Thursday 3 August 2017

Zombie SFX

After receiving numerous questions about the spontaneous 'SFX Zombie Arm' that I posted on my social media about a week ago, I've decided to write everything you need to know in one step-by-step blog post. 




If you are currently practicing SFX make-up whether that be for your studies, a personal hobby or you simply would like to impress your friends at Halloween, creating a Zombie effect is something very manageable and customisable. There are no strict rules for, essentially, making a mess. Projects like these are good for beginners or when you just want to use up the scraps left in the bottom of your SFX box.

So, you will need:

  • Liquid Latex / Body Wax or Clay
  • Red, Blue, Yellow, Black and White Body Paint
  • A small, blunt applicator for your latex that you don't mind ruining (I use cotton buds and simply remove the cotton)
  • Three or more sponges / make-up wedges with small holes picked out of the surface
  • Dark eyeshadows of your choice 
  • A fine brush for final detail

As you can see its a fairly minimalistic project, all you need to remember is: 
Less is more, you can always add but you can't take away, the more textures you can get into your sponges, the more detail you can put into your piece and PATIENCE IS KEY! You don't want to be smudging all of your hard work.

I encourage you to do a patch test on yourself or whoever you're working on incase of irritation or allergic reaction.


The Method

Step one:

First of all you want to cover the arm or the area you're working on in your white body paint using the sponges or any brush of your choice. Don't worry about the neatness, or being able to see your sponge or brush strokes, this layer just creates a base for the rest of our paints, takes the pinkness out of our skin and allows the body paint that is being applied over it to have a more intense pigment. 

Step two:

Once your base layer has dried, you want to take your sponges and starting with yellow, cover the area in a light, stippling motion to capture the texture of your sponge creating a naturally, bruised and damaged effect. You then want to repeat this using the red. Although you want a light effect, make sure not to dilate your paints too much if using water-based body paint due to dripping and smudging of previous layers. 

Step Three:

Now once all of that is dry, we can begin to use our Latex. As we are using the Latex for our wounds and boils etc, there is really no guide to follow. Feel free to be original and make it your own, but try not to go over the top or else the detail for surrounding areas will be lost. I tend to stick to the rule of one main wound and then incorporate the rest of the area with smaller abrasions and boils. This also allows me to concentrate my paint more around the main wound which then feeds into the surrounding tissue, this ties in with the rest of the piece. 

If your Latex is quite tacky like mine, a useful tip is to have a little bit of water on hand to dip your applicator or finger into, this just helps with moulding your wounds and allows more control. 

Step Four:

After your Latex is completely dry, you then want to redo the second step but with more concentration in your paints. Again you want to start with your yellow and just stipple the entire area, repeat with red. You then need to mix some red and black together to create an old, dried blood effect and apply that where you feel necessary. I simply use the lid of my paints when I mix colours and then just wash them out when I finish. I applied the darker red more towards the bigger wound and the fingers which adds to the decay.

Step Five:

Now using your fine brush, you can begin adding detail. I use the same colour routine as I do when I'm creating layers with the sponge, but with the brush I go over the latex. So starting with yellow, move onto your reds just cover all of your latex until you're satisfied with the appearance. I feel you get the best results when your paints are quite concentrated. I also like to blend them out a little bit to help them blend in and show how the wound/boil is lifted. 

You can start working into the rest of your hand now as well, I like to use the darker red to shape my knuckles and the natural wrinkles on my fingers to make them look worn. I also worked into the my hand by using my finger to drag the dark red paint and create a lifeless, bruised effect on the skin. 

Step Six:

Using the same fine brush you can now start working with the black body paint. To add to the decayed theme, I like to paint the tips of my fingers and then use my fingers to smudge and drag the black up my fingers. How far you take it is up to you but I usually just take it about 1cm above my nail. I also lined my nail beds in black and smudged that until it was all nicely blended and I was happy with the effect. 

With the excess black on your finger, you may also want to do some slight, shading on the rest of your hand, for example to define the bones in your wrist or knuckles etc. 

Step Seven:

Continuing to use the black paint you want to go back to your paint brush and just top each of your boils slightly with the black paint to make them look old. If you have any open wounds you also want to add some black around the bottom to show depth and then taking the dark red just fill in the rest of the wound making sure to blend the colours.

Step Eight:

Now using the blue paint, you want to add some more bruising with the sponge technique. If your blue isn't to the shade you would like, you could always mix it with some black to give it more depth. You want to be careful with the blue and what colours you use it on as it changes very easily on lighter and darker bases. I focused my blue on the dark colours such as the main wound and very lightly on the hand and finger area. 

Step Nine:

Finally, you want to add some dark shadow to take the shine off your paints and set them basically. I used a dark shade of purple and just lightly brushed it over where I felt it needed to be. 

And that is it! All together it took me around two hours to complete but as it is a non-stop process, really, it doesn't feel very long at all. 

I hope I was able to answer your questions and help anyone who wants to try this out for themselves, all comments and suggestions are welcome below!



Thanks!





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Friday 24 March 2017

6 Tips For Writing the Perfect Essay

It's coming to that time of year when we are suddenly bombarded with essay after essay and we all know this is the worst feeling. I have never been the type to just be able to write an essay of the top of my head and if I do, Im never really happy about it. We've all been writing essays since the early stages of high school an they've only ever got harder from there, so here are my 6 tips that I always go by to create my perfect essay!



1.
The most important, that I can stress enough, is to find a plan that works for you! I found mine many years ago and from that moment on, revising and preparing myself for an essay got a hell of a lot easier. Its so worth finding a plan that suits you because you can keep hold of it and use it whenever needed, to keep you on track! There are so many elements you need to include into a good essay that are almost impossible to remember just off the top of your head. Lucky for you, I am willing to share my trusty essay plan with you and I strongly suggests you try it out!

- Think really hard about your title and first sentence. Make them eye-catching and not generic, really capturing the readers attention. As we are catching attention its important to quickly explain what you're going to be talking about for the next several paragraphs. This will strike interest in your essay.

- Use profesional terminology. Thinking from the readers point of view, there is nothing more boring  than reading generic terminology over and over again. To introduce an educated, refreshed tone to your essay look up some alternates for common words, especially those at the start of a new sentence or paragraph. For example however, can be replaced by, without regards to. Also use terminology appropriate to your subject and remember to don't over do it! Or else you just sound like you're using big words to sound smarter. 

- Formulaic Structure. Very important. Of course the order is Introduction, Body, Conclusion but remember its asking your question, explain your findings/research, answering your question. Make sure every sentence has a purpose, if it doesn't discard it, and sentences and paragraphs link to each other fluidly. To be smart consider using a counter argument to show you understand how your topic can be viewed differently but make sure each paragraph advances your ideas. 

- Practice, Practice, Practice! Follow a clear guide and write as much as you can just to improve your structure and grammar, for example write a blog!

- Make sure grammar and vocabulary are 100% correct. If you don't proof read your essay, its clear for the reader to see and having errors in there instantly brings down your grade, which we don't want.

- Read the requirements for your essay! Make sure you're not writing your perfect essay for the wrong topic and study your brief before you start.

2.
Now moving onto more creative ways to help you with your essay, I like to start off by using a grid. I create 2/3 columns and on one side write the requirements from my brief and on the other side I go through my studies and fill in what can be placed where. And suddenly you have the basis for you essay!

I am currently writing an essay on applying and challenging Apocolypto (Mel Gibson 2006) to Joseph Campbell's universal narrative theory (The Hero With A Thousand Faces). This is the grid I used to gather my initial research.



3.
Once you have completed the graph, go through it and pick out relevant points. Because, trust me, you get a lot of information by doing this. Just simply create a rough list of the points you'll like to use and I personally write them in no order, just as i see them when looking through. Then later go back and colour mark each point and matching/connect them to each other and you'll begin to see potential paragraphs form, although this point is quite messy and unorganised it really works for me


4.
Now I've linked my points together into groups and I roughly know how many I am going to make in the essay. I once again, revisit the list and using small, different coloured, circle stickers, I label my groups from strongest to weakest. It is important in an essay that you start with your strongest point and end with your weakest! But in creative essays you have a bit more leeway with your order but its still helpful to do so because everything should be backed up with solid reason. Remember you picked these specific points out of many so even your weakest one is still a good one.


5.
Organising and expanding on your points is the next step, a very critical step also. Personally I like to do this using a series of bubbles and mind maps. I found over the years that I work better when begin creative and making my revision look appealing. But there are many other ways you could do it. Maybe a simple organised list, different coloured pens which represent each group, arrows, post it notes etc. Anything to just make your essay become clear. 


6.
The final step before starting your essay is to create a system which allows you to fully focus on what you're talking about at that particular time and also work out how to make your essay sound more fluid. For me, I use post it notes. I write a brief summary, usually in bullet points and number the post it note. For example, introduction, paragraph 1, paragraph 2 etc. By this point I have a clear idea of what I'm going to write but I still need something to give me that focus. So I take the post it notes one by one and once I've covered the post it note I discard it and grab another one. And all of sudden your essay is complete!


I really hope I was able to help you with your essay and that this system works for you! All comments and suggestions are welcome below.

Thanks!


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Fresh Start

Hello!

To all of those who have visited my blog before, you can see that I've changed it quite a bit and as my themes have changed along with myself. I've removed the lot. It got a bit too random and confusing on what I'm about. 

To all of those who haven't visited my blog before, I'm Amanda and I write a lifestyle blog. Welcome! 

My life has changed a lot over the past year, I've moved out, started Uni and my interests and hobbies have drastically changed. I'm still passionate about exploring, health and DIY's but I will also be documenting my life at university whilst includes my thoughts, my experiences, trips and tricks and lot to do with film!

I hope you enjoy my new blog and feel free to comment what you think or any suggestions!

Thanks!

 

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