Evaluation

 Evaluation

When first introduced to the beauty and the brand project I was really excited, beauty imagery and make-up is something I love to look at, and I was excited about researching into this. I really liked the idea of picking a brand out of a hat and not knowing what you were going to get and then having to research into the brand, finding out information about products, and the brands history along with looking at the brands advertisements and the brand in general. The end result of this project was a little hazy at first with us focusing on the brand research at the beginning and only briefly going over what we will be doing after this as an end result for submission. We were then told we would be creating 4-5 images on looks such as a Smokey eye, and lip look along with doing a timed assessment for Illamasqua. This was then changed later to creating a definite 5 images and these five images would now be linked to our brand given to us  with the end result of 5 beauty images created for our brand and then also our Illamasqua timed assessment images resulting in 6 images at the end of the project. We started looking at beauty imagery in lesson and also looking at creating a perfect base which was very helpful towards end results of final images. Something I was hugely disappointed in with this project was some of the make-up lesson structures, we did not end up covering everything we were meant to within the make- up lessons, the lessons could sometimes be very un organised, we missed out on knowing more about products and testing these so that they could be used within are images for our brands. The hair lessons we had were a different story these were very well organised allowing us to develop hair ideas and applications that could be used towards imagery in the end for our brand images. Although the project was very good and I feel is a great project to create imagery for a portfolio, the structure of it let it down at times with final outcomes not always clear and structures of the project being moved around such as the timed assessment. We had a great amount of lectures from the industry in for this brand project which was great, such as Illamasqua coming in, and also MAC make-up and Marijana who was amazing, this was all amazing help that defiantly made up for some of the confusion and let down. I feel that the project has gone a lot better than I expected, I really like some of the end results of my imagery for my beauty images for my brand of Max-Factor. There was times where I had to re shoot images due to running out of time or something not going right with the first one such as lighting, or even the make-up, or hair this allowed me to practise and develop my look to make it better than before. For inspiration and ideas for my images I used resources such as the internet and pinterest, on pinterest I created boards with images in linking to each make-up design I would create for my brand. I would improve different things about some of my images especially some of the lighting difficulties I had and would improve my timed assessment image and design, but overall I am quite pleased with the outcome of the project, and feel I have progressed and learnt some new techniques in hair especially making me feel more confident about my ability. 

Technical folder sign off sheet

Final 'Smokey eye' images

I was pleased with my smokey eye I really liked the shades of purple I used within it, I used a lilac colour applied over the eyelid first, along with then applying a darker shade of purple into the crease and buffing this out and really blending the colours well. I then used a dark purple gel eye-liner under the eyes and applied the lilac colour on the inner corner of the eyes. I then applied a black MAC eye-liner pencil on the top lash line and blended this out while applying mascara after this. I started of by applying my smokey eye colours before doing my base, this is so I could easily clean any fall out of the purple eye-shadow without ruining my base. I used Illamasqua skin base on the skin along with my MAC concealer palette and left this very dewy looking only applying a small amount of translucent powder down the t-zone. After doing the base I applied Nars blusher in orgasm and then highlighter and contoured also, after this I then groomed the eyebrows and slightly filled these in leaving them quite natural and applied a dark nude coloured lipstick. For the hair I loosely curled the ends of it with a big curling tong giving it a bit of texture, as my model had very thin flat hair, I took some images with the hair more messed up and also some where the hair was more slick back behind the ear just to see the difference the hair style made to the make-up. Majority of the images I preferred the hair was behind the ears this allowed you to focus more on the make-up. Overall I am happy with the end result of my smokey eye and overall look if I was to re do it again I would like to have had more time with experimenting with a few more different hairstyles and photographing this look with these along with trying the look on someone else as my model was not that comfortable in front of the camera and found it quite hard to pose. 

Final 'Metallic' images

The metallic look is the one I struggled most with knowing what I wanted to do and how I wanted my images to look like as an end result along with being ill on the day I came to shoot this image. I think personally that this shows within the images that I did not have a massively strong idea although they turned out better than I though. I wanted the metallic eye to not be to over the top, I used gold bronze and silver on the eyes with this look along with applying MAC shine gloss over the top of the eye to add more shine. I used Illamasqua skin base on the skin keeping it quite natural, fresh and dewy along with adding blusher, highlighter, and contouring. I groomed the eyebrows and applied lip balm onto the lip keeping them very nude and natural. The hair I left very natural just straightening the front parts out and then adding slight texture to the bottom by ruffling it up a bit and spraying some hairspray. When it came to shooting this look I found it hard to pick up the metallic tones on camera and had to keep moving the lighting myself and the model until it showed up better. Overall I do like this look I just think there are elements of it that could be improved such as, the eye make-up and possibly the hair putting this into a style could of just helped to make it look that little bit better but I was pleased with my base application and the shine that showed on the metallic eye. 

Final 'Eye-liner/Eyelashes' images

This was one of my favourite shoots from my project I had fun coming up with the ideas and also enjoyed shooting the look adding different accessories into it. For this look I wanted it to have a summer/festival beauty feel, along with it being fun and playful and something that could potentially appear in a magazine. I already knew from the beginning I wanted to create a blue eye-liner look I shoot my blue eye-liner look before and this went wrong, so this was the second re shoot where I was able to add to my previous idea and make it better than before. The changes I made were the shape of the eye liner this was because I wanted to challenge myself, I had also had a lot of compliments on the same eye-liner shape that I created for my timed assessment image so wanted to re create this with a brighter eye-liner. I also managed to buy a blue gel eye-liner from Sephora instead of before having to use my aqua colour palette to create a blue shade making it easier to apply and use. I done the base of the skin matte, using Illamasqua skin base and MAC concealer then powdered and added blusher, highlighter and contoured the face. I then filled the eyebrows in and applied a shimmery champagne coloured shadow to the eye lids, and applied my gel eye-liner after which took me quite a while to perfect. I then incorporated the eyelashes into this, like before in my first eye-liner look I did not want to add strip lashes to this look and wanted it to be natural, so added four or so individual eyelashes to the ends of the eyes. After finishing the make-up I started on the hair creating a plait I had never done before which turnt out a lot better than I expected. I really love plaits at the minute and how they can transform a look and can be quite playful and youthful. I asked my model to plait her hair the night before and left the rest of the hair down wavy. When it came to taking images I wanted to take some with no accessories in along with some with a flowered headband and then some with some sunglasses just to add to the playful and youthful look. I was really happy with the end results of these images and my model loved the look and the eye-liner and kept it on after the shoot, overall I am glad I decided to re shoot the eye-liner images from before.

Final 'Natural skin' images

At first I was not happy with my natural look images I was not entirely sure why but going back and looking at them a few more times and editing the lighting slightly I started to like them a lot more. When doing the application of my natural make up I wanted it to be a real beauty natural look I applied a very light application of foundation and concealer on my models skin making sure not to cover the light freckles my model has on her skin as I wanted these to show through to give that natural look. Along with doing this I groomed the eyebrows and applied a light application of brown mascara, while also applying a light blush to the cheeks, some powder, highlighter and doing a small amount of contouring and putting a mouse blusher colour on the lips as this was they same colour as my model natural lip colour. I pulled all the hair back making it as slick as I possibly could using hairspray sprayed on to my hands to do this and placing this into a low ponytail keeping the hair very natural and off the face. My models friend helped me to take the pictures for this look by setting up the camera and taking a few of the images for me. Overall I am a lot happier with these image although I think I would change the hair possibly if re shooting and make sure I did not have a time frame to do this look in as my model had to go somewhere.

Final 'Red lip' Images

I was really pleased with how my red lip look turned out I wanted it to be a real red, red colour and also decided to make it glossy looking over matte. From practising lips quite a lot within this project it has helped me be able to develop a quite strong lip application where as before I would struggle for ages trying to get this right. I applied a perfect base application keeping it quite matte instead of a dewy along with a light eye-shadow on the eyelids with no mascara. I wanted the whole look to be very natural with the red pop of the lip being the only thing to stand out. With the hair I done this so it had a very natural wave through it along with brushing it to one side while keeping my models side fringe in this, the nails I had a natural colour as to not take the attention away from the make-up when I asked my model to pose with her hand in the images. while taking the images for this look there was a few problems with trying to get the lighting right after thinking the lighting was ok I got home and looked at the images on my laptop and they were really whitened out. This worried me as I though I would have to re shoot as they were so pale, but I managed to lighten these on Photo shop and the images then looked a lot better some of them were unusable but some turned out ok. Overall I am happy with the outcome of my images and am glad I did not have to re shoot these.

Final Illamasqua timed assessment images

A few of my final Illamasqua timed assessment images with different backgrounds, and also an image of the consultation notes from my client, and also the final face chart along with instructions on what I would be doing, and also the products I will be using along with the hair design I will be creating to finish the look of.

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I was pleased with aspects of my Illamasqua timed assessment but was not happy with other parts of it, I would like to re create the look again using ideas from my original idea and to have more time to do it and really refine an idea, getting it perfect to what I want to show for the future. I liked my prosthetic latex  pieces that I had made and placed over the eyebrows and eyes along with blocking out the eyebrows before placing these on top to stop the strong glue from sticking to the eyebrow hair. I remembered how to block out the eyebrows but would have liked to have practised this once more before actually doing the application just to perfect this as sticking the latex pieces took time. I was pleased with the skin application I done of the base and was pleased with the result of this within the images and in person with the natural glow coming threw but it not looking to shiny and dewy. The eye-liner  I done to complement this look worked well and I think I made this even both sides and helped to just finish of the look and design around the eyes. The one thing that I was not so happy about was my contouring, I wanted my contouring to be quite strong and not so blended in as if you were contouring for a fashion look. I wanted it to be seen but I am not sure now that this looked to great and think maybe I should of used a different product to do it along with actually blending it in more on the face to make the face look really contoured and the application to look better, this is something I feel I need to work on and would defiantly look at changing if re creating this look. I was really pleased with the hair design I done for this look practising it on myself before helped a lot in knowing how to do it and how I wanted it to look. I was worried more about being able to create this on my model as her hair is a lot longer and thicker than my hair, when doing it I did get muddled up and had to start it over twice but in the end I think the hair was quite strong and I had taken technique from our lessons in advance plaiting. Overall my timed assessment look was ok but not as good as how I would have liked it to look, I feel there are a few improvements that could be made to both my design and application to improve it and get it to how I want  it to look along with being able to create it in a longer time frame.

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First trial Eye-liner/Eyelashes images

Below are two of the images I shot for what I thought would be my final eye-liner look. When creating this look I knew for my brand I wanted to use a different colour to create my eye-liner look as my brand Max-Factor I felt would advertise for coloured eye-liner and wanted to challenge myself beyond the black liner. When creating this final image I did not own a blue eye-liner so ended up using the blue in my Aqua colour palette and mixing it with a small amount of water to create the blue I used on the eyes. I really liked the shade of blue I ended up using and was actually really pleased with the shape and outcome of my eye-liner as I managed to get it pretty symmetrical either side even though this took me a while. Within this look we had to incorporate eyelashes also, I wanted my eye-liner look to be focused pretty much just on that so, decided to use individual eyelashes placing a few on the end lashes just to add a bit of thickness and length. My idea of how I wanted to do the hair did not go to plan. I wanted to do some sort of plait but ended up running out of time as I had the Illamasqua timed assessment after creating this look giving me a time frame to have to finish it in. The reason I was not fully satisfied with the end result of this look was down to the hair and the photography, I had a real struggle with the lighting in the studio and then had a time frame on when I had to be finished along with not being able to achieve the hairstyle I wanted for this look. Overall I was happy with my make-up application just not the overall outcome of the images which meant I wanted to re-shoot when I came to re shooting the images I had also already decided I wanted to change to shape of the eye-liner also and create a shape like I have done on my eye-liner face chart with almost a 60's look.

Screen shot of some of the images from the shoot

Practise Natural skin images

Skin is something that within all my images for this project I will have to achieve well on each of my looks. One of the looks alone is a natural skin look meaning all the focus of this look will be on the skin. I photographed this look in the images below before doing another look on my model in these images, I wanted to photograph and practise doing another natural skin look to see how it appeared on camera along with doing this I tested the look of my skin before shooting my red lip look also just to see if anything needed adding and that it looked ok under the lighting being used in the room as it is not the best lighting and I am not that great with a camera either. By practising bases for natural skin looks quite a lot within this unit I have built more confidence up on creating a nice flawless and natural skin base for imagery and am pleased with how my base for the skin turned out within these images also looking very fresh and dewy. I also played around with different hair styles within these images that were very natural looking keeping in theme with the idea.

Researching 'Smokey eye' Max-Factor

Researching lots of different images for my Max-Factor smokey eye look there are so many different colours and ways to create a smokey eye so I wanted to think of a colour I could incorporate into a smokey eye. Looking at images of my brands product advertisements recent and past they have done both dark smokey eyes and also coloured so I could really create a smokey eye in whatever way I please. I looked on websites such as pinterest and done a general Google search and also on you tube at different smokey eyes and came to the conclusion that I wanted to create a coloured smokey eye using the colour purple. I watched a Lisa Eldridge video where she created a purple smokey eye and loved it especially the colours used, she also had similar coloured eyes to my model I was using and though it really made the eyes stand out. I did not practise my smokey eye but wrote instructions on how I wanted to create it, I wanted to just go with the look of it rather than practise and make myself feel I needed to stick to they way it looked and how id practised before and worry about getting it the same. Along with creating the smokey eye look I would create a perfect base and a nude or darker nude toned lip colour. The hair I wanted to be quite slick but have a bit of texture to the bottom half so will loosely curl the bottom of the hair just so if this is seen in the images it has texture and is not just straight.

Researching 'Metallic look' Max-Factor

The metallic look I found to be one of the hardest to come to a decision on a final look for my brand image of Max-Factor. I went on pinterest and gathered images I liked of different colours and styles of metallic looks to help with inspiration for a final idea, below are a few gathered on a mood board of a variety of coloured metallic looks, application and styles. I found it hard to pick a colour that I wanted to use for my metallic image and ended up designing a face chart that incorporated a little bit of a mix of colours from bronze, gold and silver, lightly applied together these could all work well I thought. I wanted quite dewy skin and would add blush, highlighter and contour to the face along with a quite nude lip not taking to much attention away from the metallic effect. I wanted the hair to be quite loose and natural with maybe a bit of a roughed up messy feel or back behind the ears in some of the images more slick.