Blog 2
Choosing Makeup Prosthetics for Performance has influenced and enhanced my creative practice on different levels. I’ve chosen this project coming from a theater and show dance background myself, as I’ve performed and worked on makeup looks and developing storylines for our performances. Therefore, Makeup prosthetics allowed me to refine my hands-on skills and to tell a story by focusing on a person’s physical features, whereas on my current course (Fashion Journalism) I focus on creating imagery primarily through writing.
However, there are links between both areas of expertise, especially when it comes to fashion as an industry where visuals are a key element in communicating with an audience.
From scratch, learning about the various types of prosthetics and special effects such as wounds, burns and facial deconstructions from a professional who works in this industry helped me understand how crucial these features are in terms of creating a persona that stands in her own context and how to tell an authentic story. As a communicator in the fashion world, imagery and storytelling is crucial to keep an audience’s attention and to bring my point across a diverse group of people. Stories are remembered and listened to when people can identify with it or when they are controversial or unusual.
I found particularly interesting how theatrical makeup must be packed onto the actors face in order to unfold the overall effect. With skillful arrangement of the brushstrokes we played with lights and shadows of the face and created wrinkles and facial expressions. This reminded me of my previous work with my dance team and I was able to infiltrate my work with some of my knowledge. The image below shows a look I’ve created on my classmate’s face which is supposed to resemble a (surgically) lifted face.
To sum up, even though one might think first that there are few to no links to Fashion Journalism, developing a character and analyzing the different meanings of special effects and how it contributes to the context of a story allowed me to transfer these skills into my creative writing and also helped me to create more interesting imageries in my stories. I find that as a young person who’s trying to enter the fashion industry it is important to explore how all these areas link together and how they all fall in line with each other.