What's exciting about today? Well yes there's Easter and bunnies and plenty of chocolate but also the long awaited season 3 of Game of Thrones!! I for one am a huge fan of this show, the story, the script and the character development are just brilliant - and then there's all amazing work by the makeup and art departments. The White Walker makeups are especially fantastic - when I first saw them I was convinced it was CGI so was absolutely overjoyed when I discovered that it's actually the amazing work of the prosthetics team. To celebrate the release of season 3 I decided to spend some time playing with my paints and emulating the King(?) Walker using brush and sponge. I had an old white wig lying around with a knotted lace front that I made waaaaay back in my first year of uni - so whacked that on and used some cotton wool for the beard. As I didn't have contact lenses I used my limited photoshop skills to borrow the real Walkers eyes and the background. Hope he doesn't come and get me....

After yesterday's little experiment I decided to have a play with another of the photos and add in some extra stars around the portrait to try and make it a "whole" image. My Photoshop expertise aren't exactly up to the standard I'd like them to be but think it works ok none the less :)

So today I spent many hours engulfed in a personal project and decided to integrate a some day of the dead imagery into it. I couldn't help it - I may be verging on obsessed.... and after all it's good practice for this summer which might just have quite a lot of Dia de los Muertos imagery slipped in - but more on that later.
I wouldn't be sharing this with you all yet but I decided that actually I didn't quite create the look I was going for as I got a little flustered and neglected to put all the detail in....so as a result I'll be doing it again tomorrow but reworked and hopefully much more exciting!

I've been a busy little bee this weekend working on my little tester animation :) I've had a rather long break from it but now thanks to a (very much needed) friendly little shove from my friend Break Theory it's back to business and dare I say it getting close to being finished! Finished in the loosest sense of the word may I add... still have plenty of editing to do before handing it over to Break Theory to add some skrinkly little sounds to it - but I'm getting there! In the meantime, here's a cheeky little snippet that I've done some post editing on to make it an image all of it's own rather than just a still. If you haven't already guessed it's an homage to Fritz Lang's masterpiece Metropolis, a truly amazing film from the German expressionist era. If any of you haven't seen it yet I strongly recommend you find yourselves a copy as it's a true classic and a visual masterpiece. The sheer scale of the film and the ingenuity of the set design and props is just brilliant - especially when you consider that it was made all the way back in 1927!

Yesterday's play day with the wonderful Donatella Parisini was such a joy - The Silver Lining in Mullumbimby and the wonderful Satya James lent us a nice pile of gorgeous clothes and accessories and Donatella found us four wonderful models to transform into various creations. It may be a little while before I have the photos though I've had a sneaky peek at a couple as well as the ones from Satya's shoot last week and am buzzing with excitement!!!!

In the meantime here are a couple of photos from a recent experiment I did to create a cracked surface texture on the skin - so much fun, I love love love playing with different textures!

Halloween is undoubtedly one of the best times of year  (especially for makeup artists) and it's looming very very close! I've been playing around with paints and ideas to use this year - gaining inspiration from a few sources - one being the MAC Halloween Face-Off and the stunning work of artist Jason Obernuefemann. Here are some recent creations for you to enjoy - if there are any ideas that you'd like to see translated into a makeup contact me and I'll have a play!

This is the second piece in my Save the Arctic series for Greenpeace - this time I've used BP's logo to emphasize the potential impact of oil drilling in the Arctic. To join the campaign please visit my page and sign the petition, thank you!

I've been looking at a variety of masks from around the globe as part of a little personal project to keep me busy and painting.... Today I recreated a wooden helmet mask from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, made by the Bakuba tribe. The Bakuba integrate art into their everyday lives and are considered to be among the most artistic people of the Congo - unlike some tribes in the region they do not reserve arts for the higher standing or more privileged members of the tribe...nice to know!

Mexican art is AMAZING! Bold use of bright contrasting colours, striking patterns and an almost crude, cartoon-like quality work together to draw in and excite the eyes. After stocking up on some nice colourful palettes at the IMATS last weekend (massive thanks to the Face Paint Shop & Scotty's) I decided to put them to use on some Aztec inspired paintings. The first I did on my lovely friend Claire who runs Pixie Nomad's - using strong colours with emphasis on the golds and turquoises that featured so prominently in ancient Mexico. The second piece I did on myself  for lack of a model - and is a recreation of an amazing turquoise Aztec mask that I came across in the British Museum a few years ago.  It was a really fun painting to do and has inspired me to do a series following the same theme...watch this space!!

Have been sorting through my photos and came across a couple of face paints I did last Halloween and forgot to share! How silly of me....