Films...

Many films show adaptation to the body using surgery or special effects.

We watched a film during one of our seminars called 'The skin I live in', where a man loses his wife, his daughter gets raped and kills herself, catches the rapist and overtime with surgery changed the boy into a woman to look exactly like his wife who died. 
I thought the film was incredibly creepy, disturbing yet clever as it shows what surgery is capable aesthetically, physically and psychologically.

Some films that I find inspirational to create my final images are;

The Hunger Games = Lots of colours are used which I love but the one character that caught my attention was Seneca Crane the Gamekeeper. His beard was beautifully shaved into a symmetrical pattern making something horrible like facial hair seem stunning. 

Alice in Wonderland / The Lion, the With and the Wardrobe = I love both of the white/ice queens in these films as the white is so pure looking with the black and silvers and greys for contrast look amazing.

 

Facial Hair...

I was incredibly excited for this final practical as I love anything to do with playing/creating style using hair! We were shown how to create stubble, moustaches, beards, eyebrows, etc on the face using crepe hair. For stubble you finely cut up the hair into a dry bowl then apply spirit gum to the face finely, then gently roll the cut up hair onto the face with a large powder brush. For denser areas of hair, cut small strips of crepe hair and slowly build up in layers applying it to the face/skin with stipple, you can also do this with areas like eyebrows.

 

 

 

Hair modification...

As well as cutting, colouring, styling the hair on your head to look pretty or shaving your leg, facial, pubic hair to make it non existent, hair can be used and styled in so many more ways to create interesting looks.

In this video hair is used as clothing and other objects to interpret dancing and music...

Breach - Let's Jack = http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m0EiujcV3Tg

Maison Martin Margiela, famous for creating the jacket out of wigs, using whole wigs as should pads.

Boys and men have had styles go in and out of fashion having images and words shaved into their hair. 

 

Bald Caps...

During the next couple of practical sessions we learnt how to apply and makeover a bald cap, this is the broken down step by step of how to create the look...

= Dampen down and gel the hair, comb and wrap neatly and tightly around the head evenly. Apply hair net, use hairdryer to dry and hold firmly into place. Once secure, remove hair net. (No grips)

= Get bald cap, apply front to back with extreme care and steadiness.

=Once adjusted in position start to cut and glue the front down on the forehead avoiding hair with stipple. Move onto the ears, do not stretch cap whilst drawing ear shape or will be too short to stick, cut slowly and carefully, then glue. When at the back of the head/neck gently stretch cap down, cut quite a way down from hair line and stick down. Go over any loose parts of the cap with glue.

= When all secure, use airbrush machine to spray the cap a pink/red toned colour until you can no longer see through to the hair as a base. Once dried, find matching skin tone colour and spray over the red until all covered and blended with the colour of face/neck/ears.

= Add any other prosthetic pieces or patterns etc to final outcome.

                  

                                  

Westernised ideas...
Tiffany Parbs=
Took images of imprints of jewellery left on the body and skin.

 

Phillip Toledano=
Took images of body memory, prints left on the skin by items worn by them;jewellery, socks. Although they were temporary it was similar to scarring. 

Danielle Beutti=
She photoshopped scars onto images of people.

Arianna Paige Russell=
Has an immune system disorder where she is allergic to certain things by touch which results in rashes and welts to the skin, she does it on purpose to create patterns.

 

Alexander McQueen=
Created scars on leather shoes/boots and created a scarification dress using texture.

Lucie Vincini=
Adapting the idea of lip plugs and plates for fashion using orthodontist and dental work.

J'adore Dior=

Samantha Harris wore neck ring inspired necklace/dress for a perfume commercial.

Michael Burton=
Scientific adaptations...
-2005 Government Office of Science, OBESITY became an epidemic and food/exercise/biology/psychology was research as to why. 
-2007 'THE RACE' 1:10 body cell to virus/bacteria, health care was studied such as antibiotics, parasites to cure such as leeches/maggots to clear blood clots and infection, at Imperial College. Many other testing was carried out; cows in incubaors with several stmachs to collect saliva, bird flu, nail biting, soil boosting seritonin levels.
-2007 'FUTURE FARM' nano technology was tested by Richard Jones for cervical cancer with cells taken from Henrietta Lax in 1950, she helped the world and was not ever noticed for it.
-Nanotopia, a world moving forward with discoveries such as bodies will be machines to harvest products, glowing jelly fish with bacteria and algaculture...
-ALGACULTURE... Algae a plant/animal feeding of light (photosynthesis) Charles Spence helped create a futuristic device to replace the idea of the oxygen/carbon dioxide cycle with algae. Masks will be worn by humans as the algae will feed humans oxygen and humans will feed algae carbon dioxdie.

 

Kieran Lavine...

Kieran has created many tribal inspired pierces of work, mainly accessories (see images below) jewellery, head pieces, masks etc the minority of his collection is bought. He also produced the paper butterflies images which I absolutely love! Many of his accessories have been borrowed by people to be worn to huge shows and 'do's' all over the world, including Canada.
Kieran chatted with us and educated us on all of the tribal research I have, he was great to listen to as he was so enthusiastic and explained things simply.

 

 

 

 

               

      

Experimenting with moulds...

We brought in interesting shaped moulds to create latex/gelatine pieces to apply to the face and body. We used a selection of patterned acetate, body part mould (nose/face/etc), yoghurt pots, train tracks, basic shapes (square/circle/etc). Many things did not work simply because we did not have enough time for the products to dry or they were to fragile and broke immediately, etc. The best outcomes were the sheets of acetate using latex and smaller basic shapes using gelatine.

                       

Creating Scars...

In this lesson we were taught how to create scars/cuts/etc on the skin and how they look different depending on the model's skin tone, the age of the scar and the severity of the scar. You can use many different products to create these looks. Gelatine create a raised shiny effect good for burns or fresh wounds. Clay/wax is a good base for creating a raised wound which can have makeup applied after. Duo is great for sticking externally made mould onto the skin. Tuplast creates a shiny affect, is easy to control and good for minor detail and was my favourite product. Latex is good for cuts, when applied you can stretch the skin into certain positions which is then dried with a hairdryer and fixes the new shape. All these products can have makeup put onto of to look more realistic. You must always do research in what wound you wish to create to ensure it looks realistic.

  

Modern body modification...

BODYSHOCK= A television programme intending to shock us with all the outrageous possibilities you have to modify your body. 

=Tattoos: Way of expressing ones self through images, writing, art on the body using permanent ink (needles).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9mIBKifOOQQ   =  ZOMBIE BOY

=Implants: As well as the obvious breast implants, you can also get more creative implants such as buttox, arm muscles, chest pecs, implants to add 3D effects to tattoos, 3D shapes in the body like temporary bagel heads, stars and other shape implants.
 

=Piercings: We all know about typical ear lobe piercings which can be done several times depending on lobe size but there are many other body piercings available such as; other ear parts, nose, tongue, eyebrow, lip, cheek, neck, arms, stomach, feet, hands, nipple, and a rather worrying on, genitalia...OUCH!

 

=Body adaptions: As well as adding things to the body, some individuals also like to take some of the body away such as those wanting to look like a snake having their tongue snipped. Or still adding some strange objects to the body in order to look like other animals like cats.

In my opinion it is absolutely MAD, I'm all for looking unique and different and not following the crowd but there is some line which should not be crossed where humanity and sanity goes straight out of the window and it scares the hec out of me! Each to their own I guess...

Other futuristic Images...