My last but one shoot was that of the evil Witch in the story of Hansel & Gretel. When designing the make-up and overall look for this character I was in a predicament as to whether to go for the stereotypical witch look of wrinkled skin, a big, pointy nose and dark long hair or to steer away from that image and try to create something with more of a modern twist - taking inspiration from modern sources such as Hansel & Gretel the 2013 film remake of the fairy tale and Once Upon a Time, again a TV series based around the stories of well known fairy tales. I felt with this character that I had a lot of creative scope with both make-up and styling although I had to stick to some guidelines, these being her descriptions and characteristics in the narrative of the original tale.
The Witch doesn't appear in the story until after Hansel & Gretel have been left deep in the wood by their parents, they begin to walk deeper into the forest until they come across a house that's made of cakes and sweets, they begin to eat away at it. However this house belongs to the witch that uses sweet treats to entice roaming children into her property, she then bribes these children with kind words and talks of luxuries until they are trapped in her house and power then she feeds them up with lots of food until they are fat enough for her to eat. Although we stereotypically think of a witch as evil and malicious, this witch first appears in the story as a kind and sweet old lady, it is only further into the story that we begin to see her more evil side witch eventually results in Gretel pushing her in to an open oven whereby she 'burns to death miserably.' This element of the story was always going to be my biggest challenge for a make-up change - I had a limited amount of time to create a half face of burns on the model - using both latex and cotton wool, upon reflection I would have really liked to have covered the whole face and neck to create a really extreme look, however I felt this would be too uncomfortable for my model as latex can be a painful product to remove.
Overall I really enjoyed this shoot and I feel that the make-up and hair are successful and also what I had first envisaged for this character. A crucial part of this look was finding a model that would fit the characteristics of this particular character, although I found it difficult to find and secure a suitable model, I feel that Ami's facial structure and small frame really fits well into the look and her dyed white hair creates that old witch style that depicts the character quite clearly.
However here are some of my favourite and most successful images from the witch photoshoot -
Make-up
When designing this make-up look I wanted to keep in mind the elements of the story that depict the appearance of the witches character. In the original story she lives in a small house that is tucked away deep in the forest, I wanted to use elements of the forest such as leaves and twigs in her hair and branch strokes coming into her face to show the witch as almost part of the forest that surrounds her. I feel these elements work well and aren't too distracting from the overall look. She is described in the story as being as old as the hills so I originally wanted to use old age stipple to create wrinkles around the eyes and mouth, however once I had applied the product and dried it lightly with a hairdryer, there was no obvious difference and I decided there and then to remove this element completely. If I was to do this shoot again I would practice the technique not just on myself but also the skin of my model. However with the dark colour choices of black and dark green I feel it is successful in creating an evil looking character while also keeping elements of somebody initially approachable. I am also really happy with how the black long nails came out, as in shooting they were difficult to stick onto the model's nails as she had acrylic nails already on, it was then also hard to blend the black into her pink coated nails but after some editing and blending I feel they work successfully with the look.
Hair
I purposefully choose this model for this character as she has white and blue dyed hair which I felt would be really apt for the hair of an old witch. I wanted to create quite a disheveled look with the hair, as she lives in a forest and is both an evil and crazy woman so I back combed the hair to create a messy, pushed back look and continued to back comb and hair spray the front hairs to accentuate the overall disheveled style. I then added fake leaves and branches, using these to weave in and out of the hair style, I did this so that they weren't obvious and overpowering to the hairstyle but visible if you look closely. Overall I am really happy with the hair styling and of course my choice of model.
Styling
For the styling of the witch I hired a brown floor length dress from Hepwrights which had beautiful and intricate beading on both sleeves that to me immediately represented branches and my forest theme. I was unable on the day to secure a full length studio so unfortunately I was unable to get a full length image of her in costume. I did the best that I could with the set up given and I tried to include some of the detailing in the shots by having her hold her hand and nails up to her face, if I could have shot this look again I would of really liked to have had the chance to shoot full length.
At the end of story the Witch is pushed into a burning open oven by Gretel, so I wanted to change the look half way through the shoot to match the narrative of the story. I used latex and cotton wool to build up layers on the model's skin, once dry I used both a bruise and cut wheel to create a burns effect, using both dark and light colours to create texture. I then added wound filler into random parts of the burn to give it a more gory effect! Burns can be difficult to create as there are different stages for example first degree, second degree. As the witch had been pushed into a burning oven I wanted the burns to look extreme - with this in mind I am happy with this look. However as I have said above I would have liked to have taken the burns further along the face to create more of a realistic effect.
No comments:
Post a Comment