Last summer, I was asked by make up artist Rebecca Rhodes to create a wig that would adorn her model for a make up competition of which she was entering. I willingly agreed to create a black and yellow avant grade wig for her to use during her live competition.

She was thrilled with the piece I had created and I delivered it to her at the Galt House downtown louisville for the live competition, “Battle of the Brushes”. I had mentioned to her possibly do a collabo with lots of color and several models.

The next day I found out she had won second place at “Battle of the Brushes” with her amazing makeup on her model, Katya. I quickly messaged her to congratulate her on her win and again suggested we do a collection and she agreed.

At “Battle of the Brushes” with model, Katya and Make up artist, Rebecca

I had contacted my team at Absolute Studio, Genna Yussman Greene and one his last collections, Tony Welscher to be part of this exciting collaboration.

of course, a shoot takes planning so I needed a few weeks to fabricate the details and map out the plans. I do a lot of bookings but this time I left that job to Rebecca. With she booked Katie Leigh Tarr, Lucy Duane and Rebecca Bien and modeled herself as the fourth model.

For the hair I wanted bold contrast, Primary colors and black. I would again use the black and yellow wig from the competition as one of the pieces. I got to really play and experiment; my materials for this included Kanekalon hair, yarn, rubber covered wiring and wig mesh. I loved layering the textures and used cut wig mesh that I woven hair extensions through. The hair became quite pliable and would be easy to form on the models.

Another wig had me sewing wig mesh into a tubular shape of which I later stuff with red and blue kanekalon hair. Repeating the same technique with the crochet hook for the bulk of the surface.

Genna provided black tops and a really cool futuristic shoulder piece along with matching armor bands that we rotated on each of the models.

I decided for one of the pieces I would take a mesh wig cap and overstuff it with the orange and yellow kanekalon hair and secure the end. Afterwards I took a small crochet hook and pulled hair out at various lengths for the frothy surface texture. I made several that I could build around hair forms on top of a secured scalp braided wig wrap on one of the models.

Rebecca did amazing cohesive face and body make up on each of the models. The entire process took over eight hours at Absolute Studio. Tony photographed each model on a solid black drop and Genna retouched the images for release.

Our collection was beautifully released in a five page spread in Beau NU magazine January 2019 issue.

Credits

Models:

Lucy Duane (Heyman Talent Agency) @lucyduane

Katie Leigh Tarr (Heyman Talent Agency) @kt_tarr

Rebecca Bien

Rebecca Renne Rhodes

Make Up: Rebecca Renee Rhodes @porcelain_kween

Hair : Matthew Tyldesley @hairbymatt

Wardrobe/Retouch: Genna Yussman Greene @gennayussman

Photography: Tony Welscher for Absolute Studio

BTS making of “Shock Menagerie”

I love working with photographer, Jenni Harper (Harper Young Photography). She has an eye for good lighting and balanced composition. Every few months we make plans to execute a photoshoot. This time we wanted to create beauty images incorporating moody lighting and textured, braided hairstyles. We decided to only use jewelry for wardrobe paired with shimmering make up. We are representing beauty and fashion with wearable looks for 2018.

We chose to use costume jewelry for simplicity from JC Beauty in Louisville, KY. We selected three models, two looks a piece. Models were booked from Lexington, Ky and Cincinnati, Oh.

We planned the shoot several weeks in advanced but challenges can happen. Our make up artist could not make the date last minute fortunately, I had an assistant on set. Caleb Yeske is both a hair and make up artist. He did and amazing job as he is well trained in his skill sets. Photoshoots have taught me a lot about how to just "go with the flow" as the show must go on. The end results speak for themselves as everyone did an amazing job.

We created 2-3 looks per model and time ranged up two hours per look. Looks involved extensive braiding and the usage of hair pieces. Pre braided kanekalon hair and hair pieces were prepared a few days prior to the shoot. Make up looks included shimmers, bronzers and metallic hues. Highlighters, Metallic lip color and bronzed skinned were incorporated to match and reflect the moody set/lighting created by Jenni. Models nails were polished in metallic tones.

For this look on Ayanna, I started with a directional blow-dry using Redken, Guts 10 upwards with a Sam Villa hairdryer and Denman Brush. Afterwards I converged the hair into pontails in the center like a "mohawk" while leaving smalls sections out that I cornrowed on scalp. I secured hair pieces on the small ponytails and attached the braids into them with hair pins and Fashion Works 12 hair spray.

bts side profile of Ayanna

I used Water Wax 03 pomade and a fine tooth come to wave the fine hairs around her hairline on Ayanna's skin.

bts profile of Kirjah (cross hatching)

This look on Kirjah, was created by sectioning small square sections into elastic bands and converging them together (cross hatching). I found Hardware Gel 16 helped with control of the hair. The top of her hair was braided with Kanekalon hair for length and density.

bts profile of Katy

For this look on Katy, I section the center top and secured the hair into several ponytails that I pulled and loosen. The remaining hair was braided scalp and formed into a rosette and secured with hair pins. Control Addict 28 was used to set the look.