For one of my experimentations I wanted to try doing a realistic gender transformation from girl to boy using techniques more advanced than in Drag King makeup. This was imporatant as we see a lot more male to female transformations in society than we do female to male and it can be easier to transform a male to female as it's more about adding layers of makeup whereas a natural, realistic man makeup is much more stripped back. I wanted to use the prosthetic techniques I had learnt in the last unit and the beard/stubble work I had learnt in one makeup. The makeup includes shading and contouring around the eyes, browbone and cheeks to add more depth and stronger looking bone structure, a prosthetic Adams apple, laid on stubble with a mixture of human and crepe hair, hair work as the models hair is actually waist length and makeup on the eyebrows and lips.
Overall I was extremely pleased with how this experiment went. I liked the shape and size of my prosthetic a lot, however I applied it slightly too far over one side which I would need to be more careful about if I were to do it again as this could make it look obviously fake. I also found it difficult making the colouring look natural as the models neck was very pale and this was difficult to match. I need to have more practice in colouring a prosthetic natural skin colours. However I do think the prosthetic was very effective in the overall look, especially from a side view.
From my previous experimentation I decided upon using the stubble technique with lace using pros-aide as glue. However instead of just using human hair in one colour, I thought this looked a little flat so mixed a light brown crepe hair with the dark brown human hair to get the desired stubble colour. This gave a lot more of a natural hair effect and suited the models colouring better. Getting the stubble shape and thickness right took work as I wanted it to look like a natural growth of 2 days but overall I feel it worked very well and was my favourite part of the makeup. There needs to be a slight improvement on how the hair fades out around the neck as it ends in quite a sharp diagonal line but apart from this I am very pleased with the stubble.
The shading and contouring I added on the eyes, brow bone, nose and chin is very subtle but overall I think it does make a difference. I was trying to make the eyes look deeper, the brow bone look heavier and the nose look wider and although the features do still look slightly dainty I think this was effective in making the face look more masculine. I was also happy with the eyebrows as my model has a very high arch in her eyebrows which I took down with makeup and brought the brows closer together. This was effective in making the brow bone heavier and immediately adding a more masculine appearance. Lastly I also thinned and took a little colour away from the lips using concealer as men typically have thinner lips, this also helped the look a lot. Overall I was very happy with this makeup and it helped me to explore gender transformation from female to male a lot better.
