Archive for October, 2009

Zombies and Vampires… I’m starting to think there’s a theme here

Posted on Oct 30, 2009 09:12:00 PM

I got to practice my new skills last week.  Larping again, of course.  Lots of fun.  I had to makeup a bunch of vampires and… well, we’ll call them zombies, they weren’t really, they were magical experiments gone wrong, but essentially they were people with ghastly wounds and really important pieces missing (like brains and hearts) who were still walking around. Sounds like a zombie to me.

There wasn’t a lot of time and I was singlehandedly responsible for making the game start late. Oops, but I went as fast as I could!  Don’t look if you’re squeamish, hehe, but I was particularly proud of this cut throat… 

and this gouged out face, and this other fellow who’s definitely got something wrong with him, though he doesn’t look overly unhappy about it.

 

Look, seriously, I promise I’ll do something pretty next time, ok. Something with butterflies and flowers. Promise.  Oh wait, it’s Halloween tomorrow….

 

LARP Article on 20/20

Posted on Oct 10, 2009 12:09:00 AM

Remember my article on facepainting for larpers? Face Painting and Zombies  was written about my most excellent weekend at Chimera.  I mentioned that the 20/20 documentary team were there filming an article on the hobby.  Well, here it is.

http://tvnz.co.nz/20-20-news/coming-up-20-having-larp-3047776/video

They did show me painting Hugh’s beard, disguising the elastics.  Well, my hands anyway.   I can live with that.

 

Evil Twins visit New Zealand for Face Painting Awesomeness

Posted on Oct 6, 2009 06:48:00 AM

Brian and Nick Wolfe of Evil Twin FX came to New Zealand as part of some sort of “almost world tour”.  They ran 2 day workshops in Wellington and Auckland. I went along to the Auckland one at the Lake House Art Center in Takapuna.  Here’s my class.  Might swap it out for a larger version tomorrow.  That’s a bit teeny (gets magnifying glass).

 

It was FANTASTIC!  I learned heaps and had a blast doing it.  I’ve bought books and watched videos and muddled along figuring out stuff myself, but there’s nothing like having someone lean over your shoulder and go “that’s good, but look what happens if you just move this line here.” and have the design just go pow!  If you ever get the opportunity to go to a workshop with these guys, take it!  Plus they have these awesome heads to practice on. I need one!  So, day one was skull and monster faces, plus some excellent line drawing and tribal techniques which I will be practicing lots.

The best part is that they focus on face painting designs for boys.  It’s a little harder to find cool boy designs, especially for older boys.  Now I can do bullet wounds, scars and monsters for all!  At the end of both days, we students volunteered to be painted by the brothers (or would begged be a better word? yeah, probably!).  As Saturday was the David Tua / Shane Cameron fight night, a bunch of folks were going off to watch the fight at various bars and parties.  They got all uglied up for the evening, black eyes, cuts, bruises, broken teeth.  Me, I hadda take it one step further and ask to have part of my face ripped off.

  

 Yah, LARPers, taking it too far, allll the time. Anyway, here’s me, all uglied up, with Nick Wolfe, who painted it. Thanks!  I went to a birthday party after.  Fortunately, not a kids one.

 

 

 

 

Day 2 was wounds, gore and prosthetics.  Awesome!  I really enjoyed learning how to paint stitches, cuts, bruises and bullet holes, by lunchtime the whole class looked like a war had broken out. These two “reluctant” volunteers (hah!) are our new resident Zombie and Moria Orc.  If you ever wondered what girl orcs look like, there you go!  Thanks Erin, Jules and Brian Wolfe for posing for the pictures.

 A bit more watching and less participation with the prosthetic section, but still, I got to paint some of the grey on the zombie, so he’s partly my creation!  Oh, and GM friends, I also took loads of notes, so recreation is a possibility.