Red
Inspiration
When I started with these videos, I wanted to create a series that brought some of the looks I wore to the club into the realm of Youtube. When I started to look into how to improve my makeup, I had no money but a desire to be resourceful and I really saw pigment and paint, I didn’t even think of what the product was sold as. I just thought that if I read in my favourite autobiographies about my idols doing creative looks with shoe polish, I could certainly play with a lipstick in my contour and create some really innovative looks.
I had a few ideas in my head, one of them was the images I’d seen of Kabuki. I also was consistently told that I looked like David Bowie because I had that style of hair after a shoot when I was a young teenager, so it was a hybrid of the Ziggy Stardust thing with my own elements.
One thing I find really difficult in my own work is that I find masculine contours to be quite limiting, because some of the lines I use in my styles are more so to blend the genders? If I drew on a masculine look it would almost create the illusion that drag makeup would do on a male face, it’s not as seamless to the character I’m creating on my face. On other peoples it’s another story but I’m the model in these images. I played with more of a fantastical phoenix blend of colours, I thought that the eyes should be dominated by a thick line as I have shallow creases in my eyes. It always reminds me of those images of the silver surfer or those types of old school marvel comics where there wasn’t really a distinguished line in the eyelid? I always reference those kind of techniques to create a super real image on me.
In the skin I used a number of different layers, what you have to remember is with formulas that are cream, they tend to be absorbed somewhat or evaporate from the skin, leaving pigment. So once they’re on the skin they don’t work in the same way a face product would because you can’t necessarily buff into them, without taking them off. It’s a tricky one but if you layer slowly you can get away with it. I used a clean gold iridescent pigment through the skin, again anyone that’s watched me from the get go can see the signatures. I kept the lips under-drawn to maintain that masculine feminine hybridisation as it expanded the gap between my nose and mouth, which is more masculine and here is the modified version.
Products
Base - TV Stick in OB2, Coty Loose Powder, Mac Studio Fix NW30
Skin - Shaving / Hair Condition (I use Amika) Better You Magnesium Lotion
Eyes - Suva Shadow Pallete, Rimmel Waterproof Liner
Lenses - I wear prescription Desio in the Ice White
Lips - Super NSFW