Kate Garrett
Make-up Exploration
Gender Transformation.
Drag Queen.
This is a transformation that has been used during the shakespearian and ancient chinease theatre , this is because women were not allowed to perform so males had to take on these roles.
Late 1800's - early 20th century is the first time we see what we would now call traditional drag.
Example: Julian Eltinge, he started at 10 years old and in 1910 he was knwon world wide.
During the period of the 2 world wars dressed in the opposite gender clothes or being gay/lesbian was seen a a risk to the nation in the USA and police/goverment agencys made it very hard foe self expression to be seen. Thus making this a quiet period in drag history.
It was not until the 50's and 60's until drag started to become more widely socially accepted, a major turning point was when Sylvia Rivera stood up against the police by throwing pennies at them. This started a lot of riots during this time period.
As a reprocution of the riots started the gay community started to stick and fight together which lead to the first gay pride happening in 1970.
Became popular in a form of enterainment during the 80's without threats of violence those who were dressing at the opposite gender, then it grew even more especially within the lesbian/bisexual/gay/transexual community.
Drag = dressed as a girl.
What is drag?
This is where a male dresses like a female, we should not assume that he wants to be come a girl nor that this dertermines his sexualitly. For many it is their way for self expression and their alter ego.
A brief history.
Drag Queen Make-up.
Image 14.0 - Meth (Ben Giddens)
Image 14.1 - Lady Lloyd (Lloyd Dixon)
Steps to creating a Drag Queen Make-up.
Key points:
* It is a form of theatrical makeup so it has to be visable from a long distance
* Has to be able to withstand sweat, heat and long period of time.
* layer up your products. (Cream products are reccomended)
* Enhance all features, slim down to make the face look more femanine.
* You want you makeup to have maximum impact so use contrasting colours on the eyes and lips.
* Before starting consider; your drag queen identity. Express this through your makeup and hair.
Blocking out the brows.
There are many methods in which you can block out the brows, within the drag community pritt stick is a commonly used technique. Below I am exapling the method using prosaide.
1. With a mascara wand and prosaide brush through the brows in all directions so they are well coated.
2. Allow to go slightly tacky then flatten to the skin with your finger, if you need to apply more prosaide.
3. Leave to dry.
4. Powder heavily with a powder puff, then dust off the excess.
5. Colour correct with a pinkish tone.
Image 14.2 -Beard and brow blocking out.
This tutorial is a showing the glue stick method of covering brows by a drag artist, he also explains how to cover beard stubble. It is a long tutorial however I found it really useful as he goes through all the products he uses individually and the health and safety concerning this method as he goes along. He also looks at the removal method.
Eyes.
As you have removed the natural brow when creating the eye look you will need to consider the shape, amount of space you have to work with, creating definition and blending techniques.Below is a brief decription how to create a basic drag eye look.
Shadow.
1. Sketch in a new socket line, this normally sits at the bottom of where the natural brow is. Using gel eyeliner with a flat angled brush is a good way for strong definition.
2. With a short stubby pencul style brush soften this line.
3. With you blending midtone stipple the colour over the line with a fluffy blending brush. Blending from side to side will lift off the cream products underneath.
4. Deepen the new socket line with a darker shadow, if desired.
5. Apply a contrasting colour onto the inner eye lid, this is normally a pigment product of glitter.
Liner & lashes.
1. Use the advanced liner techniques learnt during the bollywood look for this look. Exaggerate and elongate to suit the impact you are after.
2. Apply the flase lashes, bot top and bottom are usually used for a wide eyed, strong impacting look.
Tip - If you dont have any bottom lashes when needing to create this look then use top lashes. use the lash that is supoosed to be on the opposite eye and flip upside down so the long side is on the outside of the eye.
Eye makeup demo by Laura.
Contouring.
Consider; layering up your products, you want a full coverage on the face so the products will look thick up close, think about the difference between male and female faces when sculpting the face. Use cream products.
1. Apply a warm tone foundation slightly darker than their natural tone all over.(remember this is for a theatrical context!) covering the lips.
2. With you darkest tone apply the deepest shadows; cheekbones, slim the face, jawline, temples/forhead and nose.
3. then stipple/press in your mid tone over the top to join the light and dark colours.
4. Under the eye, in a triangle shape, apply a lighter shade with a small amount of foundation, then stipple long the edges to blend in. Also use this colour along the very centre of the nose to slim it down.
5. Once your final look has been achieved then powder throughly the whole face/neck, dusting away any excess.
6. Apply the powder cheek colour, striking colours are the most commonly used.
Lips.
For achieve depth with the lips use different tones of both lip liners and lipsticks.
1. Choose a natural pink and apply all over.
2. then choose a matching liner to the colour of your lips design and line the lips, males tend to have thinner lips so you will have to over draw and add more shape to them.
3. Fill in with the chosen lip colour, yo umay wish to apply a slight lighter shade to the centre of the lips for a fuller look.
Final drag queen demo look.
Turning the structure of your face to the opposite gender.
Here I have a face template which shows where you would shade and highlight the face to create a male or female face structure.
Image 14.3- Shaping the face to appear either female or male.
Masculine look.
* Shadow along the underside of the brow bone, higlighting above to make the brow area look more prominent.
* Shadow along the the side of the nose, not to appear slimmer though.
* Shadowing under the nose and the chin for less prominent lips.
* You shadow under the cheekbones as for a female but the shape of the contour is different is angles down to the jaw rather than in to the lips. The highlights around this area are aslo alot let strong and and ae used to create a more angular jawline.
* The forehead is made to appear shorted by shaddowing just above the highlight on the brown bone.
Female look.
* Contouring along the cheek bones ends just under the adams apple giving a slimmer appearance.
* highlights under the eye and brow bone and very strong bringing the focus of your eyes to th ecenter of the face.
* shadowing on the temples/edegs of the forehead slim down/change the face to an oval. This is combined with highlighting the center of the forehead for this illusion.
* the cupids bow and edges of the lips and highlighter for a fuller lip look.
RuPaul's Drag Race.
Rupaul is one of the most well known drag queen's around. Here I have collected images of some of th emost famous contestants on the show just to demonstrate the variety of styles and looks that can be expressed as a drag queen.
Image 14.4- Nina flowers
Image 14.5- Bianca del Rio
Image 14.6- Jinkx Monsoon
Gender Transformation.
Drag king.
This is the opposite to a drag queen, it is where a female dresses and impersonates a male. They apply facial hair, tape their boobs flat and stuff to give themselves a package.
Things to consider when transforming a female:
* heavy brows and sockets
* Narrow/close set eyes
* Defined jaw line
* Wider nose
* Facial hair (moustache, beard & bushy brows)
* Thinner lips
Image 14.7 - Drag King culture
Drag king Culture.
This youtube video explores drag king as a culture, it transforms a woman who has not been a drag king before. Through documenting her transformation you start to challange how you identify with her, as you do with drag queens, you believe thay are a male. This really helped me to understand the community of drag and how much drag king's are not accepted compared to drag queens.
Drag King Transformation.
This is tutorial on how to shade you face and change into a drag king, this lady is a practising drag king. I have used this to influence my own makeup, which is seen on the tab below.
Comapring Drag Queen to Drag King.
Whilst researching drag queens and kings I have discovered that there is alot more accessable information on drag queens, which to me says alot about society and what it deems acceptable. Why when we allowed and more importantly embraced female impersinating did we not respod the same to male impersanating?
The drag queen look is more over the top and experimental as they have free rein with how they want to portray themselves and from completely my own makeups and research it seems more easy to change a males face into a females, than the other way round. Also males do not walk around on a daily basis with a full face of makeup which means any techniques used have to look more realistic to the naked eye making the makeup less flambouyant and more sublte.
Image 14.8- drag king makeup tutorial
This is a very expressive and bold drag queen makeup. Which personally I do not like the colour tones for me do not work it gives it a comedic value.
The contouring and facial construction created standing against the bold lips/eyes doesn't seem strong nor heavy as tradtional drag queen makeup is. It is more 'female' contouring.
This drag queen make-up is at the other end of the scale looking very light in comparison and more natural, in that females do wear this makeup on a daily basis.
The combination of the bold one tones lips, natural 'hairy' brows and dewy skin work really well at creating a realistic female look.