Over the entire Gothic Horror unit I found extremely
fun and enjoyable as well as very challenging. I have never done anything to do
with makeup before this course so coming into the first year not knowing
anything to being able to create looks like the ones above I am extremely happy
with myself and how much I have grown since being here and also starting the
Gothic Horror unit.
My favorite part of this unit has to be learning the
different special effects makeup techniques because I have always wanted to
know how to do special effects makeup properly and the right way. I found it
extremely interesting also learning about the history of Gothic Horror and how
the horror films and books were made based on what was happening in real life,
to scare people on their insecurities and fears of the real world.
In this unit we have focused on many different
techniques of creating special effects in makeup and in hair, which I have
talked about throughout my blog. Apart from the practical side to thing I have
learnt a lot more about researching and the best ways to do this because last
term I struggled with the research because I didn’t really understand how to
use the research I had found I just put it on my blog I didn’t exactly use it.
When I’m researching now I use it in my designs and outcomes which has helped
me develop my ideas further, also learning the techniques from the practical
lesson helped me explore the different ideas I could use in my final outcome. I
ended up wanting to do all of my face charts because I just wanted to practice
and practice everything I have learnt.
I would really like to practice my colouring more
because I feel like on some of my practices I went too dark on a few things and
would really like to put in some more practice over the summer to really get
that spot on.
When researching about both units the first one I done
on Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and the second one on Bate Motel. I looked into many
books based on the era for the book, looking at fashion, hair and makeup. I
also looked at many documentaries about the book and the author. I looked at a
lot of the makeup artists that worked on the different versions of the films
based on that book. For the Bates Motel I done a lot of research into the films
that linked to it like Psycho but also into films which linked the characters
in Bate Motel but also linked my character I made, the film that linked most
was The Others.
They influenced my work quite a bit because then I
used that information that I collected and made them into face and hair charts.
As well as experimenting with ideas and seeing if they would work.
I really enjoyed teaching myself how to use the
mirrored acrylic in the skin because in class we got taught how to create
scares and cuts but not to have an object in the cut and to mold it in. At
first I was pulling my hair out and thinking of why I decided to do something
we weren’t taught to do but after a lot of practicing on myself and my model I
managed to find a way how to make it work but it defiantly took some
perseverance, but I extremely enjoyed teaching myself how to create the look.
I think the most successful part for this project has
to be my continuity images as I think they are very similar and was very happy
with my design work and the outcome was for both different times. The only
thing that is slightly annoying is that the lighting was slightly different
which makes the second time doing the makeup look like the makeup is slightly
darker in the images.
I came across a lot of problems across this unit like
I said about the acrylic mirror I used for my continuity exam was extremely
difficult because I just couldn’t find a way for the piece too stick but I
taught myself and used a few different products and it worked fine in the end.
I also came across a few problems when trying to do the last images for my
characters I had a few cancellations with models which meant I had to rebook
the studio which was getting quite hard towards the end because they were so
booked up but managed to do it in the end.
I think I learnt a lot from the problems I came across
for example the continuity exam I think I learnt from that problem is too start
practicing my final look a lot earlier than I did because if you need any other
products that I forgot then I only had a few days to receive it and then practice
again with the new products. I also need to start preparing back up models so
that if one cancels at the last minuet I know that someone else could pop in at
late notice and not have to cancel and waste time.
I think If I had the chance to start over I would
defiantly read a book and as I’m reading the book make a blog on it, instead of
just writing down notes and the interesting parts and then coming back to it
when I want to put it into a certain blog and not really remembering what the
book was, which meant I couldn’t refer back to it and also struggled to put
them in my bibliography because I couldn’t remember what books and articles I had
read. I still fine the bibliography a big struggle and really need to get in
the routine of putting everything in it straight away.
