Last Saturday I attended an uber cool event by Make Up For Ever Singapore, which was held at their Pro Loft at Armenian Street and was part of the Singapore Night Festival.
Named Fluo Dreams, the Pro Loft and Academy was transformed into a hip venue (not that it already isn’t!), with music, artists, bodypainters, and guests exploring a glow-in-the-dark room. The glowing room was decked out with UV lights which lit up five beautifully painted mannequins, which all had designs created with fluorescent makeup.
Here’s a little peek into the glow room!
Glowing, fluorescent mannequins fill the room, it’s sort of like a nightclub-meets-high-art-exhibition!
This brings to mind the William Blake poem which goes,
TIGER, tiger, burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?
The facial makeup of this mannequin is seriously dope!! Textures, dimensions, and out-of-this-world color mix!
Above: My favorite mannequin of the night was painted by Alan and Evadne, and features butterflies. But what I really, really, loved about it was that they sprinkled Fluo Nights all over the rest of the mannequin (arms, legs), which made the butterflies look like they were flitting around in this inter-galactic universe. Oh, and it looks like an explosion too. Uber cool! That’s my take on it, but the artists have their own stories behind it as well. The only way for you to find out more is to go chat with them this coming weekend!
A display of the products used to create Fluo Dreams. Fluo Nights was mixed with Mist & Fix for it to be applied onto the plastic mannequins.
====
We then managed to steal five minutes with two of the artists, Eddie and Julia Lie, and asked them about their journey to creating their masterpieces.
Eddie is currently a trainer at Make Up For Ever.
A close-up of Eddie’s work.
Beautynthebikes(BntB): Hi Eddie, tell us about how you got started in body painting.
Eddie: Last year, I started to do body painting without any prior experience in it, and now I love bodypainting. I love painting on the female body rather than the male, because the female shape has more contours.
BntB: How was it like to work with fluorescence and the mannequin as compared to regular body paint?
Eddie: We had to mix wet makeup with Fluo Night (the fluorescence makeup range from MUFE), and when we first started, we had no UV lit rooms so we did not know how it would turn out. It’s not easy to work in UV lit rooms either because your eyes will get tired. It was challenging working with Fluo Night and best designs to do with Fluo Night are abstracts and hard lines instead of blending.
BntB: How long did it take you to complete painting this mannequin?
Eddie: Two weeks.
BntB: WHOA!
Eddie: The colours painted on the plastic mannequin tend to look different from the colours on a human body, you’ve to use a minimum amount of water and it tends to get patchy at times too.
BntB: If you were given one more week to redo your mannequin, what would you do?
Eddie: I would paint their nails and I would create a artificial cheekbones for the mannequin. But since we didn’t have the time, we painted this instead. (He points to a triangular shape on the mannequin’s cheek).
Eddie then reveals to me that he was my fan from my modelling days when I was doing runway shows. AWW!! Thank you Eddie. I then broke his bubble by telling him I gained 10 kg since then. HAHA!
I then caught up with Julia Lie who is a graduate of the Make Up For Ever Academy.
BntB: How long did you take to complete this?
Julia: I work during the day so I could only work on this at night, so it took me about 5 days.
BntB: Why did you choose the unicorn and what was your inspiration?
Julia: The theme is fluo dreams, and I first thought of unicorns because they are so magical, just like how makeup has the capability to transform humans into magical beings.
BntB: What was the biggest challenge for this painting?
Julia: It’s not easy to use the Fluo Night product so I needed to be very careful when using the powder.
BntB: What’s your advice for aspiring body painters?
Julia: You have to look for inspiration, because it’s not just about painting but the entire look.
Julia’s mannequin catches your eye with it’s bold lines and solid colours.
So it seems like it’s pretty challenging to be a body painter, and even more challenging with the fluorescent makeup!
We also got a chance to watch Pro Artist Mayela and champion bodypainter Noemie Contessi in action, painting these two hunky models with insanely detailed designs. Painting is already tough, let alone doing gradients on the body, and giving the designs dimensions. I only have one word for them. #godmode
Noemie Contessi and her to-die-for blending skills
Model gets graffitied by Mayela Sepulveda, her work just comes alive! It almost looked like the model was still bubbling in paint.
These guys were in their fifth hour of body paint when I visited.
Both kids and adults can enjoy free fluo face painting at the event!
I’ll tell you, seeing the artwork in person really blows your mind more than just images on your computer screen. I think any aspiring bodypainter and makeup artist would find this exciting.
If you’ll like to get up close with all these great artists, check out the exhibits, and even get a free fluo design painted on you, drop by the Make Up For Ever Pro Loft this coming Saturday and Sunday, 7pm to 12 midnight. Lots of other events are also going on in the vicinity during the Singapore Night Festival, so it’s bound to be really happening.
Address and event poster are below, so go ENJOY!
MAKE UP FOR EVER PRO LOFT & ACADEMY
36 & 38 Armenian Street #01-00 Singapore 179934
