Ladies and Gentlemen and everyone in-between - I am proud to say that my first stop motion experiment is finally complete!! It has been a rather lengthier process than originally anticipated but well worth the journey as I have learned a considerable amount about makeup, photography, lighting, animating and editing along the way - lessons I very much intend on carrying forward into the next installment :)

Painted is in essence an experiment that I embarked on in how to best animate body art and an attempt at giving a creative medium that I adore it's own personality. Along the way the paint started to take on a life of it's own and proceeded to lead me on a little adventure that pays homage to the many amazing artists who have inspired me over the years. The first few sequences were roughly storyboarded and went through several major changes as I started to learn more about what I was doing - whereas the latter came from moments of inspiration and developed more organically in a spur-of-the-moment kind of way.

Though I originally had a very different idea for the audio I found that the tempo of Flow Motion by my lovely friend Square One helped to give the images momentum they needed to keep ticking over happily. In the end I got so used to using the track when I showed the unedited version to friends or family that it became entwined with what I was doing and it therefore seemed fitting to scrap my initial ideas and keep it with the final cut :)

The animation has been online for a week or so now and I'm happy to say that despite it being just a silly experiment I've had some lovely feedback - including some very kind words from two of the incredible artists whose work inspired it :D

xxx

Early this year I had the vast pleasure of joining Lizzie Sharpe's team on the filming of The Presets video for their single "Goodbye Future."

Our focus was on the creation of cavemen and soldiers - two really fun grimy makeups to get stuck into - the cavemen especially being a real treat!! They came to us clean, tidy and neatly shaved and we descended upon them with bundles of crepe hair and spirit gum, laying on beards, eyebrows and smatterings of bodyhair before moving in with the dirt, grime and a topping of false teeth. This wonderful character to the left was made up by Rose Parsons, Danielle Mcleod and myself - I went in with the beard and eyebrows whereas Danielle and Rose got stuck in laying hair on the body and adding the grime :)

A huge thanks to the amazing Lizzie Sharpe for having me on board and giving me an opportunity to have some fun with a great crew of artists - such an awesome team to work with and though I started off dreading laying hair I discovered that I actually really enjoy it :) Big love to everyone involved,  I hope to see you all again sooner rather than later! xxx

Just before leaving England this summer I organized a video shoot with Happy Slap Boutique and Fresh Cut Media to showcase one of the characters from our Boomtown Fair venue: El Espectáculo Esqueleto!!!

Inspiration for the character was drawn from Day of the Dead iconography, entwined with circus and embellished with ideas that sprung from Joe Fur's amazing mural which appears in the background for sections of the video. The candles emenating from the skeletons' heads in Joe's art were of particular inspiration so I endeavored to incorporate this element into the character through the costume. I spent a couple of days embellishing and decorating a top hat and constructing a pair of epaullets from various materials that could be attached to the shoulders adding a stronger silhouette to Don Alacrans painted jacket. All were topped with an array of candles which were detailed with paint and lit for sections of the filiming.

Due to time restrains with the location there wasn't as long as I'd have liked to do the painting but  Grace McComisky, Tash Hobbs and I did what we could in the time allowed before our amazing actor Jason Wilkinson and his insanely expressive face dove into the depths of the character. Our new friend Pieter Snyman of Fresh Cut Media filmed (and subsequently edited) the video while the amazing Scott Salt got handy with his camera and produced some beautiful on set photographs.

Massive thanks go out to everyone involved including Balkan Beat Box for allowing us the use of their track (which can be downloaded for free here), to Mike Freear for finding and editing the track for us, to Markus for letting us use the location in the Coronet Theater, and to Dan for all of his help and directive input :D You're all amazing and thank you for helping bring Alacrán to life!

A quick scan through my recent (and not so recent) blog entries has led to the realization that I seem to have forgotten to share a few things from the summer with you lovely folk.... The first of these being the awesome video of Happy Slap Boutique at this years Kendall Calling festival made by the wonderful wizards of Fresh Cut Media! There should be a couple more videos heading your way in the near future - one showcasing Happy Slap Boutique's venue: 'El Espactaculo Esqueleto' at Boomtown Festival and another recent collaboration with Fresh Cut which we managed to shoot a couple days before I headed back to Australia... Oh yes - there's another thing I forgot to mention - I'm back in Australia!!!! Right now I'm busy making pieces for another creative collaboration with the glorious Donatella Parisini which will be closely followed by my return to Melbourne - just in time for Halloween!!!