First Pain Management Session And Mass Making Cosplay and SFX Stuff for Comicon.

What a busy week I just had, wow! 

As I mentioned before, I'm demonstrating SFX at this years Preston Comicon on 29th Sept  and Blackburn Comicon on 17th Nov (links to the official sites listed at the bottom of the blog!); this year am planning on selling some headdresses, cosplay items like chest armour, arm pieces as well as selling some silicone prosthetic pieces. Which means some mass designing and mass making is required to ensure I create some super special awesome pieces for you guys.
Its slightly stressful, just because I've never really sold any of my pieces and I guess the worry is nobody will like them and I don't sell any but hey ho you got to try! I've got my Lisa with me for both events so am sure she will keep me positive and sane! Make sure you come and say hi to us!!

The first headdress that I've created for sale, I showed in my last blog but I decided to create a SFX character to go with the headdress AND make a tutorial for you guys. Even the prosthetics used are available to buy at both comicons, both of which are silicone and I will be putting instructions on how to apply them with them.

Here's a sneak peak of my purple demon character inspired by the headdress...

Sneakie Peakie….this look will be up on my YouTube channel very soon so make sure that you are subscribed to my channel.

The forehead piece and the mouth piece will be for sale (both are silicone and will come with instructions on how best to apply it) as well as the headdress.

As well as playing with SFX, which as everybody knows chills me out, I had my first pain management session last Wednesday. It was pretty...thought provoking … gave me a lot to think about and made me excited for the next sessions. The focus was on what pain is to us and how it makes us feel, think and behave which for me at the moment it makes me feel very confused as to why this pain is there and how its effecting my day to day life. As well as being angry, oh my word, I can get firey these days but this is all normal. I'll be taught how to deal with all of this. One of the main activities that we were taught to help us put things into prospective and give us a little calmness, is 3 minute breathing space. I have to admit this little activity has helped, all you need to do is sit comfortably (or lie down) and focus on your breath, then scanning your body to acknowledge any feelings, pains and thoughts. Then you use your breathing to bring you back to the present moment rather then thinking of a million and one things. It really did create a sense of calmness and even though I could feel the pain still, it made me realise that you can achieve a feeling of calm as well as have the pain. I've been doing the exercise everyday (I love sitting in front of my pond listening to the birds) the only time it didn't work was when I got incredibly worked up by a negative comment made...but am sure that the next couple of sessions will help me figure out how to cope in that situation. 

The whole cosplay costume making is such a journey for me, it reminds me of when I first got started in prosthetics, I felt a little apprehensive and a little scared of doing something wrong but when I get into a project...am lost in it and forget all time!

Chest armour was something I wanted to try and create to sell but I wanted to start small using EVA foam rather then Worbla. EVA foam pieces are a lot more flexible and lightweight as well as basic to some extent. As always my fabulous assistant Lisa modelled for the pattern...

Once we had the pattern...time to cut the foam. I will admit that when I cut the foam and glued it together I thought I'd done something wrong just because of how it looked. But let this be a lesson to you all, be patient and stay focused it will all come together in the end!

As you can see, it looks a lot better once the rubber sealer is applied, once this was applied I started to get very excited! I mean not to toot my own trumpet, but come on, it looks pretty good for my first chest piece! 

Once we had the rubber coating done, time for colour!! First coat was spray painting gold all over which looked ace because the spray I used had a multi-tonal effect to it, which meant it created a natural light and shade effect.

Next step is deepening the shadows and highlights to create some metal effects as well as a more 3D look. Then I started applying some steampunk elements such as screws, bolts, cogs etc.

And that's where am at, you'll have to stay tuned for next weeks blog for the final image of this creation...who knows may be I'll even do a little video so you can see the full effect!!

I'm not going to lie, Thursday's YouTube video could be one of two looks...the first one is a tutorial of how I created the purple demon look and the second one is using the new HUDA beauty palette and loose powder that I've hinted at on my facebook page.

Let me know which one you want to see...leave me a comment either here or on my facebook page and I'll upload to one that gets the most votes. Or I'll just play Eeny, meeny, miny, moe!!

Till next time my lovely people!

See you next Monday!!

xRx

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BLACKBURN COMICON - 17th Nov

Get your tickets here----- https://www.blackburncomiccon.co.uk/

PRESTON COMICON - 29th Sept

Get your tickets here ------ http://www.prestoncomiccon.co.uk/

Voodoo Tribal Queen

I was asked to do a live demonstration for a +Habia  event at +Blackburn College  to demonstrate the skills that I teach as a Media Makeup Lecturer but also as a freelance makeup artist working in an ever changing environment.

I really wanted to demonstrate airbrushing skills as this is an area that is frequently developing and is a skill that can really boost a character creation. Also I haven’t created a headdress in a while so felt like a challenge.

This character focused on tribal styles and had a voodoo influence using lots of feathers and skulls as well as block colours and shapes.

 

The headdress was a lot of fun to make! Skulls are incredibly recognisable and one shape out of place or one cheekbone too high and it throws the whole piece out. It was sculpted out of Sculpt Clay which is an oven baked clay and it took about 2 days to complete this because I needed time to look at the sculpt and then take a break to come back to it with fresh eyes.

 

 

Creating the costume accessories, I wanted to try my hand at creating a feather collar/shoulder pads to relate to the tribal aspect of the character. I used old shoulder pads from a jacket and glue gunned feathers (from +eBay …where would we be without this marvellous online shop!) My colour scheme was black, pink and red…I seem to have a love for red and black at the moment and I think it’s due to how well they stand out when used together.

 

 

For this look I did a test run on myself, this was mainly because I was a little bit nervous about this demonstration to industry experts and salon owners and I wanted to physically plan out the application.

 

 

I'll be honest that I did go a little bit off design with this test run on myself and added a lot of extra bits. I think it worked for me but on my model I had to adapt it also this took too long for the demonstration and I really wanted to empathises the strong bone structure of my model.

 

 

I felt the demonstration went really well, I started it with a glamorous makeup demonstration applying everything with airbrush makeup only (foundation, eyeshadow, contouring,). I used my +Mistair airbrush gun and silicone foundations as well as my Iwata compression and a back up airbrush gun for the water based products to be applied with.

 

 

Unfortunately, I didn't get photo's of the finished look for this one because Amy my fabulous model had to go into the salon next door to be the model for the hair-up demonstrations.

 

 

The creative makeup demonstration I also felt ended up being successful and everybody who came by seemed to learn something from the session, so yay me!

I will admit sometimes at these demonstrations I go a little off topic...in this demo I talked about how airbrush can be used in cake decorating...true fact but not really related to makeup!

 

 My model was perfect for the look because she has such fantastic cheekbones and bone structure that I could really chisel out and emphasis further.

 

 

The products that were used for this look included +Mistair MistFX body art colours which I absolutely love. I have the travel pack which contains a selection of colours rather then the larger bottles but am pretty sure I will be investing in them soon.

I purchased my travel pack when I attended +United Makeup Artist Expo but you can buy them from +Face Paints Direct for a great price.

 

I love this product because you can use it from the body and paint straight onto the face but then you can also run it through the airbrush gun mixing a little distilled water. The colour is buildable and very pigmented allowing you to have block colour or wash of colour very easily.

 

 

I am very happy with how this character has turned out and am pleased that the costume part and headdress complements the makeup well. I have found that the extra elements really do help the concept come together which am hoping my students will take on board when they are designing their makeup/sfx characters.  

 

 

 

So there you have it, a successful HABIA demonstration done and a voodoo queen created.

 

There will be a YouTube video soon but at the moment am currently in Burton Upon Trent and so I don't have my video editing software.

 

If you head over to my Facebook page: Ruth E Moulden Makeup Artist there are more images from this event.

Don't forget to like and follow for more updates of my crazy life as a makeup artist!

 

My next couple blogs will be covering IMATS event as well as my Voodoo King who complements this character perfectly, used for a demonstration at the New Students Day held at +Blackburn College 

 

Bye for now Lovelies!

 

xRx