Needles & Brushes

So the month of Halloween (no, not October) is upon us, and while it is my favourite time of the year, I haven't yet started painting my face for the occasion. I've been keeping busy with another makeup-related project that doesn't quite include ugly monsters and scary ghosts. 

I recently met an awesome tattoo artist who showed me works from various artists and I couldn't help but be inspired. Since I won't be able to get any tattoos any time soon, I decided "Why not become them?"
So my little tattoo project began. I hadn't come up with a good name for it, but thanks to Declan Doody, the name "Needles & Brushes" came to be.

I started about a week ago and have done 4 looks up till now. They are:

Emily Rose Murray

Her work is absolutely mind-blowing and combines everything I love: art nouveau, pretty women, and pearls. Lots of 'em. Her style is elegant and intricate. A must see if you like all things 20's inspired.

Here was my take on one of her recent tattoos:

I didn't have a black wig I could work with, and I didn't want to use my own hair since ALL her women have dark hair. Instead I just hid it all under a turban and added as many flowers and accessories as I could to try to emulate all her intricate decorations.

You can follow her work on Facebook, Tumblr, and Instagram.

Toni Donaire

Toni Donaire is an amazing new traditional artist with a very characteristic style. He has a brilliant use of colour and sticks to a limited palette of colours that is instantly recognizable once you know his work.



This one was loads of fun to do but so complicated at the same time! I used mainly concealers for this and had to pray for my hand to be light enough to draw on the thin lines dividing the colour!

You can follow him on Instagram and Facebook.

Danielle Rose

If you're into traditional tattoos, Danielle is definitely one to check out. She does mainly female faces, generally in black and grey with one or two accent colours at the most. Her style is very characteristic and easily recognizable by tattoo collectors far and wide.

Her work seems like it would be a super simple makeup with just a load of black eyeshadow, but there's more than meets the eye. I used brown to blend out the black and had to shade areas like under the cloth and down my shoulders.

You can follow her work on Instagram.

Johnny Trendkill

Pretty much the man who started it all. He showed me Emily Rose's work and that's how it all began. 

He's got a good mix of traditional and new traditional work. I'm particularly fond of his portraits and faces that are super contrasty with lots of black. Hopefully next year I'll get two portraits off him.

I tried to simulate the pencil lines but it was a case of really hit or miss. If I didn't do the lines thin enough, they could completely throw off the entire look, but I risked it anyway and I'm glad I did because it added a bit of texture to the overall look.

You can also see it here in motion:

A little video of yesterday's makeup in motion so you can see what my eyes were like without Photoshop. I wore red contacts but changed them in the final picture so it would look more like @johnnytrendkill 's drawing.💀

A video posted by @pompberry on Oct 3, 2015 at 5:29am PDT

You can follow his work on Facebook, Instagram, and Tumblr.

I hope to keep this as a long ongoing project. Not only does it bring me out of my comfort zone, by making me paint in ways I wouldn't normally, but it's also my own little way of paying tribute to some amazing talent.

[If you want to see the full product description for each look, check out my Instagram.]

If you have any tattoo artists you love that you'd like to see their work "come to life" please let me know in the comments bellow! :)

I'm still here

I realize I haven't posted in aaaages. Over a month actually, and that sucks.
I've got A LOT happening to me right now... But I am in no way, shape or form giving up on this blog. I just took a little break but will be back in action hopefully in 1 week.

So what IS all this stuff that's happening to me?!

- The first major big thing is I'm having to move. For those of you that don't know yet... I will unfortunately be leaving Ireland soon. I didn't want to go, but I have to. I'm keeping my spirits up trying to focus on the positives: I'm finally going to live in the USA. I've always wanted to and now's my chance. Hopefully I'll have some good opportunities there. And once I get settled there, I can always come to visit!

- I've had to re-write my plans for the future in an insanely short amount of time and am having to deal with packing, planning, and organizing my life in general.

- Another big thing that happened was ArcadeCon, and the week leading up to it I was busy making cosplays, etc. I decided to film my first "Con Vlog" there and should post it up soon. I didn't film as many things as I wanted to because it was such a hectic weekend, but hopefully it'll be a half decent vlog.

- With the super shitty news of me having to move came the INSANELY GREAT news of the NYX UK & Ireland Face Awards, which by now you all know I'm taking part in (AND have made it to the top 10!!! Public vote should be opening soon, I will definitely keep you posted). So that's also been keeping me busy, having to make videos, etc. and I'm loving it.

So yeah, that's my past month in a nutshell...

I'm moving out of my apartment next week, but will stay in Ireland till October. We have till then to party till our arms fall off.

Photo by Hygow Lial

And I'll end this post with my favourite picture of me from ArcadeCon because I've never felt so fabulous and glamorous as I did then, and it's nice to keep that feeling alive to distract from my daily turmoil.

Love ya's <3

NYX UK & Ireland Face Awards

I CAN'T STOP SCREAMING!!!!!!!! (Even if virtually...) THE NEWS IS JUST TOO GOOD NOT TO!!!

It was announced on Friday, but I only got my video up today. You should totally watch it... just sayin'...



Here's the info we have from the NYX Uk Face Awards website:

CHALLENGES

Our 20 selected contestants will then go through three rounds of online challenges each with a specific theme and a special goodies box from NYX and our supporters. Valid entries may be showcased and celebrated right here on www.nyxukfaceawards.com

From 20 contestants, 10 will go through to round two, and the final five contestants will be invited to London to compete in the final round. Contestants must be available for travel between August 3rd and 7th, 2015.

THE FINAL ROUND

While in London, contestants will visit the NYX headquarters, meet the team and be given one final video challenge to be produced with the help of a professional film crew. The final videos will then be played at the NYX UK FACE Awards in London on August 13th in front of a panel of judges who will crown the 2015 Beauty Vlogger of the Year!

GRAND PRIZE

• £10,000 cash from NYX Cosmetics
• Trip to LA (departing London August 20th and returning to London August 23rd) to attend the original NYX FACE Awards
• NYX UK & Ireland Cosmetics brand ambassador for 12-months
• 4-week Professional Makeup Course at AOFM
• NYX Professional Makeup Artist Case filled with a one-year supply of NYX Cosmetics

So yeeeeah... THIS. IS. MAJOR. And I feel so blessed to be amongst the 20 chosen finalists.
I hope to have some more news soon but this is about as awesome as it gets right now.

LOVE YOU GUYS! <3

Deal's off, B-Man! No one ever said anythin bout dressin like THIS!

By now practically the whole Suicide Squad movie has been leaked in the form of on set pictures and videos taken from various cellphones and whatnot, but I thought I'd show you a little "behind the scenes" from my part.

In the video I didn't get into if I liked her new look or not, but since I have room to rant here... Hold on to your seatbelts.

Let me start off by saying two things:
1) I don't like her look.
2) I think it is a very well made interpretation of her Suicide Squad comic book look. It's not their fault that the SS comic Harley's look sucks. Seriously, it's the worst version of her yet.

So yes, I do think they did a good job with interpreting her SS look, but no, I don't like the result. I don't like it for the same reasons I saw many people complaining about.

Three things basically: Her "shorts", what's written on her Jacket, and her choker. Starting off with her bottom half: I put the word shorts between quotation marks because I don't consider them to be shorts. Because of their size, they are to me, panties that are being worn as shorts. I like how they look from the front, but I don't think her butt has to be shown at all. Harley Quinn is possibly my favourite character ever and one of the things I love about her (talking about her classic version here) is that she is covered from head to toe, but is still incredibly sexy. DC have managed to take a piece of clothing off her with every version they release, it's like they're playing strip poker or something!

I'm NOT saying I think showing skin is somehow wrong or bad (I love Poison Ivy and look how much skin she shows!), I just don't think it's in keeping with Harley's character, is all.

I've seen a lot of people bothered about her shoes. With a little research I found that they are actually Jeremy Scott shoes worth about €350. The fact that they're designer shoes is totally in keeping with the character, since Harley is a shop-a-holic and loves to spend the cash she steals. What doesn't add up though is those massive heels. She's practically a gymnast, so wtf DC?! But they do look good with the outfit...

ADIDAS BY JEREMY SCOTT 130mm Js High Heel 

Now about her jacket. Oh boy her jacket...



Don't get me wrong, the design is cute and quite contemporary. The lettering on the back is pretty and all, but what's written is just not right. I've actually sat and tried to come up with reasons as to why she'd wear it. "Maybe ironically? Or there's like a brand called Joker that makes stuff like this? Or.... UGH!" Harley is Joker's biggest fan and is madly in love with him. She does have TONS of Joker merchandise (hello Joker shrine-cave-thing in the abandoned theme park!) but she does NOT consider herself a property of his. HE considers her as property. Their relationship is a very abusive one because she's deluded thinking he loves her and he just holds on to her as if she's just another tool he can use to get to the Batman or whatever it is he's scheming. Not even in her "Mad Love" days she'd wear something like this. I reeeeally hope they made it into something ironic.

And lastly her "PUDDIN" choker. She is not "the puddin", the Joker is. Why would you wear something with someone else's nickname on it? Plus, the choker is just a bit too much considering the jacket, plus the shirt written "Daddy's Little Monster". Just chose one or two of these items. Don't go overboard like an over-excited pre-teen at Hot Topic.

With all that said, I do want to watch the movie before I make any serious judgements. These are just first impressions, after all.

Okay, now that that's out of my system lets go to what really matters...

The makeup itself is quite simple to do, and from what I've seen of the leaked images it does change quite a bit (sometimes it looks more like running liquid or tears, sometimes like it's been smudged with fingers) and I've heard she will have many outfit changes, so I'm looking forward to seeing all her different looks.

Tears vs. Smudged

The look I based myself off of was the smudged one, since that's what also appears on the officially released image.

Now you may be thinking "Why did you go through the trouble of making a tutorial if you don't even like the look?!" and that's because I personally may not have liked it, but I know a good amount of people who did like it, so I thought I'd try to help out any cosplayer thinking of putting this outfit together.

And after my huge rant, here's my take on her.

If you've watched the tutorial, you'll have seen my hair isn't all blond in it, and TONS of people asked me "What sort of sorcery" I did in the pictures. The answer is simple: Photoshop!

Just to make it a bit more accurate, I copied the blond side over to the black side and changed the blue to pink. That's all! =]

Now without further ado (after much ado xD) here's the video tutorial. I hope you enjoy it!



What did you think of her look? Love it or hate it? Tell me in the comments bellow!

This is Some Ood Food...

Sorry for being MIA this past while, lots going on, but now all is well and I am back on track! ;)

Recently my boyfriend got into Doctor Who (Thank heavens... Actually, thanks Ryan, love you long time.) and he decided to do a little "viewing party" over at our place with some of the most dedicated Whovians we know. What went from a simple "Hey, lets invite some friends over to watch TV" turned into me searching the whole city for giant marshmallows and making elaborate food plans.

We wanted simple party food that could be easily made and eaten throughout the night. Other than the obvious fish fingers and custard, we had to get a bit creative for the rest. We immediately Googled "Doctor Who food" for some ideas and I gotta say, people are crazy imaginative.

We decided we'd stick to making things from pizza and fries, which would be a vegetarian option loved by all. Many sweets were also involved in the planning. We would have done drinks as well (Sonic Screwdrivers anyone?) but it was a BYOB situation.

Cassandra and an Ood

We both agreed some sort of Tardis food would be needed, and a cake seemed like the easiest route to go. I wish I could have made an actual little Tardis, standing vertically and all, but my little light-blue (I have a hatred towards supermarket food colourings now), marshmallow-windowed, horizontal-laying creation would have to do. All I had was a bread pan, so I made 2 cakes and Frankensteined my way into Tardis production.

Since all our guests were Irish, I decided to shake things up a bit and fill the cake with a traditional Brazilian sweet called brigadeiro, made with condensed milk and powdered cocoa.

Since I had 1000 other things to do, I decided not to make the icing from scratch and try out some pre made  buttercream. Sickeningly sweet, but tastes just like childhood. As I mentioned before, I now posses a very strong feeling in my being towards supermarket food dye, and it is not a positive one. As much as I tried (used more than half a bottle of the liquid stuff, then tried 1 tube of the gel and a tiny bit of black) the icing didn't get past a cloudy shade of "jeans" blue. The dye saturated the icing (this happens when you use LOTS of food colouring. The texture goes kind of smooth and weird) but didn't develop any strong colour. Now I know to get the professional grade stuff. :)

The weirdest part of sourcing things for the party was my nearly heroic quest for giant marshmallows. I had seen them the week prior at Tiger (a store that sells really cool home decoration stuff for REALLY cheap) and they're always in stock at the American candy shops around town. I also saw 3 different kinds of marshmallows at Dunnes the day before I decided to buy them. For some reason, all marshmallows disappeared from the shelves of Dublin's shops. Either everyone else decided to make Adipose too, or I'm not quite sure what happened.

We had to settle for normal sized marshmallows (which were a little on the small side) and we cut mini marshmallows in 1/4 for the arms and legs. I attached them and gave them some friendly smiles using royal icing.

I also spent a lot longer than you'd think drawing up some Daleks onto the party cups and made some fez party-cup-hats for all invited. I sprinkled some stars over the table, positioned my prized possession as a table centrepiece, and all was good to go!

The blank dishes were later filled with pizza and fish figers

I had thought of substituting the custard for a yellow savoury sauce like Hollandaise but thought "This might be the only time we ever do this, so might as well have the actual stuff!". Even though in the series they substituted the fish fingers for toasted coconut breaded cakes. Everyone was curious, to say the least, about trying out the famous combination... And it was surprisingly good! I would have it again if the opportunity ever arose. 

Friendly word of advice: Don't get so distracted by the series that you'll accidentally burn your Ood! Oops! :X

The Age of Ultron

It's been a while since I've done a more complex artistic makeup, but unfortunately inspiration wasn't knocking at my door. Then this week's Style Saturday came along with the Avenger's second movie soon to be released and I thought "This could be fun".

I tend to like villains way more than super heroes, always have. While everyone's super excited to watch the Avengers saving the day on screen, I'm all "Meh... when does Ultron get here?!"

my reference picture

As with cosplay, when doing a character makeup I tend to chose 1 reference picture to follow and that's it. Many characters look different depending on who drew them, or the lighting, the situation, etc. By choosing 1 picture (and 1 picture only) you'll have a clear reference to base yourself off of, instead of making compromises and trying to make multiple references match each other.

I thought of doing Ultron from the comics, but the new movie version has so many little intricate details that I just couldn't resist trying to replicate. Especially the sunken circles bellow the cheeks.

I knew I couldn't just slap on some makeup and hope for the best with this one, so I got my little block of facecharts and got to work with some coloured pencils. When trying to translate something like this onto a human face it can get pretty tricky and proportion is key to making it look good. The biggest challenge is obviously his lack of a nose, but that's something we obviously have to disregard and just hope people will concentrate on the other bits of the makeup.

Also, when working on something like this, it's especially important to test out your materials before hand. I tested about 5 different combinations of products to get the right orange for this. I needed something that was opaque enough so it would show up on top of the silver background.

I also tested out what made the best shadows over the silver product. I ended up using black eyeshadow (for the lightest shading), black lipstick for medium shading (it acts like a grease paint, but wasn't as pigmented), and a black grease paint for when I really wanted to darken up the shadows.

The full list of products is as follows:

- Make Up Forever Aqua Cream in "Silver"
- Black Liquid Liner from Penneys (Primark)
- Black Eyeshadow from Wet n Wild

- Limecrime lipstick in "Styletto" (I do not support Limecrime, but I am using up what products I have)

- Ben Nye black grease paint and "Fire Red" grease paint (both from the Ultimate F/X Palette)

- Sugarpill eyeshadows in "Buttercupcake" and "Flamepoint"

- Snazarroo white facepaint

Headpiece by Bullhorn

Hope you like it!

iDig

I've been MIA for a while but it was for a good cause! I've been busy busy busy and will be updating here slowly but surely.

From the 2-4th of April, the iDig Festival was happening here in Dublin and I got to go as a photographer! Pretty nifty, huh? I went to photograph Classroom Battles' gig, more specifically. They played their own take on some Sonic the Hedgehog songs, it was beyond awesuuuum. <3 Seriously. Impossible not to dance along to.

Some of my favourite bits of the festival were getting to watch The Triforce Quartet (twice!), Neal Acree's panel (he's a composer at Blizzard), and the DIT Irish Traditional Music Ensemble's take on game music. There were some very beautiful moments throughout it.

The Triforce Quartet

Neal Acree & his panel. Omg inicial stages Blizzard CGIs!

We had an amazing time there, it's just a shame the festival wasn't really promoted or publicized, so not a huge amount of people went. The public did seem very targeted, though, and lots of musicians and composers attended, which is pretty cool.

The guests were truly lovely

On the Saturday the main attraction happened, Video Games Live. I've watched them 2 times before back in Brazil and my boyfriend had seen them 3 times already. We actually met at one of the VGLs, so it's kinda special to me.

It was really refreshing to see a female conductor taking the lead of the concert. I grew up on classical music and opera, but had never stopped to realize that I had actually never seen ONE female conductor. I hit me like a bucket of cold water when I saw Eímear Noone and realized this. She's a conductor and composer at Blizzard (can she get more awesome than that?) and conducts the Legend of Zelda: Symphony of the Goddesses Orchestra as well! She composed the theme for the latest WoW expansion and it's absolutely GORGEOUS. We got to listen to different versions of it being played by different artists throughout the festival, which was pretty awesome.

I hope to see her again at the Legend of Zelda: Symphony of the Goddesses Orchestra here in November!

We had a great time and really hope the festival returns next year!

Project: Red Sonja

A year or two ago when I started going to the gym almost religiously, I named my workout plan "Project: Red Sonja". Not that I want to cosplay her, I just want a barbarian body.
That all went to hell after about 6 months when I started a job (so I had no time) and also busted my shoulder.

Now that I'm freelancing and con season is coming up, I decided to bring the "project" back.

I'll be working out at home this time, but I'm confident I'll manage.

Hygow (known as Drogo to some), my boyfriend, has already started buffing up for the con season. Eating clean and working out 3 times a week, so I felt compelled to do the same.
I've been having a (very) sedentary lifestyle that is just not ok, and I think enough is enough.

I'm not aiming for a thigh gap or unrealistic ideals. I like my body shape and I just want to properly define my muscles. Ripped abs, thick thighs, strong arms. And I know that will take a lot of time and dedication.

I've been contemplating going vegetarian (maybe vegan) to help with the process, cutting animal fats from my diet amongst other things. I'm still debating this, but eating clean is a must. No more using fats while cooking, just water.
Friday was day 1. I did a 45 minute High-intensity interval training (HIIT) workout and started my clean eating plan (That kind of went to hell while working on set this past week and having pizza for dinner and kebabs for lunch though, but I'd rather not starve while on the job).

Here's some inspiration/ motivation. I worked my but off for this cosplay in 2010. I'd love it if I could at least get back to this in a few months.  

I hope to see some improvement by the end of April, when I'll be posing for my next Dr. Sketchy's session. =]

This is the workout I've been doing:

I plan on adding exercises here and there and changing it up a bit once I've got a bit more resistance.

Do any of you have tips for at home workouts or clean eating plans? =]

Shine Bright Like a Diamond

And today I bring you something I've literally wanted to do for years: Emma Frost turning into crystal.
One day I hope to do the full face + upper torso, but that will take all the rhinestones in the world... A girl can dream, right?

It's funny that a lot of people didn't recognize me when I showed them this picture. :P

I got me some new blue contacts from Pinky Paradise and I really wanted to do a makeup look to try them out! They're the Super Pinky Blue. I already own the Super Pinky Red and the Violet and I absolutely love them. They're super comfortable and have an insanely strong colour.

Here's a comparison with and without the contacts in natural light:

I really like the way they're painted as well, it looks very natural (despite the larger diameter)

I'm as blind as a bat (-3.5) so when I wear contacts, I depend on them for my eyesight.
These are amazing comfort-wise and that's why I like them so much. I'm able to wear them all day to a convention no problem. I have pretty sensitive eyes and have had a corneal ulcer before, so I'm always super careful with what I put in and around my eyes now.

As always, while wearing contacts, be sure to keep your eyes moisturised by using eye drops constantly throughout the day, and if you feel any discomfort at all, remove the contacts immediately!

On another note, If you'd like to see how I dunked my face in glitter and rhinestones (I wish it were that easy) you can check out the tutorial for this look here:

Leaves and Glitter

Last week's Style Saturday came out a little late since The Arcade was down for some fixing up, but it's up and running smoothly again. You can check it out here!

Now, I'm not going to go repeating what I said in the article, instead I'll talk a little bit about my inspirations for these looks. 

Makeup is so great because of the freedom you have to create. Don't limit yourself to what an eye makeup is "supposed" to be, the shape it "has" to have, etc. experiment with different shapes, or colours, or textures, and you might just come up with something amazing. And don't be afraid of seeking inspiration from other people, too. You might get an idea from where you least expect it. 

An artist I've loved for quite some time goes by "Lucifer Is My Dad" online. Her work is absolutely flawless and she's insanely creative, challenging what makeup "should be". 

The first time I saw her work, it was a compilation of her Batman inspired looks and they instantly stuck in my mind and haven't left since. 

Last year I was actually part of a Justice League shoot where I was Batgirl and I based myself on her Batgirl eye for my look.

And that's me looking stupidly happy. But to be fair, I had just been on a golden motorcycle... [Photo by Steve Wilson]

For my Ivy look, I found inspiration in Luciferismydad's Batwoman eye. The shape is just so different and unique, I adapted it to look like a leaf!

As for the Rainbow Dash look, my inspiration came from Lady Gaga.

I saw this and though "What if I add some clouds?... And GLITTER."
It's funny because I never use glitter, but when I do I cover my whole face with it!
But I mean c'mon... look how shiny!

A video posted by @pompberry on Mar 20, 2015 at 6:15pm PDT

Where do you like getting your inspiration from? =]

Kabuki

There's one makeup artist that to me seems to be incredibly successful and well know but incredibly unknown at the same time. Well maybe unknown might not be the best term. Out of the spot light, for sure. I've followed his work for a few years now and I'd say the peak of the general public's awareness of him was when he did Katy Perry's makeup for her video Alien.

Kabuki uses a lot of stencils and paper "appendixes" for his signature looks, most of which are very sea-creature-esque.

I've always loved his style and admired him for his uniqueness. The other day I stumbled upon his Instagram, where he posts his makeup looks as well as some of his sketches. I fell in love with this one in particular:

#kabukisketch @manisharorafashion @laurentphilippon #maccosmetics

A photo posted by @kabukinyc on Mar 5, 2015 at 5:29am PST

and couldn't resist recreating it. I thought about doing it all monochromatic as well, but decided for a little pop of colour in the end. I hope I did it justice. Also, I know the bit on the forehead was probably a headpiece he drew in as well, but I decided to go for a literal interpretation and draw that in, too.

I used:
Snazaroo black & white face paint
Sugarpill burning heart palette
Contém 1g matte lipstick in Berinjela
Kiko Cosmetics lipstick in 522
Clinique blusher in Spiced Wine
Soap and Glory Hocus Focus liquid highlighter
Tokidoki eyeshadow in Skull Donut
Contacts are G&G Shinny (known as Puffy 3 Tone) in Green. For a free mystery gift with every lens purchase, click the Pinky Paradise banner to the right and use the code "pompberry"

Damn them straight lines!