BOOK LITERATURE. . .

COVER GIRL. . .

DIGURU PRINTERS. . .

As I have never printer a book before, I really needed to do my research. On different occasions I went to the library and also spoke to my tutors about different set books and had a feel and got an idea of the sort of thing that I wanted my book to be like. In regards to paper I think satin/silk would be best as it will give the images an extra polish feel but won't be too shiny so won't lose quality of images - and where as a lot of people who I have spoken to have gone for hardback I thought about going for paper back, as somethig different that will stand out. A book that has been a great inspiration to me throughout my project has been Caroline Saulnier by Rankin! Size wise it is slightly bigger than the size I am going for (280 by 240) but I'm regards to the layout of the images it is incredible! With there being quite a lot of negative space on the pages throughout the book, this really keeps the focus on the makeup which is exactly what I wanted my book to be like.

By speaking amongst my classmates, many of the girls who are making books/magazines have gone with Indigo printers who charged a bombor a printers on London Road which I haven't heard great stuff about. I did my research and tried looking into printers just outside of Southampton and I came across Diguru printers based in Eastleigh. After speaking to them via email and getting quotes on how much it would cost to print my book I have decided to go with them as they only have a turn over of a week - I am aiming to send my book of for print on this coming Tuesday 22nd which means I shall receive my printed book on the 29th. They quoted me £145 for one copy which seems alright and for 3 copies £195 which I am quite pleased about as I really wanted 3 copies - one for me and one for both of my parents!

By their website and at how quick they are at responding to emails they seem like a good company to go with and I haven't heard of any complaints - I'm excited to finally get my book sent off to print, now for just all the fiddley work inbetween on inDesign!!

FINAL IMAGES EDITING. . .

SHOOTING TIME . . .

After many weeks of planning an endless nights of preparation and worry, the final shoots have come round in full swing and I can not wait! As an artist, it really is incredible to see what was once just a dot on a page and a brief thought, into this journey of creativity resulting visually into something that I am so proud of.

As I have started my shoots on the last day of the term, I will be shooting over the Easter holiday which I think will work in my advantage - as most people will be home I will have the makeup studios to myself and easy access to the pgotography studios in the basement. I find myself working better when my surroundings are quite and I can really focus so by doing all my preparation and practicing before hand for each shoot I feel very confident that my shoots will go smoothly.

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By practicing the hair techniques which some were quite intricate, this helped me with my final shoots in regards to time as for some of my shoots I was on quite a right schedule. By aiming to do 2 shoots each day, and with my photographer only being available between 12-3, I was really under pressure to turn the beauty look I to avant garde and as the hair took me the most time, by practicing this helped me in the long term. The main thing I have learnt id say from my shoots so far is to really utilise my time to guarentee a quick change over which is something that I will definitely remember for future shoots.

CAROLINE SAULNIER - RANKIN. . .

VISUAL BEGINNING. . .

4th April 

So today I finally started shooting my FMP final images. with a build up of nerves I was also incredibly excited to start visually putting my work together, especially after many practise runs of the hair and makeup design. I had a clear idea in my head which I think I will sketch out and post on my blog to show my thought process of the set up of the shoot. As I wanted my images to focus on the hair and makeup, to keep the focus on this I thought a black backdrop for all my images would be best to really make the colour stand out on each look. With a trial and error of lighting which my photographer worked on, the images from my first shoot which was 'Pride' came out brilliantly - down to the shadow and silloette of the face really being defined creating quite a dark, earey feel.

For the hair I stuck to one of my designs that I have practiced many times before and knew exactly how long it would take time wise. As I didn't have much time to do my beauty look to avant garde - by practicing the hair this worked to my advantage as I knew time wise how long it would take me which helped my nerves as I knew exactly what to do. Same as the makeup - with the lighting effects some of the images are just focused on the hair, with the lighting really bouncing off the balls and shaped created by the hair which I think will look interesting in my book.

I am incredibly happy how my first shoot went and can't wait to crack on and shoot the other sins whilst still trying to figure out the name of my book - hoping when I least expect it it will just click to me!! The image on the right is one of what my model took whilst doing the avant garde makeup - quite a nice action shot I think!

PHOTOGRAPHY RESEARCH. . .

4th April

As I explained on my FMP proposal, I wanted to produce a book creating art through the power of hair and makeup to showcase my talent as an artist. Throughout my book I wanted to keep the focal point purely on the makeup and the hair, to really signify the colour and the shapes I created with the hair.

To create this, I thought the best thing to emphasize the colour would be to have a black back-drop for all my shoots as they are all being taken in studios and this would help all my images to have an even flow throughout my book. Also with the intense black background, this will really help the colour stand out more with each image. In my proposal I explained my inspiration from the book Alex Box by Ranking, a book that demonstrates the raw talent of make-up artist Alex Box and her individual flare of makeup. In the book there is a mixture of studio and location based shoots but with the mood board I created (as seen on the left) I collected images from the book and also Illamasqua’s previous campaigns, which use this similar technique to represent the colour and texture in each image. By creating this mood board also, I could clearly describe to my photographer the kind of images I wanted to capture for each of my shoots, with the addition of hands to show the nail art, so by doing this this has helped us communicate to each other our different visions on how to really capture the colour of each image. With a combination of this and a trial of studio lighting I feel confident that my shoots will go well. Ive learnt from past shoots and over my past 2 years at uni that its always best to be over prepared and to practise than to not be sure!

PROGRESS PRESENTATION. . .

31st March

NAIL PRACTISE. . .

8th April

From when I had previously spoken to Emma, she mentioned that I should do close ups of the nails, lips and eyes for each sin to show the progression from beauty to avant garde instead of each page in my book being a headshot image as I wanted to show diversity within my book. For some of my shoots where I will be focusing on nails I have experimented with colour and texture to see how what I cant create and what would look good with different looks. By using a combination of acrylic tip nails and square acrylics, I practised by layering different colour and using the end of a bobby pin to create a swirl design for my Sloth avant garde shoot. Such a simple technique and yet I absolutely love the results, on camera the nails stood out so much and could really see the mixture of colours used.

For my Lust shoot, I stuck to acrylic square nails and painted them using a fusion hot pink colour to make the colour really pop out on camera. When the varnish was still wet I rolled the nail over salt from my table salter shaker that I usually use on my food. To create an unusual texture I tried to think of some sort of bobbly powder but using salt this created a brilliant surface. Once the varnish had completely dried and the salt was firmly stuck, I continued to paint over the salted nail using the original pink colour and then finished off with a topcoat to add an extra shine. Unfortunately I forgot my nail glue for the shoot so when it came down to it, I didn’t use the nails – but nether the less by practising this technique this has allowed me to use this technique again for one of my final shoots, for either Gluttony or Greed.