“What did you do on the weekend?” or “Got any plans this evening?”

Conventional questions I get asked at work all the time, whether out of sincerity or to fill the conversational void, they get asked. And my never failed response is, “oh nothing much”.

And yet we all know this is far from the case. In fact if you took a glance at my schedule, you’ll see every night I have something planned. And more often than not has to do with either cosplay, this blog or working on my portfolio.

Lookbooks take up a lot of my time, not just because I like to shoot in advanced, but because I tend to re-shoot them several times before I have a set of photos I feel are good enough to be put on this blog. But how exactly do you tell someone, who most likely isn’t that interested in your evening to begin with “I’m going to put on a lot of makeup, sit in my bedroom and take photos of myself”. Hmm… suddenly, “Going to work on my blog this evening” doesn’t sound as social inept anymore!

Yes, I’ve always wondered how dedicated bloggers with full time jobs outside of blogging even introduce the topic of their “other life”. Do you guys even bring it up? Or are you like me, juuust keep it to myself and not mention it at all?

P.S: Props to me, I finally linked Fables on my FaceBook page, where I’m linked with all my co-workers. So… step 1 right?

Since seeing a similar look online (but with silver diamonds), I knew I had to give this look a shot. It’s not as polished as I had hoped it would be, but I suspect that is in part due to my lack of photo shopping.

Gluing the gems on was obviously the most time consuming part. And I couldn’t eat or drink anything, so I made sure to do the lips last! The eyes were purposely left with a “soft’ smokey look, as I wanted the attention to go right to my lips. Other than that, hope you enjoy

How to reproduce:

Face
Apply some MAC Prep & Prime all over the face after washing and moisturising your face. Then I applied Revlon’s ColorStay in Sand Beige, the coverage is great! Unfortunately this particular shade is a touch too dark for me, I think I may need to mix it with a lighter foundation. (Though you probably can’t tell since my lighting is very strong). Conceal dark circles, redness and blemishes with Bobbi Brown Creamy Concealer in Beige (this is my favourite concealer, I need to review it!). I chose not to seal with powder for a dewy look.

Cheeks
To achieve higher cheekbones, I applied MAC’s Blush in Azalea just under the apples of my cheek, then NARS Albatross on the apples of my cheeks, forehead, bridge of nose, jaw line and chin.

Eyes
Prime eyelids with MAC Studio Studio Finish Concealer SPF30+ in NC20, then I used NYX’s Winter in Moscow palette to create the smokey eye look. I unfortunately don’t know the name of the colours I used, but basically I used a lighter shimmery shade for my lid, a medium shimmer for my crease and a dark matte grey for the outer corner of my eye. I used the white shadow for the inner corner of my eye and brow bone.

Lined my upper and lower lash line with MAC Technakohl Liner in Graphblack, curled my lashes and applied 1 coat of L’Oreal’s Telescopic Mascara in Black.

I extended my brows using Lancome’s Le Crayon in Poudre Mahogany. My brows are naturally very dark, so I’m thinking I may need to get a darker brow pencil for the brows to appear more seamless.

Lips
Lined and filled in my lips using Savvy by DB’s Lip Liner in Poppy. Then using DUO lash glue, and a pack of small red gems I picked up from Riot, one by one glue each gem to my lips. I started by creating an outline first, then filling them in, much time later, done!

Shimmering Slate, Illuminating Indigo, Glistening Green, Brilliant Bronze, Pearlescent Plum

Pros:

• Fantastic price
• Very pigmented
• Smooth application
• Strong staying power

Cons:

• Can flake off under warm water
• Sharpening can be messy

Price: $7.95AU

Where: Priceline

One of the problems with reading primarily American / British beauty blogs is that half the products they talk about, I can’t easily test / try out without buying it online (and even that can present it’s own set of obstacles). So when I made my weekly voyage into Priceline, I was talking to one of the SA about trying to find a creamy pencil liner that doesn’t budge. She recommended this.

Saavy by DB is a local brand, made in Germany, but distributed within Victoria (state loyalty!)

What I loved most about this liner is how it glides on my lids, absolutely no tugging at all (a personal pet peeve of mine, looking at you NYX pencil eye liners ). The colour pay off is amazing, exactly how it appears on the pencil. It goes on very creamy, and after about 20 seconds it dries and is almost impossible to budge. I wear mine to work, 14 hours later, you will notice hardly any wear.

And the best part is how cheap it is! The average MAC liner is around $30 – 35ish, so these are amazing! In fact after trying out the black, I had to go back and buy every colour, I’m a bit of a collector at heart.

My only complaint would be sharpening them, I personally haven’t done so yet (a little goes a long way), but given how soft and creamy the colour is, I think you could run into quite a bit of wastage during sharpening. Still, for $8, totally worth it

P.S: Since discovering Savvy by DB, I thought it would be cool start a Local Luxe series and include more local / Australian makeup brands on my blog So I will try my best to hunt them down, try them out and let you guys know whether they measure up Feel free to recommend brands if you know of any!

Yay! The finished products I think like every other cosplayer, I can see the flaws and I just hope you guys can’t! I haven’t had an official shoot with either costume, so for now they won’t be appearing in their own gallery on Extreme Motion. I need to wait for warmer weather because I was literally freezing in all these photos hehe.

Shidou Hikaru

I can’t wait for warmer weather for this photo! I have a ton of ideas! But more importantly, I can’t wait till my Fuu and Umi are with me to do our official shoot!

Xiao Qiao

The fans! Oh, the relentless “fan” puns I got that day <3 There is a ton of detail missing from this costume, I really hope I finish it off before I get to my shoot~ These fans are not wind friendly (they hit me in the face several times), but they are very light and sturdy! Let's face it, awesome fans -made- this costume =D

Hope you enjoyed my costumes for Manifest 2010! Will annouce it here when I get my galleries for them on Extreme Motion up! Now it’s pretty much back to work for me, and hopefully once I have some time to recover (and catch up at work), I’ll be back on the sewing machine to bring you some new costumes Seriously, why can’t making costumes BE my job!?

Like every year, I completed 2 costumes for Manifest. The first (and most time consuming) was Shidou Hikaru thanks for her sword, gems etc. And the second was Xiao Qiao. Unfortunately I only have 1 in progress photo of Xiao Qiao

Shidou Hikaru

I wasn’t keen on paying $50+ for a petticoat, so I decided to make my own based on one Sefie lent me. It was a bit of a pain, but at least it turned out perfect AND was much cheaper!

Red skirt and tunic were some of my favourite parts. Probably not as much as the cape… it was a pain to make, but came out perfect!

Hikaru’s wig was not hard to do, just annoyingly time consuming :/ I had to order a second long wig and cut out a bunch of wefts from it. Sew three together till I had 8 “bunches”, then I would glue them one by one to the short wig layer by layer.

Then I braided it and that would be Hikaru’s seamless ponytail! It looked great, but it’s not something I’d be keen to try again Took me 3-4 hrs all up. I had to use this method because none of the stand alone wefts were long enough and using a clip in ponytail wouldn’t provide that natural seamless look.

The most annoying part is that length of the long wig wasn’t 100% even, so the braid is starting to come undone a little, will probably re-braid and apply some hair spray before I do my official shoot.

Xiao Qiao

Unfortunately like I said above, I have only one in-progress shot of Xiao Qiao The hardest part was creating a pattern for the skirt, seriously. The skirt is like an uneven wrap, so it did take a bit of trial and error, so glad it worked out somehow in the end. And dyeing this was no walk in the park either, took about 1-2 days total of continous soaking, dipping, drying, soaking, dipping, drying etc Still, the result was awesome! Very happy with how the dye creeped

I really should have embroidered this part to be more authentic, but I was running short of time and turned to my paints to save me :/ I hate when that happens!

I apologise before hand, I will be spamming this blog with about 3 posts recapping the making of my costumes for Manifest this year Let the photo spam begin!

Swords

This year (like most years) I was one of the judges for the cosplay competition. I thought it would be a neat idea for all 3 judges to cosplay from the same series, so I suggested we do the Magical Girls from Magical Knight Rayearth! Fuu, Umi and Hikaru. I was Hikaru, and decided to make everyone’s gems and swords…. cause I’m nuts like that XD

All swords started out this way (except Umi’s, just because Umi’s sword was SOOO easy in comparison, hardly any progress shots for Umi)

After much sanding and slicing the blades were shaped to look like this! Much love and thanks to Toby for helping me with this, we rotated and took turns with the sander @_@ Took us over 2 weekends to finish this, by the end of it I was literally coughing up saw dust XD

So this is how the end of my sword was done, the reason for the groove on one side of each blade was so we could embed a strong thick piece of wood down the center, it would act as the inner core strength for each sword. When you weilding a 2 metre sword around, you want to make sure it is very strong!

Glueing everything together =D

I carved the hilt of Fuu’s sword out of flower foam! This stuff gets EVERYWHERE, Sefie warned me before hand so I made sure to do everything outside.

Painted the blades with chrome, love the finish for them Here I have to thank my dad, having had years of woodworking experience (he built a lot of the furniture we have at home), he taught me a lot about how to obtain smooth finishes etc

I made the hilt for my sword out of wonderflex, I -love- wonderflex. Later this year I’ll be doing another order for armour related cosplay =D

Swords are done, minus the paint and gems! I didn’t get a finished photo of all of them together But the judges and I are planning a group photoshoot very soon, so you’ll get to see them completed in all their glory soon!

Resin
This was the first time I tried my hand at casting crystal resin, and it certainly paid off! I think when you see the finish produce you’ll agree that crystal resin was the way to go rather than just painting the gems on.

There isn’t much too it. I made the models first out of clay, then I created mould from them (the yellow stuff), THEN I just poured in the correct amount of resin and I was good to go! Obviously there is a little more to it than just that (a lot of sanding involved and glossing) I made everyone’s gems, and whilst it took forever (and FYI wet resin tastes bitter… eww), I’m glad I managed to get through it because the pay off was awesome!

Fans

I bought the white fans from a store in America a while ago, and went paint / foam crazy on them! I only seem to have one in-progress shot. Using my makeup mixing plate to mix the paint @_@ My hands were covered in paint by the end of it lol

And that’s it for props! Next will be in-progress costume shots!

I was aiming for an innocent, sweet yet dark look for this entry. I’m… still not sure I completely hit the mark, but I think I came close. Altering the shape of my brows really pulled it all together. This is the wig I have set aside for some future Yuffie cosplay, and I love how it looks on me. Makes me ALMOST tempted to cut my hair this short, though I can see my partner freaking out already.

I’ve become so addicted to playing around with my “studio” lights (I say “studios” because all I’m really using are two $20 lamp shades from Ikea lol). See how different the feel of the four smaller photos are compared to the middle photo? and all I did was move closer to the camera by a few inches! Amazing After Manifest, I will probably get a couple more lights to see what else I can come up with

Instead of just listing the products I used, I’ve decided to turn them into tutorials instead. Hopefully people will find them to be a lot more useful

How to reproduce:

Face
Apply 2 pumps of Revlon Photo Ready in Shell all over the face, don’t forget to blend into neckline. Conceal dark circles, redness and blemishes with Bobbi Brown Creamy Concealer in Beige. Then seal with a light dusting of MAC Select Sheer / Loose in NC15.

Eyes
Prime eyelids and around the eyes with NYX Eyeshadow Base in 02 (pearl white). Apply a liberal amount of NYX’s Eyeshadow in Rust all over the lid with a focus on the crease, wing out to the side and apply under the eyes as well. Apply NYX’s Eyeshadow in Prune just above your crease, blend well. Next using MAC’s Technakohl Liner Graphblack, line 2/3 of your upper and lower lash line, including your waterline. Then extend the liner to create a wing like effect. Use MAC’s Eyeshadow in Carbon to re-trace these lines and smudge it out, then use it to go over the crease with a wet brush to intensify the look. Remember to wing out your eyeshadow. Add some MAC’s Eyeshadow in White Frost to your brow bone and inner corner of your eye.

Curl your lashes, and apply two coats of Covergirl Lash Blast in Very Black.

For the brows, brush them out, then shape them using your concealer. I flatted my eyebrows by concealing the “high points”. Then extended them to align with my eyeshadow with Lancome’s Le Crayon in Poudre Mahogany. Apply a coat of clear gel if your brow hairs need to be set.

Lips
Prime my lips with any matte, non-greasy lip balm. Then outline and fill in my lips with NYX’s Jumbo Lip Pencil in Vixen. I use a lip brush for precision. Finish off with a liberal amount of Chanel’s Aqualumiere Gloss in 17.

Last cook off, after slaving in the kitchen I felt I needed a bit of a pick me up. I didn’t want to try anything too heavy, thought I’d go for a very very light smokey look (1 lid and 1 crease colour). Unfortunately right now my skin has decided to betray me and my eczema is taking over the areas around my eyes (hard to tell in the photo, much more obvious close up), which meant using liner on my upper lids was out of the question

But I saw it has an opportunity to use my individual false lashes to add a kick of glam to my look Not only do they make my lashes look longer, they fake liner too~ I’ll never get sick of using them!

Usually, I sketch out my look books before I try them out, I also plan time in my schedule to shoot them. Not this look, I came home one night and felt rather inspired to play around with my individual false lashes. Glued one by one and the look just grew from there. Very “organic”.

I think this is one of my favourite looks thus far, it’s very simple yet still quite dramatic! This look has officially gotten me addicted to individual false lashes, I promise I will have to post up a tutorial eventually

Also I wanted to note, I didn’t use any eyeliner on my upper lash line, so all that is thanks to these amazing lashes!

Products used:

Face
Bobbi Brown Skin Foundation SPF 15 PA+ Sand
MAC Mineralize Skinfinish Natural Light Medium
Bobbi Brown Creamy Concealer Beige

Cheeks
NARS Blush Orgasm
NARS Highlighter Albatross

Eyes
MAC Paint Pot Painterly
MAC Eyeshadow Naked Lunch
MAC Eye Kohl Facinating
Ylure Individual Lashes Medium
1000 Hour Individual Lashes Short
Covergirl Lash Blast Very Black

Lips
MAC Studio Finish Concealer SPF30+ NC20
MAC Lip Pencil Cherry
YSL Lip Twins 7C

I know this is kinda of late, but I never got around to sorting through the behind the scene photos Toby managed to take during the photoshoot, so I figured I’d share a few of them here

I love the studio we shot in, so much space and great lighting! If only I had a place as great as this to do my weekly Lookbooks

Getting interviewed, but please note my lovely makeup artist’s dog! His name is Frankie, and he is the friendly dog ever!! I absolutely loved him <3 <3

Getting my makeup done, this is the 2nd time in my entire life I’ve had someone else do my makeup! I’m still on the fence as to whether I like it or would just rather do it myself…

The set up, time to get shooting!

My first costume, Kozue. I wish I could afford all the lights and reflectors used for my own photoshoots!

That’s a wrap It was an awesome experience I will be forever grateful for! If you would like to see more photos, head over to Extreme Motion~