In the images I found as well as the inspiration from Christian Cota. Blushed cheeks are almost inherent amongst all of the natives I saw. I have decided to definitely incorporate this into my make up look alongside the brushed up brows to help me portray this part of the world in my make up. 

I will be putting this final idea into practise and developing it further in my next work shop. There will be a number of things to consider such as the type of products used for example I have written on my face chart that a cream foundation will need to be used in order to give the blush something to cling on to. 

I am really excited to put this look into practise as I think that it is perfect for my theme. 

Biblography 
1.Vogue.it, (2015). Native Americans - Vogue.it. [online] Available at: http://www.vogue.it/en/trends/yesterday-and-today/2011/03/native-americans [Accessed 18 May 2015].
2.Vogue.it, (2015). Native Americans - Vogue.it. [online] Available at: http://www.vogue.it/en/trends/yesterday-and-today/2011/03/native-americans [Accessed 18 May 2015].
3. Vogue.it, (2015). Native Americans - Vogue.it. [online] Available at: http://www.vogue.it/en/trends/yesterday-and-today/2011/03/native-americans [Accessed 18 May 2015].

Make up Inspiration

I have spent much time rustling through make up looks that I feel I can connect with my masquerade project I've looked to old vogues, catwalk looks and even museum fashion to help me come up with the right make up look to compliment my Eagle Warrior Theme. 


I found Vogues from as far back as the 70s really inspiring. One thing I learnt is that trends repeat themselves and so looking back at vintage vogues and old fashion magazines is a great way to find inspiration. 

Below is a collage of make up looks from vogue from as far back as the 80s to the present day. I found French Vogue to be the most useful for what I am looking for. I have it in mind that I want to create a look that involves really deep set and powerful eyes. The second picture is from British Vogue in 2001 this type of deep bedroom smokey eyes is really suitable and relatable to an Eagle Warrior. With it meaning Power I think the eye look must be strong in in order to portray this. 

Images from Vogues from the 80s till present - West Thames College Library 

One of my favourite looks was from French Vogue November 2010. This beautiful editorial look was really reminiscent of Native American Style not necessarily the Eagle warrior itself. But there is blatant use of 'Pocahontas' styled hair and the use of feathers.

Also the eye make up is very similar to traditional Native American tribal make up. Often in some traditions they use a similar blue or red to paint the eyes usually going across the bridge of the nose and to the temples. In some cases they also paint other tribal markings such as lines on their chin and cheeks. These markings are usually described as 'War paint' and they were in most cases used to intimidate their enemies.1

I feel this cover of French Vogue has clearly taken inspiration from Native American War Paint which I find very inspiring for my project. 

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I also found inspiration from Nicholas K's SS14 campaign. The make up for this show was created to give a sunburned tribal look. Its a really inspiring look for my photo shoot. This look is very similar to some Native American traditional war paint designs. I feel the continuation of the eye colour over the bridge of the nose gives the make up a really native feel. And is something I may use in my final design. 

Eye Brows are going to be a really important part of my look. I have decided to go for a the brushed up look. Having looked at numerous catwalks I have seen this trend appear a lot on shows and editorial campaigns. 

Ive decided I really like this trend and its well suited to my Eagle Warrior theme. Full brushed up brows will add texture to my look. 

To create my look I will need to practise and decide what method I will use to achieve this look.

I have researched a number of ways to create this look.

- I could either use lots and lots of spirit gum to brush them into this textured shape 

-I could brush them up and fill them in using brow gel

-I could even spray hairspray onto my eye brow brush and brush the hairs into place

My models eye brows are quite thick so I feel spirit gum may actually be the best option for this. However this would not be the best option on a catwalk environment given the time it takes to remove the spirit gum and the drying time. As I will be on a photo shoot I feel spirit gum will be the best option to perfect the look for the camera. 

After spending time looking at a variety of catwalk and editorial inspiration. I have spent time playing about with the looks onto face charts to help me develop my ideas. 

The first look is inspired by the looks I found in old Vogues with a heavy smokey eye and a really clean base with natural lips. 

As mentioned before I liked this idea because of the meaning of Black being the colour for 'living' and 'power' as discovered in my masquerade research. I thought it would be good to take this meaning further and translate it through to the make up look to go with my mask. A negative I found with this look in relation to my theme is that it is a very common look and without the costuming and mask it may not really be translatable to my theme of native people. 

The Second look was inspired a lot by the make up from Nicholas Ks SS14 Native look. 

I loved the eye look for this campaign and felt that it translated native style very well. 

Here I have taken inspiration from the eyes to give a deep set subtle colour to the eyes. I think this really works well and gives a very native feel because of the choice of colour and the shape of the eye with it pulling down in the corners towards the nose. This is in some cases a traditional shape to follow when applying war paint. 

I have updated this look by giving it a slight contour to the cheeks just to give the make up some more dimension and shapely ness which I think would help the look to really photograph well. 

The structure in the cheeks also gives off a powerful warrior/strong womanly feel which I want to portray through in my final image. 

Bibliography 
1.Thompson, J. (2013). nyfw : nicholas k ss14. [online] Schön! Magazine. Available at: http://www.schonmagazine.com/nicholas-k-ss14/ [Accessed 20 May 2015].
2. Haute Inhabit, (2013). Haute Inhabit » Brushed Up Brows. [online] Available at: http://www.hauteinhabit.com/brushed-up-brows/ [Accessed 20 May 2015].
3.Haute Inhabit, (2013). Haute Inhabit » Brushed Up Brows. [online] Available at: http://www.hauteinhabit.com/brushed-up-brows/ [Accessed 20 May 2015].