Last week I had the pleasure of shooting yet again with the wonderfully edgy and incredibly creative Billie Muller.
Preparing for the shoot involved not only designing 3 distinctly different edgy makeup looks but also creating my first hair sculpture. Wow! Who would have thought that it could be so difficult ... not me, naively so! After searching the net for useful advice I discovered that the making of hair sculptures is the best kept secret of the industry!
Looking back I am more than happy that I had not promised the photographer an elaborate overly ambitious animal hair sculpture like the ones below from Nagi Noda or those staged during the recent Chanel Ready-To-Wear show, but had rather proposed an architecturally inspired form.
I embarked on a shopping spree to Jumeirah Beach Centre's Party and Crafts store, bought myself some large pieces of styrofoam and a saw ... hmmm, yup a "saw". Feeling more like a carpenter than a makeup artist & hair stylist I tried to map out the 3-dimensional shape on the overly large square piece of styrofoam I had purchased and started sawing away. Not an easy task!
Having achieved the shape that I had in mind, I spray painted the styrofoam black and started pinning ... and pinning ... and pinning ... and pinning ... and pinning hairpieces for about 2 days. Gelling profusely in between hair layers and drying with a hairdryer in between sessions. Finally, after 3 days and a studio full of hair and styrofoam, I finished.
"Never again" I say now ... knowing exactly that the next opportunity for a custom built hair sculpture is just around the corner. And you know what ... I can't wait! Seeing the photos, it was well worth making it myself.
Here is the result of the hard work. Shot by Billie Muller with the beautiful Jovana from Bareface as our model.
The second part of the shoot involved time-traveling back to the 1940s, wrap-braiding all of Jovana's hair and adding a, this time ready-made (thank you God for having given mankind the gift to mass-produce these), hairpiece.
Foundation: RCMA; Lips: Mac lipliner in "currant", MacPro lipmix in "burgundy", MacPro clear gloss; Eyes: Bobbi Brown eyeshadow in "Espresso" and "Grey"; Eyebrows: Mac eyebrow pencil in "stud", Cheek sculpting: Mac blush in "taupe"; Highlighting: MacPro "Emphasize"
