digital imologue

From the 1973 album Pin Ups, here is David Bowie posing with Twiggy.

The face-outline thing reminds me of this:

which was my bum-chinspiration for this:

…which was Chloe in costume as this:

I have always admired Boy George in his twilight years; he just paints over that wattle and expects us all to turn a blind eye.  What double chin?  Oh this ol’ bronzed acre of skin?  That’s a jawline you could shave parmesan on, friends, not a massive turkey gobbler.  Nothing to see here.

Anyway.  Back to Bowie.

I’ve had my mullet trimmed (although it is not such a dark red as his), I’ve bought a brown contact lens and Chloe and I are both going bra-less today so there are no strap marks on our shoulders.  I’m so ready for this.

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It’s the morning after and I’m editing the photos from the Pin Ups session, and laughing my ass off.  Most of these aren’t fit for publication.  The kind of stuff you don’t want ending up on 9gag.  I’ve got a whole album of oh-god-why, right here.  Let’s see if I can tastefully crop them into something more family friendly.

Basically, the makeup took several hours and 4 litres of Lambrini.  We were both topless, drinking pints of mimosa all afternoon.  My housemates were quite surprised when they came in from their day skiing, but Zoe quickly regained her composure and took the final photos for us.

So here we go.  I don’t have a huge number of progress shots because the camera battery was running low, and I’m also not going to be able to name all the products I used; mostly because there is no point naming the ancient eye-shadows I’ve had for 10+ years that I bought in Australia.

This was my first proper attempt at covering eyebrows; there are a couple of ways you can do it, so I picked the cheaper one – glue stick!  Yes really.  I think I put too many layers on; on Chloe’s eyebrows at least I think one layer might have been enough.  In the YouTube videos I watched they were all going to town with several layers, built up with powder in between.

Anyway, here she is a with a monobrow created with Pritt-stick and Illamasqua Rich Liquid foundation.

The Illamasqua Rich Liquid foundation was applied around the outside of her face, then all down Chloe’s neck, arms and chest to make her a nice golden-Twiggy colour (and I upped my own palour with Illamasqua Skin Base foundation, in the lightest shade).  The Rich Liquid is the densest coverage formula they’ve got, and it’s DENSE.  It-covers-tattoos-dense.

The face-outline was drawn on with a nude lip-liner, and the white Skin Base foundation went inside the outline.  At this stage, Chloe looked quite like a playing card somehow, so I popped my Red Queen wig on her just quickly, for fun:

Then came the eyeshadow, which didn’t work out as well as I wanted it to – it was difficult blending the powder over such thick, sticky layers of foundation and dry glue stick.  It was frustrating.

Finished with a LOT of black mascara, top and bottom, cos that was the way Twiggy rolled.  Light pink sparkly blush low down under the cheekbones and on the temples.  Nude lipliner and gold lipstick.  Blue headscarf.

Then I did my own makeup.  My makeup is similar to Chloe’s – covered eyebrows, face outlined.  But I am snow white instead of white and tan.  I was wearing a matte taupe eyeshadow and brown mascara, and contact lenses.  I used a matte peach blush on my temples and under my cheekbones.

And this is what we ended up with:

What do you think?

I think Chloe pulls a very convincingly beatific Twiggy face there.

What I learned from this session:

– Always put whole afternoons aside for this kind of ambitious undertaking; when you’re flying blind, you need time on your side.  You don’t want to be rushed.

– Really thick, tan makeup looks amazing in photos and ridiculous in real life.

– Covering eyebrows is hard, although the dried glue stick wasn’t as uncomfortable as I thought it would be.  It retained a bit of flexibility so it didn’t flake off or peel up like I assumed it might.

– Teaching yourself can be satisfying and fun, however recently I’m feeling limited by not having the right tools or products, and I’m very aware of the huge gaps in my technical knowledge… and it’s frustrating.  I have the vision but it’s not always enough.

I try to stay positive and channel Kevyn when it’s not going the way I want; even when you’re making a complete dog’s breakfast of it, you’re still learning.

Tags: 1970s, 70s, Boy George, costume, covered eyebrow, David Bowie, David Bowie Pin Ups 1973, disguise, eye makeup, Halloween, Illamasqua, makeup, mask, Pin Ups, sisters, topless, transformation, Twiggy