In this post I will explain my final body-art designs.
Once I had chosen to use South Africa as my chosen culture, I began to refine my body art design. Although I liked my previous designs, I still don’t feel they represented the whole of the country, instead they seemed to focus solely on the tribal groups.Therefore, I created another design in a bid to represent many different aspects of this culture.
Face; Continuing to represent the popular beauty trends of South Africa, I chose to create a light and natural, no-make-up make-up base. Then I created a bold lip and eye shadow. After completing my research into popular beauty trends, and the symbolism’s of different colors and images, I chose to use red on the lips and blue on the eyes. I chose these colors to further support my idea of empowering women, as blue represents peace, calm, trust and affection, while red represents daring energy. Then, I added some simplistic tribal markings on the face, to represent the combination of traditional tribal beauty and modern westernization.
Body; In my refined body art design I added a combination of tribal prints, animal prints and national symbols to represent the whole of the country. I used a variety of bold colours and geometric shapes to represent the different tribal groups of South Africa, as well as recognizing their celebration of all things bright and bold. I used symbols such as; the national flower (Pretoria), and the national tree (Yellow wood), along with the flag, to represent the country as a whole. Then, I created a band of animal prints (Cheetah, Zebra, Snake, Giraffe) on one arm to celebrate the country’s wild wildlife. Then, I planned to use SFX techniques to create a tribal scarring effect on the chest. Finally, on the back I planned to create a collection of different tribal masks, while also creating a tribal totem pole on one of the legs.
Hair; Recently, we have began lessons on avant garde hair-styling by learning how to make hair cages. One of my hair designs was based around this. I intended to create a crimped, messy up-do with the hair cage, to mimic a lions mane. I would then use wire to intertwine some cow horns in to the hair cage, creating a tribal warrior inspired look.
However, in the case this would not work, my second plan is to create a bubble braid to keep the hair off the face, and back, allowing the whole of my design to be seen. Then, I will use a feather crown I created to finalize the look, creating a tribal leader inspired outcome.
Megan Hoff 