Introduction to Quentin

Quentin's Character Profile

Claudia has an imaginary boyfriend, Quentin, who is long suffering and a constant disappointment to her. They don’t live together but he visits regularly and they talk on the telephone if he can’t get in to see her. As he is part of her imagination his appearance changes to suit her mood. Sometimes he will be a David Beckham looking guy, whilst in another scene he will appear as a Pete Docherty type, Daniel Craig type or a Hollyoaks Babe. If she is having a bad day he will morph into an uncouth couch potato chav with all that brings with it.

He is as into the horror film genre as she and into role-playing to suit her whims and moods.

Claudia has a paranoid suspicion that he is constantly having affairs behind her back and keeps him firmly under her thumb, sometimes restraining him or keeping him prisoner in one of the rooms.

My Chosen Key Word

I chose 'Red rave' as my key word to inspire me for my creation of Quentin. I found images of raves with red lighting and they looked very chaotic, out of control, overwhelming, claustrophobic and energised. The rich red colours of the raves immediately made me think of blood, pain and torture, but lead me to think of blood thirsty vampires. I think it would work if he was a vampire because Claudia got scratched in the eye and made blind by a werewolf and in many horror films the werewolves and vampires fight against each other, suggesting that Claudia wants her imagery boyfriend to protect her and possibly get revenge on the werewolf society. The chaotic and out of control energy reflects how Claudia wants to control Quentin and how he is always on edge as he doesn't know what Claudia's emotions will be and what she will turn him into. I think the strobe lights of a rave could represent how quickly Claudia could change his appearance, just like how you can see someone in one flash but by the next they could be gone or in a different position. I also think a red rave could reflect his love for dark and shocking horror films and how you can lose your imagination in the film, just like you can lose your sense of reality or control in a rave. 

http://ak5.picdn.net/shutterstock/videos/1802288/preview/stock-footage-crowd-
in-large-stadium-at-rave-party-view-from-behind-red-illumination.jpg

https://farm3.staticflickr.com/2685/4436976528_b168b4b876_n.jpg

Claudia's Hair Chart and Styling

My Chosen Hair Design

This is my chosen hair design. Claudia likes to dress up and change her look depending on what horror film she is watching at the time, and as I have been inspired by Annabelle's eye makeup, I thought I would make the reference more clear by adapting her hair style to suit my model. My model doesn't have a fringe, so I will just give my model a middle parting and then pull both sides into plaits, starting from just above the ears. I think it would look effective is Claudia's hair wasn't as neat as Annabelle's because she may have been watching the Conjuring whilst lying down or for a few days and so it would have gotten a little bit messy. I decided to include the red ribbons in her hair, securing the plaits, because I think the red ribbons is what makes the hairstyle so distinctive. I also like that the ribbons are red as it would bring out the redness in her eyes and lips. 

Annabelle the doll.
http://www.flickeringmyth.com/wp-cont
ent/uploads/2014/08/AB-05364r.jpg

My Chosen Hair Chart.

Styling

I decided to take inspiration from the horror film Under The Skin as I have already taken some inspiration from her with the use of red lips, but I thought that the styling would be what really linked Claudia to the film. I was inspired by this image of Scarlett Johansson in the film wearing a big fluffy coat. I think that if Claudia has seen this film she would have wanted a coat like this one! Even though it is very hot in Luisiana, she would be indoors with the air con on so she would be able to wear something like this. I think that maybe she watched this film first, but loved the coat so much that she kept it on when she adapted her look whilst watching the Conjuring. 

http://sonicboommusic.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/under_the_skin-1.jpg

Development of Claudia's Face Charts

Design 4

For this design I wanted to show that she had scratched her own eyes out through the fear of hallucinations, so I have shown four scratch marks that have scarred over both of her eyes and I will colour them as shown here. I will show that she has been blinded with the milky white contacts in both eyes. Other than the eyes, I think another main feature of the makeup look is her cheeks. I took inspiration from Annabelle the doll in Conjuring to make them look really blotchy and almost like grazes. I kept the lips very natural looking so that they didn't draw attention away from the cheeks and the eyes; I kept the eyebrows very natural looking too. I decided to lightly contour the face to give some definition and I will give a dewy finish to the skin to make her look stressed and over heated. 

Design 5

In this look I took inspiration from the Conjuring and also Under The Skin. I took inspiration from Annabelle's very dark, bold and sunken in eyes to create this black smudged, messy lookig eyeshadow all round her eyes. I have kept the eyebrows very natural looking so that they don't distract from the rest of the makeup look, making it look messy. I took inspiration from Under The Skin's female character, played by Scarlett Johansson, for the red lips, however I wanted them to look slightly more smudges and as if they were wearing off because I doubt the Claudia would be constantly touching up her lips after eating, drinking or talking. I didn't give Claudia any blush because I wanted her skin to look more warm and bronzy with the contour shade. I wanted the skin to have a very dewy and almost sweaty finish because she would be in such a warm climate. Brigette A. Myre showed that someone was human by using water to spray over their face to make them look more sweaty and she also made them look more bronzy; both a contrast to the more pale and matte vampires. In this look I again wanted her to have scratched across her eyes, but I decided to make it look like she had been scratched in one eye by a werewolf or dog of some kind, therefore there would only be three scratch marks. I thought it may look creepier if she was only blond in one eye as people are sometimes more attracted to symmetry. 

Design 6 (Chosen design)
This is my chosen design. It is almost exactly the same as design 5, however I have given her some redness around the eye that has been scratched by a werewolf to make it look like it is still saw and she itches and rubs it. In this look I took inspiration from the Conjuring and also Under The Skin. I took inspiration from Annabelle's very dark, bold and sunken in eyes to create this black smudged, messy lookig eyeshadow all round her eyes. I have kept the eyebrows very natural looking so that they don't distract from the rest of the makeup look, making it look messy. I took inspiration from Under The Skin's female character, played by Scarlett Johansson, for the red lips, however I wanted them to look slightly more smudges and as if they were wearing off because I doubt the Claudia would be constantly touching up her lips after eating, drinking or talking. I didn't give Claudia any blush because I wanted her skin to look more warm and bronzy with the contour shade. I wanted the skin to have a very dewy and almost sweaty finish because she would be in such a warm climate. Brigette A. Myre showed that someone was human by using water to spray over their face to make them look more sweaty and she also made them look more bronzy; both a contrast to the more pale and matte vampires. I decided to make it look like she has been scratched across the eye by a werewolf  as I thought it added an aspect of fear to the look and I would make them look like scars. I would also make her look blind in the crotched eye using milky white contact lenses.

Is Claudia also channeling Under The Skin?

I decided that Claudia should not just dress up as Annabelle from the Conjuring as I felt like I was just copying a look that had already been created; therefore I decided to bring the film Under The Skin in the mix and have Claudia also channel Scarlett Johansson's more glamorous look in the film. I think the three things that stand out the most to me about this look is the big fur coat, the red lip and the big hair. I really liked the idea of giving Claudia plaits as that is such a feature of Annabelle's look, but I thought the fur jacket and red lip could add to the look, without looking too overdone. I think that maybe Claudia had watched Under The Skin first but loved the coat so much that she kept it on whilst watching her next film, Conjuring. I don't think that Claudia would have spent much time touching up her lips after eating and drinking and after days of wearing it, therefore I think it would be fading and rubbing off. 

After looking into this character's look, I will go back and make some more face charts with a mix of Conjuring and Under The Skin to create a great look for Claudia.

http://sonicboommusic.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/under_the_skin-1.jpg

http://i.ytimg.com/vi/NoSWbyvdhHw/maxresdefault.jpg

Fashion and Horror

I took inspiration from Ground Zero's makeup look in Paris Fashion Week, Spring 2014. The title of the collection was Graphic Geisha. The makeup designer explained the look as a 'traditional Geisha look, with the classic white foundation base, but with a make over' of 'colourful graphics painted on top in an asymmetrical manner to show off a futuristic streak.' The look is finished with a glossy red lip. The hair is pulled back into a sleek ponytail to complement the strong make-up style.

http://www3.pictures.stylebistro.com/it/Ground+Zero
+Spring+2014+Backstage+OSeIC8YN7Ogl.jpg

My Interpretation

I really liked how strong and individual the make-up look was so I chose to recreate it. I first applied foundation all over the face, focusing mainly on the outer rim of the face. I then used tape to mark out where I wanted all the sharp, straight lines to be. I filled in the lines with some white supra colour. I then used tape again to line up where I wanted the yellow lines to be; however I found that this took off a lot of the white supra colour so I had to go over that again with a small angled brush to keep the lines very neat. I wanted to make the orange blend into the yellow so that there was a contrast between the very harsh lines and the blended colours. I then finished the look off with a faded red lip, as I didn't want the lip to be as prominent as it was in the image above. 

I am really happy with how it came out as the lines look very sharp and straight, and the yellow is blended into the orange smoothly. However I am not happy with the eyeliner because it kept transferring onto her eyelids whenever she opened her eyes. I think this was because I used supra colour and not a gel eyeliner, which would have worked more effectively. I think I could have also brushed through the eyebrows to make them look slightly neater. If I had time, I would have spent longer on the lips and made them very bold and precise, however I am happy with how the more blended/faded lips look. 

Claudia's Face Charts

When I was designing Claudia's face charts, I kept in mind that this character would be placed into the TV series True Blood and so my designs would have to fit in with this. I wanted my characters to fit in with the rest of the cast, meaning, for example, I wouldn't suddenly introduce a tan vampire or a vampire that didn't have fangs, because it wouldn't fit. True Blood's head makeup artist, Brigette A. Myre, said that she makes sure to 'keep the humans very bronzed and sweaty (we spray them with water) to serve as a contrast to the vampires who are always cool and collected. This gave me inspiration to make my character look sweaty, which makes sense considering how hot Louisiana would be! I will also experiment with her technique of spraying my character with water to act as sweat droplets. I kept in mind my mind map and the analysis of Claudia's character profile when creating these designs.

Claudia's Eyes

I knew I wanted Claudia to be blind, but I wasn't too sure what her eyes would look like, so I found some images of when the eyes look a milky white colour all over the eye and pupil. The images are found are as follows. 

http://data2.whicdn.com/images/43324507/original.jpg

http://en.ilpvideo.com/img/2012/03/31/can-blind-people-open-their-eyes.jpg

http://s245.photobucket.com/user/witchyhoy3/
media/000000/29_wnberlino-058.jpg.html

Design 1

In this look I made it look like she had tried to scratch both her eyes out, meaning she has scars going across both eyes and both her eyes are a milky white colour to show she has gone blind in both eyes. I decided to fill her eyebrows in the normal shape, but make them very dark to channel Annabelle's black eyebrows in the Conjuring. I decided to lightly contour the face to give the face some depth as I think without this, the face could look very flat on camera. I decided to add some redness around the eyes and along the waterline because I wanted to make them look agitated and sore from where she had rubbed them. I was inspired to do the dark lip because Annabelle's lips were very dark and seemed to look a slightly different shade in different clips, so I therefore decided on dark purple to show her dark and vampy side. I will keep the skin dewy and not too pale as I want there to be a contrast between a human's skin and then whatever I decide Quentin's skin to look like. 

Design 2

In this look I went a bit crazy and fun with the makeup look. I was heavily inspired by Annabelle's makeup from the Conjuring. I gave her a bright red blush in circles on the apples of her cheeks only and gave her red lips that had been smudged slightly, both as Annabelle's were in some scenes. Annabelle's big, piercing eyes are a definite main feature of her look and so I wanted to really make the eyes stand out in Claudia's recreation of her; I decided to smudge and messily blend some black eyeshadow all round the eyes to give them a very dark and bold look and to draw attention to them. I like that this design shows that Claudia can be very creative and takes dressing up as the characters she watching seriously, however I think that this look could come across messy and overdone and I think I need to be more individual with it as I am taking so much inspiration from another character's look. In this look I again wanted her to have scratched across her eyes, but I decided to make it look like she had been scratched in one eye by a werewolf or dog of some kind, therefore there would only be three scratch marks. I thought it may look creepier if she was only blond in one eye as people are sometimes more attracted to symmetry. 

Design 3 

In this design I was inspired by Annabelle's eyebrows and how they are very black and thin and very high up on the forehead; therefore I decided to draw them on very high on her forehead and block our her natural eyebrows to creation this exaggerated look. I was also inspired by Annabelle's bright red cheeks for this look and wanted to make them a focus feature in this look and the eyes and lips are more muted. I again decided to make it look like she has been scratched across the eye by a werewolf  as I thought it added an aspect of fear to the look and I would make them look like scars. I would also make her look blind in the crotched eye using milky white contact lenses. I decided to keep the lips a natural colour so that the eyebrows and cheeks are the main focus, as in the design 2 I think there was too much going on, making it look messy. I will keep the skin looking dewy and not too pale, again, to show that she is human and not any other supernatural creature. 

I am happy with all my designs, however because Claudia wants to dress up as the character she is watching in the film, I think it is very easy to copy too much from that character and therefore not make it your own. I will therefore look into another character and try and mix the two to make it more of a unique design. 

Who is Claudia dressing up as?

In Claudia's character profile it states that 'she models herself on a variety of girls often twisting her look to suit whichever film she is watching at the time and there is often a nod to the main character in the current film within her appearance.' I therefore wanted to look into some films that had recently come out in the 21st century and choose one that she could have been watching at that time. I will then incorporate parts of the character's appearance into Claudia's, as if Claudia has decided to dress up as a chosen character. 

I have chosen The Conjuring as the film that will inspire Claudia's look as it came out recently and I think Annabelle the doll has a very distant look and so the audience watching True Blood are more likely to recognise what character Claudia is trying to dress up as. When I look at Annabelle, I firstly notice her very big, dark eyes, her rosy cheeks and her two plaits. I can't imagine that Claudia would have completely dressed up as the characters she was watching but just adapted her look slightly. I will therefore just take a couple aspects of her look and portray them into my creation of Claudia. I will give Claudia two plaits with ribbons on the end as I think this is one of the main features of Annabelle's look that defines her and then I will experiment with adding an aspect of her makeup look as well when I design my face charts.

Annabelle the doll.
http://www.flickeringmyth.com/wp-cont
ent/uploads/2014/08/AB-05364r.jpg

Annabelle the doll.
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-XibsyolHOj4/Um-uD7qGlbI/AA
AAAAAAKIE/IdINOSrQ5Nc/s1600/conjuring2.jpg