Art Couture Painswick Body Painting 2012

 Celebrating Great Britain!!

Recently I attended the third Art Couture in Painswick (formerly Wearable Art Painswick) Festival. This was a amazing event and for one day the sun came out! The worlds of art and fashion were brought together by displaying creative and highly original artwork that is displayed on the body.

This year a new Body Painting Competition was introduced In collaboration with Charles Fox and Illusion Magazine, the theme was "Celebrating Great Britain"

I decided I wanted to do a City/Seaside! I made a bag of chips as a headpiece and a pesky seagull as a prop.



I had Big Ben and St Paul's cathedral prosthetics and tryed to cram most of england onto my models body.

 










It was fun and exhausting and has mad me realise maybe body painting isn't my faute, but I enjoyed the day regardless!







I introduced my body paint very loudly down a microphone whilst he strutted down the runway toward hundreds of people, he did very well! 

  
































Simon :D
http://www.walkingwondersfx.com

Rule Britannia!

Hey guys, I haven't blogged in a while as Iv been super busy wrapping up college and gathering a portfolio together for a internship so I thought I would share this makeup I did in class this last week.





I decided to do a stone lady based off
my sketch but add a 18th Century look to it.

I made the dress out of a white bed sheet and liquid latex! I folded the parts I wanted folded and stuck them in place. I colored it with different shades of white gray and black to look like rock adding fullers earth to give a crumble effect.

I darkened down the wig with black shadow and sponged liquid latex onto it so it would go hard and crusty.

I painted all my union jacks in not as crackled as Id have liked but hay ho!I then covered the body in a fullers earth paste and let it dry going over it with latex. I painted the skin the same as the dress.

The finished result stone woman!


















I made the fan from cardboard with tissue latex-ed over it to make it look old.

Its a shame I couldn't post this around the time of the Jubilee but in a way I doubt it would have been seen seeing everyone was on a massive 4 weekday bender!

Simon x

Its an Illusion

This summer has had a great start to it for me as I (and walking wonders fx!) am now officially Published!!!

For those who I haven't told by now I have my own feature in this summers addition of ILLUSION Magazine.

I was asked last year to send in some pictures of my work and at the beginning of the year.

I was asked if I would like to do some new makeup especially for the magazine and a short interview to go with it, which I was thrilled at!

I wanted to make some special pieces especially using prosthetics whist keeping it relevant to the magazine by adding some body painting,

One photo was from a competition win which was a amazing feeling mostly cause it was hair based which I'm not trained in at all!

I love dark, gore and fantasy so came up with a few characters that were different from each other but still stuck to my own style I'm developing.

I had lots of fun doing the makeup for Illusion and would love to do more in the future!


Its out now so go get a copy its always packed with interesting ideas!

http://www.illusionmagazineshop.co.uk/shop/article_2983/Illusion-Magazine-Issue-18-Summer-2012.html?shop_param=cid%3D3%26aid%3D2983%26


For more Photos of my work head to http://www.walkingwondersfx.com

or LIKE my page @ http://www.facebook.com/walkingwondersfx

:D

Simon Scissor Hands!

With the wig I used for my Geisha character last week laying around I decided to reused it for a movie classic... Edward Scissor hands!

This was very spontaneous like most of my makeup so there is no step by step I'm afraid,

I used (in order.)
1. Star Gazer white foundation mixed with a pale liquid foundation for the base.
2. Lightly brushed over it with Star Gazer pressed white powder.
3. Applied Graftobian wax (any will do) on to skin
4. Added  brown shadow contour to jaw and eyes from my Ben Nye palette, and blend!
5. Dark red small lips 20s style (Ben Nye Lip Palette).

I made my eyes brown like the character has using http://www.Picmonkey.com

Hope this is helpful to anyone wanting to be Edward Scissor hands!

See you soon!
Simon x
http://www.walkingwondersfx.com

Fashion says stitched!

Over a good week ago I was given the opportunity to manage a team of makeup artists for the UWE end of graduate fashion show at the Trinity centre, Bristol

Admittingly at first I was nervous at the thought of organising arrangements but thank god for email it was stress free!

There were 2 shows through out the day, the last finishing at 21:00. We arrived at 9:00 on Saturday 12/05 and the models came flooding in for makeup!

The look was very natural they all had to look the same as there was such a variety of cloths they had to suit them all.

The show started at around 12:30 and the second at 19:30,  we stood against the wall running in to top up lip gloss on the next row of models about to go out, trying not to get in the way!

The cloths were really cool and so different from each other, one jacket had lights in it and another collection would look perfect on Lady Gaga!

By the second show all the models needed re-touches by this time there was 2 of us left doing makeup but we pulled it off! and I even got to watch the second half of the show :D

These are my happy snaps! When I get the professional pics back I will post them on!

I finished at about 21:00 went home and gorged on fish and chips! lush!
Enjoy!

Simon x

Http://www.walkingwondersfx.com

*about the show....
More than 80 fashion design graduates showcased designs from womens wear, knitwear, and menswear as part of the show, organised by ‘Fashion Says Stitched,  set up by students in protest at cuts which took funding  from their final year show.
The show is yearly backed by the university but now the money has been withdrawn this year the students fund raised the money them selfs..

As well as a catwalk show, the event  featured an exhibition of  photography, illustration, textiles and styling from 2D illustration students.

Memoirs of a second hand wig!

Yesterday was my Character with a wig assessment!

The wig was a synthetic black bob, I back combed and rolled it into rolls and pinned it in
place...and blasted it with hair spray, a bodge job that came good!

I originally chose to do a robot geisha with added prostheic cheeks and eye brows but as you can see it ended up looking like that puppet on a childs bike in Saw... so I scrapped it the night before.

Thankfully!






I decided to do a more beauty makeup with a futuristic aesthetic so it didn't move to far away from my original character

My model Janey really pulled off the look!


Simon James
http://www.walkingwondersfx.com

SUBJECT! Interrogation short

Hey Y'all!

So sometime before easter on a very chilly Saturday morning I met up with some very lovely media students who wanted to film a interrogation scene for their project.

We filmed it in bristol on campus in a little dark basement that really set the scene!

I had to make the man that was held captive look a little beaten, a few bruises and cuts and for the second half of filming the injuries were made considerably worse.

Here is the video "SUBJECT" enjoy!

Subject: Dan Fisher
Man: Corey Gimgell-Elkins
Makeup: Simon James
http://www.walkingwondersfx.com

Directed & Produced by:
Meg Cranfield
Pedro Howe-Browne
Matt White