Tag: cricut

Anti-horn Unicorn Bodypaint for The Prosthetics Event

by BodypaintingbyCat, posted in animal zoo face paint, Body Paint, Demo/ Workshop Bodypaint

I’d designed a head/ neck paint on the marvellous Angela Youngs when she offered to model for me at the UK Face Painting Convention where I was demonstrating products for the Paintopia Shop, in Oct.


Angela was amazing as always, letting me stick a unicorn horn I’d made onto her rather funky feathery clip-in mohican, then going out in full punk anti-corn mood to harass the public, guests and even cars! The response was so much fun I though I’d have a go at a full body one for my next demo.


Paintopia Jenn kindly asked me to demo for her at the extremely busy Prosthetics Event, which is always hosted by the guru that is Neil Gorton. Angela was our other demo artist, painting her own model this time, and I was decorating Rachel Shar Marston for the 1st time – I’d seen her modelling at the UK FP con and nabbed her!

I love researching each bodypaint and this one was inspired by horse armour worn on medieval battle horses, with the non-rainbow unicorn twist.

One thing I had been thinking on was how to get different pale ombre effect shapes on top of dark tones, so I tried adding sticky star vinyl shapes I’d had my Cricut cut sheets of on top of each of 4 layers of darkening paints on Rachael, in different places on each layer.

Our work experience makeup student, Steve, (he was brilliant, had his first try at body painting on Rachaels legs too and is hopefully now addicted) had the fiddly job of finding and peeling off all these stars after I’d added the black final layer, to reveal different shades under each.

It worked, I’ll use that method again. Paints used were Paradise white, Superstar Blue and Snow petrol, Cameleon Teal, Inkheart and Gothic black from the Paintopia Shop.

I wanted to try some different techniques, so has been talking to Cricut Uk re their new Cricut Maker machines which can cut my custom designs in much thicker materials than my current Cricut Air (which is 3 versions older). The plan was to do thick foam armour, cut on a Maker. Amazingly, they lent me a Cricut Maker to try all my ideas on! Typically I spent so long fiddling (making my mock-ups, so I could scan them to be cut in the foam etc) that I when I hit a fault with the special tool I had I didn’t have time to get it sorted by their helpful team in the USA.  Not a problem: I switched back to thinner material and ended up with a much prettier less tough and scary ‘armour’.

I’ve a fab giant foam horse head ‘hat’ I made on an EVA foam course with Alex Hansen, and wanted to do a variation on that. Preferable one I could easily recreate by scanning into my Cricut. I sketched and made mini versions, then scanned in my design, to make it cut out and then be tweaked again. Eventually I had a mini version of a 3D horse head which I planned to make in thick foam.

I drew a curly baroque engraving inspired doodle, scanned it in and then added shapes and patterns in Cricut Design Space until I ended up with a unicorn horned, spiky, shape. This I cut in various sizes and formations (sticking it to itself, elongating it, etc) from Hobbycraft Glitter card, metallic green textured card, Cricut faux leather, etc. I also cut and mirrored it to make ‘spikes’.

Pro photos by Ben Bentley

These shapes were layered into Rachels hair and glued onto her body with cosmetic adhesive (I sell the fine tipped cosmetic glitter tattoo application kits). I also had the Cricut cut thin foam ‘hooves’ for all four of her limbs which we glued to her wrists and shoes. We decided the smaller horse head looked better as a protective shoulder pauldron and glued it on there.


The wool and feather dreads on elastic I bough years ago on Ebay and have added to, they have been in so many bodypaints! One was tied into her hair under the horse-neck armour, the other was tied round her waist as a ‘tail’

Some one stroke leather strapping, gluing on and painting the dozens of assorted sized unicorn horns I’d made form paper clay (I sell them too), some fine glitter tattoo work  and Rachel was finished, all whilst answering questions from the curious crowds.

She swaggered off in appropriately punk-ish mood, swinging the original giant foam horse head, sneering with attitude which was perfect for her character, and posed for photos until the stage show.

 

Thanks to everyone involved, brilliant, busy event as always and I hope to see you all there next year!

Cricut UK Crafter of the Month ‘Burgundy Butterfly’ Fairy face & body paint

by BodypaintingbyCat, posted in cricut, Timelapse

As said in the Chasing Coral post, I’m delighted to have been asked by Cricut UK to demo what I do with their machine – I own a Cricut Explore Air and am saving for a Cricut Maker.

This time model Izabela fancied something pink and pretty. She likes insects and I thought a butterfly look might be more interesting for people who have kids or need fancy dress/ festival ideas etc.

I’d an idea of a flapper-festival-fairy sort of thing so that is what I created.

All photos taken by myself on my phone this time so do excuse the quality!

Short timelapse and final photos:

I found several free clipart jpegs of butterfly wings online, and I played around with them in Cricut Design Space (CDS). I strengthened veins and added cut out shapes as well as joining up any ‘loose’ ends.

Cricut butterfly cdsCricut butterfly chain

I arranged my chosen wing on the CDS matt as single wings (mirroring it so I could do symmetrical headgear), as pairs like a real butterfly, and welded into strips like butterfly lace.

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I positioned as many as possible into the size & shape of the material I wanted to cut them from and attached them before cutting with my Cricut Explore Air in assorted sizes and materials.

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This time I added in cuts from the Vellum Cricut sent: I loved the translucent effect. I need to play with my settings a little as it didn’t always weed out as neatly as I liked, but it did take the intricate design fairly well, even the tiny wings.

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My new fave material is the Cricut sparkle paper which is like a heavy glitter cardstock. The glitter card I usually use (the A4 glitter card packs from Hobbycraft) has a granular finish, but this has a thick smooth glossy top layer over the glitter. It makes it seem very strong and is another great texture, which took the wing cuts amazingly well.

cricut-butterfly-bodypaint-glitter-card-stock-22.jpgCricut butterfly bodypaint sparkle card.55

Cricut Sparkle card in dark pink &  Hobbycraft white glitter card

The Cricut corrugated pastel cardboard did look fab with its striped pattern, but again I will fiddle with my settings a bit, as I found that when weeding (Ok I wasn’t being incredibly careful as I had a deadline), tiny uncut areas would peel off the back colour revealing the white underneath which was a bit annoying. I am sure you can’t see it in the photos, but it meant those wings were not truly double-sided colour, which would have been better.

Cricut butterfly bodypaint Opal.56The Cricut opal sticky back vinyl as well – ooooh I love it! Pinky-blue pearly almost neon flashes in some lights, stunning.  It took even the tiniest wing details too, but urgh weeding that small is a faff. Worth it though I think. As it was stuck onto other layers and over paint, its fine on the skin but not something I would adhere directly as it is not a cosmetic product. So pretty! 

I repeated the single wing and butterfly chain patterns as stencils cut from mylar.

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After basing Izabela with Cameleon face paint reds blended through pinks to whites, I stencilled the butterfly chain along her upper chest using a darker burgundy.

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Then loading my sponge with a home-made ‘rainbow’ split cake in pinks and golds, I stencilled the large wing patterns onto her face and smaller butterflies all over her neck.

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Most of my time was then spent pinning and gluing the Cricut cut-outs onto her. Any bits glued onto her skin I used cosmetic water based adhesive, which we remove with baby oil or rubbing alcohol when it has dried and we are finished with the look.

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And there we have it; I love the layered wing headband/ bunches look and will be using the Cricut leathers etc to make myself a more permanent set for working at festivals, I think!

Cricut Butterfly bodypaint garden hug bpc

Cricut Butterfly Fairy side bpc

Cricut Butterfly Fairy look bpc

Cricut butterfly bodypaint look white bpc

Cricut butterfly bodypaint garden down bpc

Thanks to Izabela, the Cricut UK team, and my youngest, who was unexpectedly home and was really good. He sat like an angel for his 1st ever face paint after watching the whole shoot,  and begged to be a dinosaur…

Euans ist dino facepaint and Izabela butterfly.37Euans 1st facepaint, a dino.39

I’ve a 10 hour booking in an ‘immersive rave wonderland’ this weekend and I may wear the headwings in the hope I’ll fit in more with the youngsters I’m decorating!

 

Cricut Crafter of the Month/ Coral Bleaching Bodypaint

by BodypaintingbyCat, posted in Body Paint, Paper crafts

Over the last year I’ve been creating more intricate, mainly paper (it’s more eco-friendly & I can store it in smaller spaces!) accessories for my body paint models.

I can also now custom-cut my own stencils without risking hot-pen burns, as well as create the #cutbycat stencil range for Paintopia Jenn.

This is due to my Cricut Explore Air; a big investment but a big love of mine. I had been eyeing them up since they launched in America years back but only got one last summer. Well worth it!

(This Cricut-accessorised selection is all on Izabela – a fab local model who is often available for me)

I was amazed when Cricut UK started talking to me on social media and asked if I’d be their #CricutCrafteroftheMonth for June. Yes please!
They kindly sent some of their materials for me to create projects showing why I like the machine.

Please note; I don’t use nudes, in all my work on social media models wear knickers, with large breast covers as a minimum on females.

My first artwork for Cricut is based on a something I adore; the ocean.

Connel beach towards Mull; fishing in Belize; life on Hong Kong catamaran

I went to school in the highlands of Scotland with its pristine beaches, but spent holidays in Belize on the world’s 2nd longest barrier reef. Later I ran underwater nature trails in Dorset. We also lived on a catamaran in Hong Kong after sailing it there from Palau, so I’ve admired sea-life world-wide. I hope to take my kids to see reefs when they are older.
Recently I watched the Chasing Coral documentary on Netflix, and the BBC’s Blue Planet 2 series (well done my old uni mate Kathryn & co!). I no longer teach field studies (I’m an artist and now work part-time in a craft chain store too) but wanted to do something to raise interest in ocean issues. Plus I always loved the patterns and textures underwater and thought that would work well on a Cricut project – I adore layers that reveal more layers!
So, I tried to visualise coral bleaching. This is when corals get stressed due to warming seas and pollution, and expel their algae, turning white. Some starve without their algae providing food from photosynthesis, so rot and die. Just the ‘bones’ are left; all the colour goes from the corals, the bright fish and other creatures soon dying or leaving too. (There is hope and it can recover, but we need to help it now.)
To create this effect I scanned in corals I collected on Belize beaches as a kid, and uploaded photos and copyright-free images found online. I altered and thickened them in Cricut Design Space (CDS), so I had intricate but hopefully strong patterns to cut. Other shapes I made from scratch in CDS, welding together then slicing basic circles.

Cricut Coral DS seaweed coral 30 May 2018 21-59Coral cricut DS cutting screen 1 Jun 2018 15-35

I hate wasted material, so in CDS often attach many shapes together into the size of the material I will be cutting to maximise the amount I can fit on a sheet. Cuts this many, this large and so intricate meant I was on my Cricut several hours every evening for over a week, with a whole day spent on it the day before the shoot. I am saving to upgrade to a newer, faster Cricut Maker but even so my older Explore Air is fabulous.

CricutCoral Bodypaint dsitressed foam close 31 May 2018 09-24.57CricutCoral Bodypaint dsitressed foam 31 May 2018 09-24.52CricutCoral Bodypaint dsitressed foam weeding 31 May 2018 09-37.01

Weeding the distressed foam cuts.

Using the correct settings, mats and blades, I cut different corals in all the materials, in varying sizes. That is why I love Cricut Explore Air; once I have the shape I want, I can make multiple copies in any size for crafting, or convert them into stencils.

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I cut lots of each shape from Cricut UK’s pearl, sparkle, glitter and corrugated papers and cardstock in blues, greys, blacks and silvers. I especially liked the distressed foam for coral cutouts and the plush foam for the intricate brain coral pattern covering the top of my headpiece, they had perfect textures and took the patterns really well. 

Cricut Coral setting up in studio 2 Jun 2018 14-09.54

Izabela Kowalewska arranged the shoot at Mark Pickethalls‘ lovely photo studio; he got creative painting glass lenses for background effects whilst I prepped her. 
The following snaps are from my time-lapse, but give an idea of what went on.

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I started with a simple blue body paint base, slightly patchy, to represent beams and streaks of light reaching down from the surface, and different water currents.  I pinned the wire frame I’d made and partially covered with coral shapes onto Iz’s hair, and started pinning and gluing on the other materials I’d cut.
On her headpiece and breast covers I used tacky craft glue or hair grips, but anything touching skin was attached with cosmetic adhesive.

Cricut coral bodypaint 4Cricut coral bodypaint 5

More shapes were added and then I started gluing them onto the large bikini insert triangles which were body-glued onto Izabela’s chest too.

 

Next I stencilled in some of the same patterns as I had cut to give more depth and detail.

Cricut coral bodypaint 7 stencilcricut-coral-bodypaint-stencil-10.jpg

As I wanted to focus on the cut coral patterns and textures this is probably the most minimal body paint I have ever done. Iz was ombre blues/ green – all cosmetic Cameleon bodypaints – with touches of black and white stencilled on too.

I loved the sheen of the midnight blue pearl paper, but it was a bit fragile for building props with of course, so was mainly glued on as a bottom texture layer over her paint.

This took me several hours; towards the end Mark set up his photo studio, and we switched off the time-lapse before I finished to move equipment around.

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Mark was inspired and had been painting glass panels for his lighting with Hobbycraft glass paints too, which created the amazing patterns and effects on the backgrounds in his photos.

Then Iz threw her graceful poses (with a serious face as this was not really a smiley look – see her next time for her lovely grins!) and together we created these end results which I LOVE.

I’m hoping you are inspired to try layering up Cricut makes into a headpiece, or try stencilling…

Too many pics I know, but I couldn’t choose a favourite!

Cricut Coral Blue side crop look bpc

Cricut Coral Blue had crop bpc

Cricut Coral Blue headtop0X0A4605 bpc

Huge thanks to everyone at Cricut UK, Mark and Izabela.