Practising Finishing My Hybrid Look

Hair

To complete the look I first needed to do the hair look. My chosen hair chart is shown above. 

Step by step:

1. I first brushed through my hair to get out any tangles. 

2. I then applied some wet look gel all trough my hair, from root to tip, and scraped it all backwards and down behind my ears. 

3. I then took some of the painted crushed up shells I made, covered them in gel, then placed them randomly around my scalp. I put some in clumps and some on their own to make them look naturally placed.

I am really happy with how the hair came out, it was exactly what I was hoping for. I found that the shells fell off when I moved too much so I will ask the model to be cautious of this so that I don't have to keep sticking them on again. I think I will ask the model to straighten her hair before the shoot so that the hair is easier to manipulate and so I can make it look as straight as possible at the back. My model's hair is not as thick as mine so I think it will be easier to style and stay back in the shape I want it to.

Body 

When I decided on what I was going to do for the body, I didn't plan on what materials or products I was going to do. My body chart shows that I wanted the whole body to be covered in slime but that isn't how it worked out when I actually did it. I first used a mixture of black and white supra colour to get the same shade as on the face and stippled it all over the charts, arms and some on the tummy so that any skin in the assessment shot would all be one colour. 

I wanted the body to be covered in slime so I first mixed some clear coloured shampoo with some black food colouring because I thought that shampoo would be a thick enough consistency to drip down her chest slowly and look very slime like. However when I came to actually poor it down my chest it just ran down my chest very quickly and it looked very thin in consistency, making my skin just look wet.

I wanted the slime to have a thicket consistency so I decided to use the same hair gel as I used in my hair. I squeezed some hair gel into a bowl and dripped a tiny bit of black food colouring in it to make it grey. I think I added slightly too much food colouring as the gel ended up looking too dark. I applied it on the body, but I found it didn't put very well so I had to pick it up with my hands and smear it onto the chest. 

I much preferred the look that the gel mixed with the black food colouring gave because it looked like clumps of slime instead of just water. When the gel was put on the body I don't think it looked too dark because when it was spread out the colouring looked less harsh. Even though I was happier with the look of the slime, I didn't like that you could see the bra so obviously. I considered dying the bra a grey colour but you would still be able to see the outline of the bra and I thought it would look really unprofessional if it looked like I was just trying to cover up a bra. 

I initially thought I should use a material that looked snail-like, i.e something shiny or grey; however then I thought of using a material that my human hybrid would be able to get hold of and make herself! I thought of all the materials she could have used and came up with snake skin, feathers from birds, fur from animals or any of the Cuban rain forest plantation. I thought it would look most effective to use big leaves because I think the other materials may draw too much attention away from the hybrid and possibly make it look too busy or over done. I decided to use a bra as a base and then get real leaves to mould around that. 

I decided to use leaves from a yucca plant because they looked like the kind of leaves you'd find in a rain forest and they were long and thin so I thought I would be able to plait them or tie them together. They were very tough in the middle and weren't very easy to bend where I wanted to plait, so I cut thin strips down the edges and plaited those together, leaving the thick centre to one side. I then tied one end in a knot and plaited the three stands together. I secured the ends with a very thin, clear elastic band.

I did this until I made 9 plaits. I then laid them all out in lines and sewed them together with a needle and thread. I used a green thread to make it look as subtle as possible. You can see the thread if you look closely in the image below. 

I tied some black shoes laces to three of the plaits on each side so that I could use them to tie together. Below is my final top. I am really happy with it because of the pretty patterns and I also like that my hybrid could of actually made it herself out of her habitat. 

My Final Body Chart

After trying out my previously chosen body chart and finding out it wasn't going to work how I wanted, I created a new body chart to show my new design. I have decided to colour the body with a mixture of black and white supra colour to make it the same colour as the face and to give the skin a glossy finish. I have then decided to use shampoo for the first layer of slime to give the skin an over all slimy look. I then decided to use hair gel for the thicker looking slime, to give it more texture and dimension. I will add black food colouring to both these products to give them a grey colour. My model will then wear the bandeau I made out of leaves to complete the look.