Practising my Miss Havisham Look

After experimenting with some makeup looks on my model, I then made some changes to my face chart. I positioned the dry skin and red patches where I wanted, showed the colouring I wanted round the eyes and showed how I wanted the lips, i.e. I explained and showed exactly how I wanted the makeup to look on my face chart. 

I wanted to experiment with creating the look on my face chart on my model to see what I needed to improve and what order I wanted to apply the products in. In this practice, I also worked out how to achieve the wart effect on her skin. 

In this experiment, I applied the flour and water mixture first, waited for it to dry and then added the foundation colour on top. However I noticed that when I put the foundation on top, the flaky texture of the flour was covered, so it looked smoother and less dry.

To achieve the wart, I decided to use liquid latex and some tissue paper. I put some liquid latex on first with a paint brush and then I added a very small amount of tissue on top and secured the tissue by dabbing more liquid latex on top. Through out the makeup look, I kept going back to the wart and adding more latex to give it the height and texture I wanted. I used red supra colour to make it look sore around the outside of the wart and then I added some purple/brown on the edges of the wart to add some dimension and to make it a realistic colour. I am really happy with how the wart came out!

I added some supra colour to the eyes, using the colours and technique described in my last post on Miss Havisham. I then powdered the face and added some contour around her face with a grey eye shadow. I then used a stippling brush and dabbed some red supra colour on top of the flakey skin. I didn't like the effect that this gave, as I thought it looked too red and intense. I don't want the skin to look as inflamed as this, I just want it to look a bit sore. I decided to practise taking the makeup all the way to her clothing and I thought that I should add another patch of dry skin on her chest as I thought her skin looked too perfect if not. I am really happy with the necklace used here because it looks slightly old and dusty, but the jewels are still shiny, as described in the book. I used the duo lash glue to create the cut lip effect, as shown in a previous post.

I bought a wig cap to go on my model's head before I applied the wig as before i struggled with getting all the model's hair out of the way and smoothed down. The image below shows how the wig look when I first put it on. 

I decided that her hair would not have been re-done or touched up after her wedding day and so therefore whatever hair style Miss Havisham would have had in her hair would not look the same as it did on the day. I decided that she would have worn her hair in the traditional early victorian style, with a centre parting, tight curls down the side of her face, and the back of her hair in a bun. I thought that the curls would have dropped out and look a bit matted and that the bun would have, at least, started to fall out. 

Front view without veil.

Side view without veil.

The Final Look

I am really happy with how the look turned out, with the realistic looking wart, the messy grey wig and the pale skin, however I wasn't happy with how the dry skin looked. I noticed that when I put the foundation on top of the flour mixture, the flaky texture of the flour was covered, so it looked smoother and less dry. To solve this, I will try putting the foundation on first and then the flour over the top. I also thought that the dry skin looked too red and intense. I didn't want the skin to look as inflamed as this, I just wanted it to look a bit sore. I will therefore add less red next time and have a lighter hand when using my stippling brush.

Initially I had hoped to include her hands, in the image, resting on a crutch-headed stick, as this is how Miss Havisham is described in the film. However, I realised that if I wanted to include this in my final image, then the image would be very zoomed out and so the detailing of the face makeup would not be seen so well. The fact that I would have to add makeup to both her hands would also take up valuable time in my assessment and so I therefore decided to no longer use the crutch-headed stick in my final image.