So this post is an introduction to me...... My name is Rebecca Leo, I'm currently studying make up and hair design at Southampton Solent University and I'm just about to start my second year. This post is going to be a reflection over my first year at university.
Ok....so reminiscing to before starting uni last September I was working full time on a cosmetic counter in Cardiff living with my parents, I knew I was going to uni as I deferred my entry as I wanted a year out of studying to save some money for my future.
When I moved to Southampton it was difficult getting settled as I was missing my family and friends and that was hard but I knew I had to stay positive as I knew moving to Southampton was going to help me grow as a person. I've always been a people person which is why I love working in retail but I made some great friends in my first week of freshers and I had so much fun. During the second week of Freshers (I think) I had my interview for my now job working on the Estee Lauder counter in Boots, I applied for this job when I was still living at home I knew I'd need a job while studying at uni I know a lot of people wouldn't want a job in first year but I knew I could handle it.
When we eventually started uni I wasn't expecting to meet such amazingly talented and creative people. This worried me as I have a tendency to compare myself to everyone else I struggled with this for while, I think I'm still dealing with this trait to this day but anyway back to Uni.
Lush, so our first major project was 'New Elizabethans' in all honesty I hate history never enjoyed it in secondary school but for some odd reason I love the Tudor period, any who our brief was to create a New Elizabethan which took elements from Elizabethan make up and mixed it with contemporary make up pretty cool right, only thing was that you had to create the design, then your partner had to apply your design on yourself !! Any one who knows me knows that I am such a perfectionist so this was my first hurdle to get over. I loved my partner and we're really good friends still, I feel like my design was a little difficult for my partner but we practiced lots and also helped we lived in the same halls and floor. I tried to make it not too complicated so I created a step by step tutorial. All our research and practices were displayed on our blog which was quite cool and I really liked making a blog as I helps to show your thought process.
When we were first told that we had to create a blog showing our workings I thought that was a little daunting as I'm not the best at writing but looking back I think I've come a long way. Ok.... so after we'd finished the Elizabethan project we had one on one session with our course leader explain what we needed to improve and what we did great on, my feedback was to show more research on my blog which I totally agreed and also I needed to make sure everything was perfect (fair enough)
Aside from the Elizabethan project we were being taught how to use a camera and photo shop. We were given a project to create a monochromatic look (using one colour) I chose the colour purple as that is my favorite look and my theme was royalty. I did find using a camera very difficult at first and I still think I could do with refreshing my mind on all the techniques.
So after the Elizabethan project we had the project Gothic Horror which was firstly looking at Great Expectations (which is an amazing film) and also the last part of it was creating two characters and placing them in a Gothic styled TV show. For the Great Expectations part we had to recreate Miss Havisham in any part of the film so I decided to recreate her from where she was being burnt right at the end. I wanted to push myself which I definitely did as part of the project was continuity as we had to create the same look twice. However I need to find a way of making life a little easier for myself so I research ways of creating a mold/silicone piece so I could make it look the same, so me and my partner practiced a lot perfecting the details in order to make it identical for my assessment. I made sure to do lots of blogs post showing my research as I wanted to take on board the feedback from my first project (spent lots of hours in the library) Actually really enjoyed messing around with 3rd degree (product I ended up using) I watched lots of YouTube videos showing how to use it and made it it my partners face perfect only thing with 3rd degree it is very difficult to get off so that wasn't very fun for Grace. We also had recreate Estella but that was not a timed assessment and it was very simple as she was very natural. I did have a couple of melt downs when I was perfecting my Miss Havisham especially the burn and at one point I was going to scrap the whole idea of a burn but I knew only a handful of people would attempt the point in the book/film, also with hair as I found it very difficult to get it exactly the same in my timed assessment, to be honest I wish I'd practiced the hair more but I was so fixated on making sure the makeup was perfect as I knew that would be looked at firstly.
Once the Great Expectations project was over we were straight into the second part of Gothic horror which was creating our own versions of Claudia and Quentin/ Mrs Laderman and putting them in our chosen Horror TV series. We were given a list and ended up choosing Penny Dreadful I'd never seen this series before I chose it (So glad I did) It took me FOREVER to come up with an idea for how were going to place these characters into the TV series as we had to present them to the class. After lots of thought and confusion I came up with that Claudia (who my sister Modeled for) was an apprentice for Victor Frankenstein and she's so obsessed with creating her perfect man (aren't we all) so she attempts to make Quentin (Lovely Billy Modeled him) however Claudia isn't all there and thinks she's successful however in reality she isn't and Quentin is literally just a rotting corpse (Loved my Idea) In our brief one of our characters had to be captured in the studio's at uni and the other could be on location. I created Claudia at home and captured her in my Garage. I didn't love how my interpretation of Claudia came out as the quality of the images weren't amazing. Everything else I liked. The location wasn't too bad but I didn't have much of a choice as I couldn't find a model in Southampton. Quentin on the other hand who I captured in the studios, came out pretty much as I expected. I made sure I'd shown plenty of research showing all my thoughts and inspiration on my blog.
During this project we were also taught in depth Photo shop which I thought was extremely handy and I definitely need that refreshment again.
For my Second year I chose the extra module of SFX which I'm so excited but also slightly nervous about as I know it's going to be in a lot of depth. I'm looking forward to hearing my new brief and getting stuck in,
