My Make-up Year - 2012!

Today is the last day of 2012 so I wanted to do a final blog post of 2012 to reminisce my amazing make-up year I have had and to go through each month with you all to show you what I have been up to. I really have achieved all my goals and dreams I set in December 2011 taking inspiration from Walt Disney- All our dreams can come true, if we have the courage to pursue them. And one thing that’s come to my attention this year is that a lot of people Instead of realising their dreams, too many people never get started, too busy, or are listing all the reasons why they cannot achieve their dreams, therefore people defeat themselves before they even get started! I am hoping by reading this blog post you will come to realise YOU CAN achieve your dreams because to me being able to get out of bed and do what you love for the rest of the day is beyond words!  And Since I know you sit there and have thought about it, then you have an innate ability to achieve it in 2013! I like to think I can inspire you all for 2013 to achieve dreams after all I achieved mine…

January-

Pastel Photoshoot working with Ryan Handy ready for Spring/Summer 2012.

February-

Working with Pixie Lott doing a variety of make-up looks for all the London Fashion Week shows she attended. 

Working at London Fashion Week for Inbar Spector’s A/W12 collection on Lan Nguyen Make-up team- Sponsored by The Body Shop. 

March-

Gloss Photoshoot working with Ryan Handy. 

Variety of published work & Magnetize Photoshoot with Faye Sampson which was published in C-Heads magazine. My favourite wedding make-up look of the year (mainly because of the daring red lips) 

April-

My Sushi hair and make-up look I created to continue you my Food project with Rich Hinton. 

May-

My Colour Run Lip Series which will continue in 2013 with Jayesh Pankhania

June-

Charles Fox marathon masterclass. Where I was inspired by so many incredible artists that were showcasing their talents. 

July-

Working in Majorca on a photoshoot with photographer Leighton Parry & stylist Joey Bevan. 

A make-up artists dream! I was invited to Berlin with Kryolan Official to visit their factory to see how their make-up is made and to see all the NEW re launch of their products for 2012. 

August-

Gestural Abstraction Body Painting photoshoot with Ryan Handy for Mind Game’s magazine where I am beauty editor. 

My Food project- Sea Food make-up and hair image made front cover on Scratch Magazine 

September-

Working at New York Fashion week. Also spending the week with Willie Green (who owns WeTheUrban Magazine) 

Working at London Fashion Week. Also being invite to the Burberry Prorsum show & being invited to Burberry HQ was amazing. 

October-

Kryolan Official re launch of their products. Working at Look Magazine’s Look Show with Hollie Wakeham. Final images of my ‘Sunglasses’ photoshoot with Jayesh Pankhania. 

Being the head of make-up artists for MUA Cosmetics I created the visual images for one of their best sellers this year- Nail Constellations with photographer Jayesh Pankhania.

November-

Working in Egypt on a Yacht for 9 days for a music video to work with Birgit Oigemeel - an Estonian singer who was the first winner of Estonian Idol Eesti otsib superstaari and Violina 

Mark Wright photoshoot for his His and Hers fragrance. 

December-

Finishing the year of with my Snow Queen of Sweets photoshoot for my Food project with Rich Hinton. 

Final job of 2012 working with The Saturdays! All will be revealed next year what for :)

If you’re passionate about it, unleash it. No matter what you think or what other people think, YOU CAN! Happy New Year creative ones…

Karla

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This is my make-up inspiration for my next Food Project photo-shoot on the theme ‘Snow Queen Of Sweets’ . I simply love the highlighting and snow white skin.

When I started to consider Snow Queen Make-up ideas with a twist of adding sweets II started with interpreting the desired look. In the fairy tale, “The Snow Queen” is the queen of snowflakes so her snowflakes in my head are now sweets to tie into my food prject based around make-up and hair looks on different foods. Creating a Snow Queen of sweets look for this project goes beyond dressing head to toe in white and lets me stretch my creativeness in many ways which is what I love doing most, I am so excited to start creating a variety of snowy, iced looks. Especially using professional ice products including ice gels, ice powders, ice crystals, arctic glitter and iridescent snow flakes :)

Check out my Food Project so far >here<

I can’t wait for you to see more teaser pictures of the lead up to this photoshoot.

Karla

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Model: Du Juan

Editorial: Snow QueenMagazine Vogue China

Photographer: Lachlan Bailey

Stylist: Alatair McKimm

Hair: Rita Marmor

Makeup: Osvaldo SalvatierraI

Beauty & The Geek

This week I thought that I’d answer a question which a lot of you have been asking since last weeks post, how did I embed the images within the text on a tumblr Photo post.

Stand Out In A Crowd

With so many different blogs out there it is important to make sure that yours stands out in a crowd.  This can be done by having an interesting layout, logo or background image, however if your posts are mostly text then people are going to take one look at your blog, get overwhelmed with how much text there is to read and they will move on to the next blog. 

This can be improved by adding eye catching images to your posts.  If it’s a short post then you can just include a header image, on tumblr this is as simple as creating a Photo post.  However if you have a long text post, having one header image still may not be enough.  This is where enbedding images within your posts comes in. 

Tumblr allows you to create either a Photo post which has images at the top of the post and an optional text at the bottom, or a Text post which allows you to have a mixture of text and embedded images.  You’d think that it was a no-brainer then, if you have a long post, say a how to post, then create a Text post so that it can have embedded images.

There is a downside to Text posts in Tumblr, they are less likely to get read and re-posted as in the Tumblr dashboard only a small amount of the post is shown and if that is just text then people are less likely to click through to read the rest of the post.

Wouldn’t it be great if you could embed images within the text at the bottom of a Photo post?   Well you can!

Embedding Images In A Tumblr Post

The trick is to have two tabs open in your browser when you’re creating a Photo post.   The first one is the Photo post you are creating, the second is a Text post.

When you want to embed an image within your Photo post, go to the Text post and click on the “+Upload photo” link. See below:

This will open up a file selection dialog. Simply select the image which you want to embed and select the Open button and the image will be embedded into the Text post. Now comes the clever bit! 

This image has now been uploaded and stored on Tumblr’s servers, which means that even when it’s been deleted from this text post, it will still be stored on their server.  So we can take advantage of this and copy it across to the Photo post. 

To do this you select the image by clicking on it and then click on the “Insert / Edit Image” icon. See below:

Then select and copy the Image URL text in the dialog that appears. This is the location of the image on Tumblr’s servers. See below:

Then simply select Cancel on the dialog and delete the image from the Text post.

Go back to your Photo post and in the Caption section where you’ve added text, decide where you’d like your image to go and again select the “Insert / Edit Image” icon.  See below:

Then in the Image URL box paste the URL which you have just copied from the Text post and select Insert. 

And just like magic your image will be embedded within your Photo posts caption.

You can do this as many times as you like within a Photo post.  This technique has been used to create this post and the previous Beauty & The Geek post which resulted in a lot of questions by other tumblr users as to how we did that.

Who knows, maybe one day Tumblr will allow you to embed images into a Photo posts Caption in the same way you can a Text post, but for now at least we have a work around. :)

Beauty & The Geek

First of all I’d like to say thank you for all of the positive feedback we’ve been getting about the first Beauty & The Geek feature, I’m really glad that my advice is able to help.

This week I’m going to be talking about portfolio websites.  This is something that Karla has been wanting for a long time, even before I met her.  We’ve evaluated a number of different services and in the meantime Karla has been using Behance as a way of displaying her portfolio and sharing it with others, as it’s easy to update and is part of a large community of creatives.  After trying out several different website building tools and services, we eventually opted for Behance’s own ProSite service, which allows you to wrap your existing Behance projects up into a professional looking website and you only have to update your work in one place.

There are LOTS of different services out there which allow you to easily create visually stunning portfolio websites, with easy to use Content Management Systems (CMS) which allow you to upload your images, drag and drop them into galleries and rearrange them as often as you like.  Most provide you with pre-designed templates for your site, some allow you to customise the layout either through an easy to use drag and drop interface,  lists of options, sliders, etc, or through more advanced HTML and CSS editing. 

I found Behance’s ProSite one of the easiest to customise and also allows for more advanced HTML and CSS updates, but do be aware that if you make changes to the HTML and CSS then you loose the ability to update the sites layout with the easy to use sliders.

Here are a few portfolio website services to get you started.  Please note that we don’t endorse any of these sites, they’re just ones that we’ve come across, it’s up to you to try out any service which appeals to you first and find a solution which best fits your needs.

http://prosite.com

http://www.livebooks.com

http://www.foliolink.com

http://carbonmade.com

http://www.bigblackbag.com

http://www.squarespace.com

I’m going to leave you with some hints and tips to get you thinking.

Avoid Flash Websites:  They may look stunning at first, but there are drawbacks to them. They’re slow to load.  The content is wrapped up in a flash video, which means it’s not easily searched and indexed by Google. The images within the site are also less likely to turn up on Google’s Image search!  Another big downside is that Apple doesn’t support Flash, also the Android operating system is moving away from Flash too, so think of all of those potential clients who won’t be able to view your site on their smartphone or tablet device!

Focus On One Target Audience:  You should focus your portfolio at one, maybe more if they’re complimentary, target audience.  Think about the type of clients you want to attract, for example if you want to appeal to wedding clients, make sure that your portfolio showcases your best wedding work.  This may seem obvious, however I’ve seen many makeup artists (and photographer) cram their website full of every example of their work that they have, wedding, glamour, creative theatre, body painting, special effects prosthetics and horror!  A wedding client does not want to see that you can turn someone into a zombie and likewise a theatre company don’t want to see that you can do glamour and wedding makeup.   I’m not saying that you can’t do both, but they should be on separate sites.

Show Only Your Best Work: This is one of the hardest things to get right, as you will be personally attached to each and every piece of work you have.  My advice is to keep a gallery of pictures to no more than 20 images or the viewer will get bored.  Showcase only your best work, if you have images which aren’t up to scratch but show a technique or look that you’re keen to show off, DON’T include them, re-do the look and get better pictures taken!  If you’re finding it hard to pick your best images then ask a friend of fellow makeup artist to pick their favourites.

Second Best Image First, Best Image Last:  This may sound weird, but when someone views a gallery, the first image they see will grab their attention and make them want to scroll on and view more.  Eventually when they’ve scrolled through your galleries images which one sticks in their mind?  The last one…so make it a good one!

The 3 Second Rule:  It takes someone 3 seconds to decide if they like your work, after that no matter how many images you show them, you’re not going to change their mind they’ll just move on to the next website.  Make sure that your homepage showcases your best work, not a lot of boring text about your skills and services you offer.  Your homepage can be a static page, showcasing your best image or images, or it can be a gallery, the one that targets your primary customer.

Make Navigation Easy To Find:  The most common place to put navigation links is at the top of the website, as people naturally scan websites from top to bottom, left to right.  Logo at top left identifies who you are, then navigation top right to show how to get around, your work in the middle and then anything else like copyright text at the bottom as it’s the last place a viewer will look and on certain devices or monitors may never look as it’ll be chopped off as they may not realise they have to scroll down.

Social Media Integration Is A MUST: Pretty much everyone has a Facebook account now, so make sure that you have a Facebook fan page advertising your work and link to it from your site.  A simple ‘F’ logo link can be enough, same with Twitter, Google+, etc.  Also think about adding a share button with your work so that people can share work that they like with their friends, it’s all about getting your work out there in front of as many people as you can.   A good place to start is http://sharethis.com

Give Pages Obvious Names: Give the additional pages on your site obvious names, such as Contact, About, Prices, Portfolio, Blog, etc.  Don’t try and be fancy, as you’re just going to confuse people and ultimately loose work.  Don’t hide prices at the bottom of the About page, make it obvious, have a page called Prices.  Also think about your target audience and make sure you have pages for each kind of information they’re going to want to find out about you. 

Make It Easy To Contact You:  Portfolio website services will often give you a choice of pre-made contact forms.  Make sure that they’re simple and easy to use, try contacting yourself through it, as you’d be amazed how many times they don’t work and you end up missing out on potential clients while you sit there wondering why no one has been in touch.  Also think about including a CAPTCHA of you are getting a lot of spam but choose an easy one as you don’t want to make it difficult for clients to contact you too.

Size Does Matter:  There is a fine balance regarding size of images.  If your images are too small clients won’t be able to see your stunning work at its best, however if you have hi-resolution images then there’s the risk of people stealing your work.  Don’t get hung up on this, between 500 and 1000 pixels is a good size and if you’re worried about people stealing your work, watermark it.  Facebook recently upped its image size as it realised that the small images were lost on the new large monitors and devices like the new iPad.  Don’t be tempted to go for a fancy site which resizes your content to fit the screen, as it has to resize your images on the fly and this will never look good! Make sure you have nicely resized images before you upload them, that way you’re in control of how they look. 

NO MUSIC!: Last but most definitely not least…Don’t add a music player to your site.  It may be tempting to try and set a mood with your favourite track or artist, but DON’T!  It’s one of the most annoying things out there.  People like to listen to their own music when they are browsing the web, or watch TV in the background, they do not want your music suddenly blasting away in the background, most likely clashing with their music!  Just don’t do it….EVER!

How beautiful & colourful does my makeup kit look here on set for MindGame Magazines creative beauty shoot yesterday?!

This shoot will be well worth the wait for you all to see the images of the look I created in MindGames first edition in August!

Karla
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 How Do I Become a Fashion Make-up Artist?

After many emails and questions how trainee or even professional make-up artists get into fashion make-up I thought I would answer all your questions through a blog.

If you want to become a fashion makeup artist, you’ll have to focus on looks that are on trend. Fashion is all about clothing, accessories and even makeup being “in” style. More than that though, you also have to be original; as fashion designers have one-of-a-kind creations to display, their models’ makeup must coordinate with the designs in a unique way. Understanding how to apply makeup on people of different skin types and colours is also crucial. If you want to become a fashion makeup artist for models, applying flawless, camera perfect make-up that flatters each individual should be your goal.

Choosing the right make-up school is essential, as not all of them offer courses in runway and print fashion makeup applications. Print career opportunities for those who strive to become a fashion makeup artist include magazine feature stories as well as advertising pages. Runway make-up classes teach makeup artists high fashion techniques that the students should use to inspire their own innovative applications.

Some great make-up schools within fashion I think look amazing and I am aware of people who have been to them before and I know of people going to them are:

http://www.aofmakeup.com/

http://www.illamasqua.com/professionals/somua/ (Which is the Illamasqua make up school- The school of make up art, which is one of my favourite brands)

If the make-up school offers job placement in runway or print (which I know AOFM do), this can help you to become a fashion makeup artist in the specialty area you’ve chosen. Another way that you may be able to branch out into becoming known for creative makeup that photographs well is by starting a website or for free get on face book, twitter and tumblr for your business that includes a picture gallery of your work and other vital information. Friends or family members could serve as your models until you get paying clients and don’t forget local models are always up for testing to improve their portfolio. Once your sites are set up start networking and get connected with people that you think could benefit from you in your chosen career, honestly guys this is how I started out. You can promote yourself by writing online articles about high fashion makeup services on free Internet article directories. Being able to link the article to your website is the purpose of these efforts; you want to drive online traffic to your site as a way of getting targeted sales leads.

Your social networking and marketing efforts can help you get extra work in order to gain experience as you study to become a fashion makeup artist in runway or print. Your side jobs could include special events such as weddings, proms or even make-up parties for children or adults?

My final tip…

Experience!

Work experience is going to be the best training any artist is likely to get. Make contact with any one that is involved within fashion from designers, previous key make-up artists from last seasons shows (which can be found by researching any fashion shows as the key make-up artist is always highlighted that’s if you want to do fashion week) make-up sponsor PRs,  or maybe a way getting in is by contacting fashion photographers…. Try everyone, get emailing now! You might know someone that has done fashion week before ask them for contacts? Trust me once you build those contacts it becomes an easy task to get involved with fashion.  Remember you will need to offer your services free-of-charge then the rewards and jobs will come in. Just be patience.

If you know your passion and love is within make-up and this is what you want to do in your life just remain motivated and keen and one day you will achieve your dreams!

Hope this has helped.

Karla

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