So, I found myself back at Stroud College recently, to shoot the results of a special demonstration for the students on the "VTCT Level 3 make up artistry" course run by the lovely, sparkly Sarah Jordan.
This is Sarah, Oh she's going to love me for putting this up!
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| Sarah Jordan |
John Davis, body painter extrordinaire and all round top bloke worked his magic on our model for the day who was the very wonderful, and my dear friend, Leah_Axl.
For those that don't know Leah, lets just see what she looks like normally!
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| Leah_Axl |
Yep thats her, all good looks, and lots of long black hair. But in a minute shes going to be bald!
So, studio gear was set up in the plumbing department of all places, this is because Stroud College is very new and shiny, and full of fairly average classrooms. These don't exactly make the best backdrops, and I wanted something in the background even if I was going to throw it out of focus.
So, with all that set up and tested, (Thanks to Sarah, who was my lighting test model) it was back off to the room where John was beginning to work his magic!
First they cut all of Leah's hair off....no, actually they were not that cruel, because Leah needs her hair to keep her head warm so they put all sorts of gunk on it and tied it up and stuck a latex bald cap on her. In the pic below you can see Elizabeth Maloney wielding a pair of scissors and considering if Leah needed her ears anymore or not. Luckily Leahs ears were spared and hidden under the bald cap instead, so thats two lucky escapes she had in a day!
Into the scene came John. He put a latex face piece on Leah's forehead which also gave her an odd shaped nose. Now she didn't look as pretty as usual.
Next he used some odd shaped nipple covers to cover her ears. This was his only pair of nipple covers and putting them on her ears meant we could all stare at her boobies later on! As you can see, shes looking a bit "alien" already!
Cheeky grin Leah!!
And now for some paintiness! Leah is braver than most, how many of you would have the guts to stand infront of a classroom of students with your kit off? She's a pro, and so is John, who kept his eyes closed throughout and just guessed the bits where he had to paint her boobs! All joking aside, John is incredibly respectful of his models.
Airbrushing is built up in layers, so to start off with it looks fairly basic, its also surprisingly cold on the skin and its important that the person being painted gets to eat and drink regularly, as a paint job such as this can easily take 5 or 6 hours. You try standing naked for 5 hours on the trot, it's quite a hard thing to do (not that I do it, I just asked Leah!)
John is known as "The Wizzard of Odd" and has it written on his shirt just incase he gets lost and the Men In Black need to find him and send him back to his home planet in Wales.
Next John worked on some cool artwork on Leah's back.
And so it went on, much painting, much laughing and much learning happened until John was finally finished. There was just a finishing touch or two so it was volunteer time again, and up stepped Rebekah Deponeo to do some final gold paintwork on Leah's lips, eyes and eyebrows.
Then off we went (with Leah getting some strange looks from people on route through the college) to the plumbing department (via the locker room) where we did a little photoshoot. And these are the results. Hope you like them! :)
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| Thought a "Night Vision" shot would look cool! |
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For more of Leah please see
Leah Axl
For more of John Davis please see
The Wizzard Of Odd
Thanks to everyone involved, see you all again soon!
