Tribal scarring, tattoos and piercings

Body modification and scarring is a popular thing in African tribes. I was curious as to why they were so passionate about this, I came to learn that it was so they can identify the members of different tribes. Both women and men take part in these modifications and sometimes even children. In women, they see it as beautiful, and shows that they are suitable mothers. The modifications can include piercings, scarring under the skin, tattoos, and burning. Ive thought about ways in which I can create body modification on my model for my final shoots. Ive thought about doing some trials with different materials such as latex, tissue, fake skin etc. I want my final photos to stand out and have something eye-catching about them, I want to take body modification and make it look beautiful for my high fashion shoot. Below are some skin stretchers that are very common in African tribes, they are often used on the lips, noses and ears. Although very painful, a lot of tribes believe in stretching the skin as a mark of each tribe. Taking a closer look at the stretchers, they come in different shapes, sizes, colours and patterns. Ive thought about portraying lip stretching in my images, however it is hard to come up with how to do it, unless I use a lot of material and prosthetics. Even if I can't pull off the lip stretching, I want to try and do it with the nose. In Topshop you can get tribal looking ear pieces that I can glue onto the nose looking as if they've been stretched.

How I want my high fashion look

These are some images I found during my research that inspired me for my high fashion shoot. I was thinking to style a statement necklace in my images and not have my models make up too extravagant. I will include some tribal colours such as the primary colours, these will be used on the face and body. For my high fashion images, I want my look to focus mainly on the styling, hair and jewellery. Ive got a few ideas in mind of how to create my high fashion and avante garde images. Ive shopped online for the jewellery and makeup i'm going to use throughout this project which I will post when they arrive. Im still debating on how I want to  style my models hair, looking at the women in african tribes, they often have either no hair, corn rows or plaits. For my high fashion image i'm thinking to have my models hair in a high ponytail and combine the plaits around the hairband to show I have mixed tribal and traditional hairstyles into a high fashion look. As for her make-up, I havent decided on how I want my models make-up yet. I know that I want light contouring on the face but a lot of contrasting with the colours.

Tribal nails & bodyart

Whilst getting my nails done by my sister, it crossed my mind on how I want my models nails to be like on my final images. I thought for my high fashion images id have the nails chic and plain. I was thinking to take inspiration from this image on the left and use black, white and grey patterns on the nails. Im going to experiment with afew deisigns and see which I like best, im not sure whether I want the hands and nails to be seen in my images but I thought it would be worth a try as I want to experiment with afew things.  For my avant-garde images, I want to go a little bolder, experimenting will help me in deciding what I like.

The Lion King

A bit of a random post, but after looking through the Lion King programmes from the theatre, it was another thing that inspired me for this project. I saw The Lion King in theatre a few weeks ago and feel completely in love with it, the costume, set designs, props and most of all the make-p. As soon as this project was introduced it immediatly reminded me of it. The ideas that the set and costumes designers thought of blew my mind, I never thought they could re-inact a movie all about animals, but they did. Some of the coastume and make-up I saw in the show are shown below..

Everthing in this musical relates to my project,I hope to use the musical to help me in creating out of the box ideas for my avant-garde images. To get a further look into the musical, I took a look at the documentary, I have shown part 1 below and found it so interesting how they made humans completely transform into animals on stage. I wanted to know what made them come up with these ideas and how they made them. Another thing that amazed me whilst watching it in theatre was the movement, I want to show my models body and arms in my final images so I was also taking a look at how the actors carried themselves throughout the musical. The hair, make-up and costume immediatley relates to my project, the whole musical relates to African tribes and I wat to take a further insight into how I can use The Lion King along with Rodarte and Vogue shoots to influence my work.

Rodarte

After being in my lecture that introduced Rodarte's spring 2010 show, I was immediadtly inspired by their make-up and styling. I watched the show online and thought it was fascinating how they could combine such a gothic, dark and sinister look and still make it look sexy. I thought the photos from the show, as you can see one above, were absoloutly beautiful. I am a big fan of black and dark colours, so I thought the use of very simple make-up was genius. They portrayed a dark, gothic theme without even having to use make-up on the eyes, the lips and contouring on the cheeks was perfect and I was very excited to research into the show. Relating back to my assignment, Wild Kingdom, this Rodarte show has many elements that can inspire me. The tattoo looking designs on the models arms gives the show a bit of an edge. I was also inspired by this specific show because they took a risk which is something I want to do with my work. The tattoos reminded me of tribal traditions, along with the hair and clothing. They made tattoos and tribal art look high fashion and thought it was stunning.
The styling, clothing, hair and make-up almost looks as if the models belong in a tribe. The bold black print, natural make-up, dark lips, dark contouring on the cheeks etc. Rodarte's show is definitly going to play a big part in my development of my final ideas for this project. I hope to use their work to inspire me in making tribal traditions look high fashion. I thought the models looked simply beautiful on the catwalk, I am now full of ideas on how to create my high fashion image, Im so excited to create facecharts and photoshoots for this project and finally get my work out there!

Ideas

I've decided that when I get home I am going to make some face charts and create some ideas and photograph them for experiments leading up to my final images. Looking over the documentariy that I posted by long ago, I noticed that I needed a model that was very African looking, although the model I chose is Asian and not so much African, I thought I would experiment with looks on her to challenge myself and see what looks I like. I haven't been able to upload images and videos as I have been blogging on my iPhone and I'm not sure how to do that yet! In very excited to get back to Southampton and finally begin all my ideas on this project and get some feedback on my work, I'll be posting my progress as soon as I get home as I'm on the plane as we speak, hope this project goes well as I have many ideas for it!

Random thoughts

As I'm going off to Cyprus for a week I was worried I would fall behind with the development of my ideas for my project 'Wild Kingdom'.

I thought of some more ideas and thought I'd post them on my blog as a reminder for me to develop them. I was watching the lion king movie and thought why not create headpieces as well as jewellery. As I said in previous posts, I want to step up this yer and focus on my work a lot more from now on. I want to think of creative and outside the box ideas in order for my work to become noticed. I thought these headpieces could include feathers, leather, beads etc. After getting the main idea from the lion king, I then went on to researching tribal clothing. I will use research from other movies, documentaries, African tribes etc.

I was sitting with my sister on the and and I brainstormed A few more ideas for my project, like not only including the face and body in the pictures but also the hands and nails. I have come up with some ideas Kn how to decorate the nails, I will try these styles on my own nails and upload the picture to get feedback on what my course thinks of them.

Documentary

Taking a look at documentaries and Youtube videos gives me an insight to how some African tribes live their lives. By watching these documentaries, I feel like it gives me a chance to know how they live and portray their emotions through their make-up. I want my final images to not only look contemporary, but I want to do as much research as I can to make the the images the best I can and include old tribal traditions in them.

Watching the documentaries also made me realise I need to concentrate on the clothing and jewellery and not only the make-up, Im going to research how to create necklaces, bracelets and body jewellery instead of just buying them, I want to branch out this year, I'm going to blog my process whenever I can and show what new ideas I have.

First post!

Wild Kingdom is the start of our new project for hair and makeup design for film, music and photography. My name is Elena Manoli and I am a wannabe make-up artist from London, currently studying in Southampton. I hope to put my work out there, and my first step is by creating this blog.

I went to see the lion king in theatre about a week ago, the show was amazing and I was so inspired by the make-up, hair and costume that I created a few looks that inspired me. It was weird because as soon as I got back to Uni the theme was 'Wild Kingdom' which meant I would be looking at tribal make-up and could use the lion king as inspiration to my work in this project. Im excited to start this, as soon as I got home I began researching everything I could to inspire me, I thought about the location, costume, how I want the make-up, hair, photography, everything. This year I want to pay more attention to detail and focus on getting myself noticed.

The first thing I thought of whilst in my first lecture for Wild Kingdom was the film Aplocoplypto. It is one of my favourite movies and I have always wanted to to a makeup inspired look that involved researching different tribes and cultures. i finally have the chance to do that and use my favourite movie and musical to create my final looks. As you can see below, the image from the movie reminds me slightly of Rodarte. Another thing that has inspired me by this movie are the piercings and jewellery, I'm going to try and step up this year by trying to create my own jewellery and also try to make my model look as if she has piercings along her ears. I will try to avoid the face with piercings as I want my make up to stand out from anything else.

The image above is just one of many that inspires me a lot for this project. Again, it is from the same movie, Apocolypto. The hair, makeup and costume in this movie has always inspired me and I am so excited to use this inspiration and incorporate it into my own work. I have watched this movie over and over and written down pages of notes and lists of what I will need during this project and other movies, musicals, photo shoots, makeup artists and stylists to research.