MIss Havisham Assessment Part 2

Below are some images from my second Miss Havisham Timed Assessment:

I was quite disappointed with the way these photo's turned out, as they clearly looked very different from the first look. The hair turned out looking more like a beehive than a French Pleat! The fringe was much straighter and I did not curl and back comb it enough. In terms of the make up, I think the make up looked quite similar, although it was a little more exaggerated.

Miss Havisham Assessment Part 1

Below are some images from my first Miss Havisham assessment:

I thought that the final look came out really well. I was really fortunate that my model already had long hair, so it was quite easy to create the desired volume and texture when I back combed it and added the dry shampoo. The shape turned out exactly as I had hoped, and with the use of curling tongs and a comb, I added the curls to the side. I wanted to achieve a slightly lopsided effect with the curls, to make the style look even more deteriorated. I finished off by spraying dry shampoo directly onto the hair to give a greying effect. I do feel like I could have done this slightly better, or used a grey coloured hairspray, because in the photographs, her natural hair colour comes out much stronger, and the dry shampoo makes the hair look slightly more dusty than grey.
In terms of the make up, I am extremely pleased with how it turned out. I do feel like I could have been a bit stronger with my ageing makeup, as again, when photographed, the lines and wrinkled didn't come out as strong as I would have liked. You also cannot see the broken capillary veins at all in the photographs, as they are covered by the hair, which is something I did not take into consideration. Despite all of this, I am very pleased with how the look turned out. 

Miss Havisham Makeup Ideas

For my first Miss Havisham design, I wanted to create her looking very aged and unkempt. I wanted to create a lot of sallowness and sunkeness in the skin from years of bad diet and lack of sunlight. I thought bushy eyebrows would add a nice effect to this look, and I would create flakey, sore-looking lips. 

My second Miss Havisham design I wanted to try and incorporate age spots into the look. I would keep her face very pale, and add some lines and wrinkles in, adding age spots aroung her cheeks and forehead. I then did some research into age spots and found that they are mainly caused by too much exposure to sunlight. ( http://www.healthline.com/health/age-spots#Description ) This would not have worked with the character, as Miss Havisham never went outside, so I decided to leave this idea.

My final Miss Havisham design incorporates aged skin, and broken capillary veins or 'spider veins'. When researching this condition, I found that these can be caused by "a number of factors, such as malnutrition, disease and other  problems that traumatize the body and the immune system." 

http://www.thedermreview.com/broken-capillaries/

Viewed on 5/02/2014

I would also like to incorporate flakes of dry skin around the mouth, to furthur the idea of malnourishment and dehydration. I will add some redness around the eyes, nose and mouth, and using contouring techniques, I will contour the face to give it a sunken look.

Miss Havisham Hair Idea

The hair I would like to create for my final Miss Havisham look will be based on a French Pleat. I plan to use simple, yet effective techniques to achieve the desired look. I want it to be quite a deteriorated look, but still quite graceful. To achieve this, I will back comb all of the hair, using products such as dry shampoo to give it texture and volume. Once this is done, I will then pull it into a secure french pleat, and then begin to loosen certain parts to achieve the look of the hairstyle falling apart.

Estella Makeup Design

For my final Estella look, I would like to keep the makeup very simple, in order to keep it historical. I would like the overall makeup look to be quite plain, but still accentuate certain feautures to keep Estellas natural beauty. To do this, I will add a bit of contour around the eyes to accentuate them, and I will add some rosiness to the lips and cheeks. The Estella that I am portraying is the Estella at the end of the book. Therefore she will be slightly older (Approx. late thirties), so I will be using some ageing techniques to create some lines around the eyes, forehead and mouth.

Estella Hair Ideas

I looked at various photo's on Pinterest for inspiration for my Estella hair. I focussed mainly on up do's that has plaits, twists, rolls and curls, as I wanted to create a soft, feminine look, as mentioned previously. http://www.pinterest.com/leesnyman/estella-inspiration/ 

I also decided to explore the key words "bent", "broken" and "survivor", but I found it really difficult to find hairstyles that expressed these keywords. http://www.pinterest.com/leesnyman/bent-and-broken-hair-inspiration/

I started to experiment on a dolls head, using a variety of techniques we had learned about Victorian hair, and some of the ones I saw on Pinterest.

Here are the looks I created:

Look 1

For this hairstyle I sectioned the hair into 3 sections. The front section I separeted into a middle parting, to give more of an aged look to Estella. I then rolled the middle section around a piece of wadding to give a little bit of height, before pulling the final section into a French Pleat, to add the Victorian element. I like the overall look of this hairstyle, it is not quite as soft as I would like it to be and I think the parting looks a little too harsh.

Look 2 

The second style is very similar to the first, but this time, I pulled the front section into a side parting, and to furthur soften the look, I pulled a few tendrils out at the sides of the head. Although I prefer this look, I think it is a little bit too youthful, and reminds me more of a wedding hairstyle. The middle section also looks a little bit too detached from the rest of the style, in both looks particularly in the profile shot.

Look 3

My final idea was to pull the hair into a bun at the base of the head, with two plaits pulled around from the front of the hair. I think this hairstyle is very pretty, but overall a little too basic, and it doesn't have enough of a Victorian feel to me.

For my final look, I would like to combine elements from Look 1 and Look 2. I will keep the middle parting, but soften it slightly by pulling some hair out on either side and curling them. I will also not be pulling the middle section down more, so that it blends into the hairstyle a lot more. 

Estella

Estella

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-2064629/GREAT-Expectations-Gillian-Anderson-leads-star-cast-BBCs-festive-adaptation-Charles-Dickens-classic.html

Estella is probably one of the most complex characters in great Expectations. We see her at first as a young girl at Miss Havisham's house at she comes across as extremely stuck up, spoiled and very detached.  Pip falls in love with her nonetheless and when she next appears in the story, she has grown into a woman. We find out she has been reared by Miss Havisham to break mens hearts. She warns Pip not to fall in love with her, as she "has no heart". Pip perseveres however, and there is a moment that we see a much softer side of Estella. When Pip learns that Estella is marrying Bentley Drummle, he pays Estella a goodbye visit. She acts very nonchalant about everything and tells Pip that she will probably be out of his thoughts in a week, to which Pip responds: "Out of my thoughts! You are part of my existence, part of myself. You have been in every line I have ever read, since I first came here, the rough common boy whose poor heart you wounded even then. […] Estella, to the last hour of my life, you cannot choose but remain part of my character, part of the little good in me, part of the evil. But, in this separation I associate you only with the good, and I will faithfully hold you to that always, for you must have done me far more good than harm, let me feel now what sharp distress I may. O God bless you, God forgive you!" 

- Quote from Charles Dickens novel 'Great Expectations', Chapter 44. 

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/great_expectations_2012/trailers/11182913/

Estella goes on to marry Drummle, as she was intended for. She endures a long suffering, abusive marriage to him, until he dies (approximately 11 years later) whilst mistreating a horse. A few years later, Estella and Pip meet again. It is the Estella at this point in the story that I would like to base my version of Estella on. She says to Pip :

“Suffering has been stronger than all other teaching, and has taught me to understand what your heart used to be. I have been bent and broken, but - I hope - into a better shape.”

-Quote from Charles Dickens novel 'Great expectations', Chapter 59, pg 379.

http://www.pbslearningmedia.org/resource/gtexp12.ela.lit.everafter/great-expectations-3-happily-ever-after/

I would like to show a much softer side of Estella. She is obviously a little older at this point in the story, and so I will use some of the ageing techniques we learnt, to age her a little bit. I plan to keep the general makeup very minimal, to stay historically accurate. 

In terms of the hair, I would like to keep the overall style very soft. I think of Estella as a survivor, but I think giving the hair too much height would give a much harsher feel to the look than I would like. 

Miss Havisham

Miss Havisham

Miss Havisham's character is typically described as "eccentric", "wealthy" and "insane".  The SparkNotes description of her character is "Miss Havisham is the wealthy, eccentric old woman who lives in a manor called Satis House near Pip’s village. She is manic and often seems insane, flitting around her house in a faded wedding dress, keeping a decaying feast on her table, and surrounding herself with clocks stopped at twenty minutes to nine. As a young woman, Miss Havisham was jilted by her fiancé minutes before her wedding, and now she has a vendetta against all men. She deliberately raises Estella to be the tool of her revenge, training her beautiful ward to break men’s hearts."

Personally I find Miss Havisham to be a very sad woman, who went through something awful when she was younger, and refuses to move on, choosing instead to dwell on the pain and keep it very much alive. It is almost as if she has some kind of Post-traumatic stress disorder and the people around her don't know how to deal with it, so they just indulge her. 
She is a deteriorating woman, someone who stopped taking care of herself years ago. She has not been outdoors or seen any kind of daylight in years and chooses to live in her wedding dress that she has not changed out of since the day she was jilted by her fiancée. 

I watched the 2012 film, with Helena Bonham Carter playing Miss Havisham, and the BBC drama adaptation, with Gillian Anderson starring as Miss Havisham. I found it really interesting how both of these women played the same character so differently. It was interesting to see how other people perceived Miss Havisham. Helena Bonham Carter played a much more theatrical, almost aggressive version of Miss Havisham. She seemed far more spiteful and she definitely captured the eccentricity. 

Gillian Anderson played a much softer side of Miss Havisham. She seemed far more fragile, and delicate and a lot closer the Miss Havisham I had in mind. In terms of the hair, make up and styling, I found Gillian Anderson much more accurate to what I had in mind. I thought her dress was much more historically accurate, and her make up definitely matched the deteriorating description of Miss Havisham in the book. 

 I especially liked the dry, chapped lips she was given, as it gave a much more realistic feel to her character, as someone who didn't eat or drink properly, wash, or go outside, would have horribly dry, decaying skin. She would be dehydrated and would probably look much older than her actual age. 
Miss Havisham also had the same hairstyle she had on her wedding day. This would also mean her hair would be horribly dry, broken and decaying. She would probably have some kind of scalp condition. These are all things I would like to explore for my final Miss Havisham look. 

Cuts, Cut lips and Scratches.

Equipment needed:

-Collodium

-Tuplast

-Fixer Spray

-Derma Shield

-Grease paints/bruise wheel

In our practical session we created cuts on the lip and scratches.

Creating cuts

Instructions:
-Start by applying derma shield to the area desired to protect the skin from the collodium as it is very alcoholic.
-Apply the collodium to the area where you want the cut to be, working fast as it drys very quickly. 
-Squeeze the lip together to create a deep cut appearance.

-Use a cool hair dryer to dry it and then its ready for makeup. I used a mixture of colour from the Kryolan bruise wheel to get the results for my cut.

-For a more gruesome look, or for more os a fresh cut look, just add fake blood or puss.

Creating scratches

-Apply lines of tuplast where you want the marks to be. You can use a small amount of powder on a cotton pad to take the shine away and flatten it out.

-You only need to use a small amount of colour on top of this. Dab it with your finger to blend and make it look less harsh, if you want it to look fresh just add fake blood.

Creating Illness: Sweat, Fever etc.

Equipment needed:

-Moisturiser

-Supracolour palette

-Black stipple sponge

-Brushes 

-Duo glue

-Glycerine

-Water spray

-Pipette

Instructions:

-Heavily moisturise the skin to allow easy blending.

      -Hollow out the face using sepia browns from the Supracolour palette. Apply with brush and     blend in with fingers.

      -Emphasise tired eyes by making the red round the lash lines. 
      -Make the skin appear flushed and rashy using a black stipple sponge and dabbing on red      onto the cheeks, forehead, nose and chin. Blend and dab with fingers.
      -Darken the lips slightly and blend out round the mouth slightly to create the effect of sore         lips.
      -Apply duo glue to the lips. Allow it to dry and start moving the glue to create the effect of          sore, dry lips. 
      -Darken areas of the dried duo glue to create the effect of cracks or sores.
      -Dab glycerine onto the skin to create the effect of sweat. Focus on the forehead, cheeks           and upper lip.
      -Spray water onto the face and around the hairline to make the skin look damp with sweat.    -Using a pipette, drop glycerine under the eye to form a tear drop.

Cuts, Bruises and the Perfect Black Eye

Black Eyes

Equipment needed:

-Moisturiser
-Base
-Supracolour palette
-Bruise wheel
-Soft brush
-Small brush
-Red pencil
-Vaseline

Instructions:
-Moisturise the skin around the eye.
-Apply a light base.
-Using a soft brush, dab on colour from the supracolour palette or the colour wheel, making  sure to start with the lighter colours. 
-Blend in with fingers.
-Gradually working towards the darker colours and building up the bruise blending with  fingers.
-To create more detail, use the smaller brush to add the effect of burst vessels.
-Apply red pencil to the waterline. Blend in for a more natural look.
-Dab on vaseline over the deeper colours of the bruise to create a swollen effect.

Cuts

Equipment needed:

-Plasto wax

-Spatula

-Sealer

-Baby buds

-Hair dryer

-Hair pin

-Wound filler

-Fake blood

-Stipple sponge

Instructions:

-Using a rounded metal spatula, warm up plasto wax on back of hand.

-Smooth the plasto wax onto the skin and build up layers.

-Smooth the edges into the skin for a more natural look.

-Create a cut in the wax using the edge of the spatula.

-Using a baby bud, cover the wax in sealer.

-Dry with a cold hair dryer.

-Stretch out a hair pin to create a thin tool.

-Using the hair pin, apply wound filler to the cut.

-Using a stipple sponge, apply small amounts of fake blood to create the effect of grazing.