Star Trek Adventures
Once graduating from DFMA they invite you to join a Private Pro page only open to students and those who have attended the course, this is a page that advertises a range of jobs from teachers of the academy and other students who maybe cant make that job. The page also provides aftercare where you can post your concerns about not just makeup but business advise of costing’s, insurance etc. and you’ll get advise from not only other students but the teachers as well. Anyway on the Pro page I noticed a really cool job opportunity in some FX work, the job was open to a team of Six working a stall at the ‘Star Trek Convention 2014’ held at the London Excel, now I’m not a Start Treky or anything but I was super excited so I plonked my name down with my portfolio link awaiting a response if I’ve been chosen. In less then a couple of days it was all confirmed I had been successful with the following list of ladies, two of which I knew as they were on the same course, yippppeee!
The following week I set up a messenger group with all of who is involved, we chatted and introduced each other and then rightfully selected one person to be point of contact to the Star Trek organizers instead of ALL of us hassling them with the same questions. Karen was our spokeswomen a wonderful lady who was happy to take on the roll. Now the convention wasn’t till October and this I believe was around July time so sure we had plenty of time to sort out bits but then I read the brief we the team would be responsible for Making and Applying pieces from the infamous Star Trek program, we have to sort out our own costing’s, pay for the materials ourselves and then the money we would make was then our pay, fair enough but holey cow I had only just walked out of DFMA and never made a piece before especially for something so specific in design. We were then left to it and as a team we shared videos and advise on how we plan to make these pieces cost effectively, also the important decision was which characters and how much should we charge?!
Of course ‘Spock’ was a must for even I not being a Treky fan I knew who Spock was in amazing ear pieces, sharp eyebrows and wig piece this could be a cool full character piece as well as the option of just having ears, a ‘Klingon’ was thrown in as well as a full character or just the infamous head piece, amongst other character pieces of leopard print face paint and nose pieces.
Now all being alien to this kind of convention we had no idea on how many to make so we each decided to obviously only do what you can but try to aim for twenty pairs of ears, and Ten Klingons, all the rest would be applied on the day, wigs were brought in as well as crepe hair for our Spock brows!
Making the Spock Ears and Klingon Head piece, I simply made a design out of air drying clay basing it on the program, for the head piece I had to take a cast of my forehead to then design the piece on using that size, for the ears I based it on my ear size, even though it has been said I have extremely small ears the fact we are using latex we can always stretch and chop as we go for there is no knowing what sized ears are gonna walk in nor how many. Once the clay had dried I then popped some Vaseline onto the clay to help ease removing the latex, I applied the first layer then dried with the hair dryer, I did this for around 5-6 layers for each piece, my Dad who I live with was not happy with the constant belting of hair dryer motion, but as I would say, its for work haha! An important tip when making pieces is after around two layers leave around maybe half an inch round the outside so when you apply the product the thinness of the outside makes a smoother look from the edge of the piece to the skin also when removing latex of the mould remember to powder otherwise it will stick to itself!!
So all in all we were all busy making things and super excited about meeting and working together, but unfortunately by this point my two girls who I knew had dropped out so in all there was only four of us and was too late to get anyone on board a little daunting yes!
So its October, packed my bags and I’m off to the excel at stupid o’clock in the morning with two suitcase, one and half of products the other half my over night bits ha. I was meeting the Ladies in Excel and funny enough I bumped into one Andrea (to your Right) on the tube on our way there, I knew it was her as we had a connection as makeup artists, ha no she was wearing a DFMA t-shirt which was required by the academy. Immediately meeting her I felt at ease, one I wasn’t lost and two she was lovely, we made our way to excel where we saw Karen and Natalie, all with big smiles I knew this was gonna be fun!
Arriving at our stall we al chatted and showed each other what materials and products we had brought.
We was there for three days, Friday was a little slow but was only open to certain members but it was nice as we all got a chance to get comfortable with the products and applying them, I also previous to arrival made a advisory sheet outlining the products and risks of the products used and that you agree blah blah blah sheet that is of course important, so Friday was our practice of going through what we use and getting confortable with each other as well.
We then settled into out accommodation and went to bed ready for Saturday!! Saturday was hectic, I mean crazy, we did not stop we were turning people out like a little factory, the people were amazing and appreciated what we were doing, some would stay and chat or venture back just to say hi, it was such a buzz to say the least, we all worked so well as a team and had a giggle at the same time. In a hype we also went to the Star Trek after party, which I had such a great time with the girls and customers who were there, bit of dancing on the dance floor never hurt anyone!
Sunday we were all a little tired but still we plodded on raring to go, it was a lot more chilled out in comparison to Sunday but in all we were selling out fast on our pieces especially the Spock Ears which was such a great feeling that a product you had made was enjoyed by that customer suddenly all that hair drying and burning fingers became worth it!
Over all the weekend was amazing I met three wonderfully amazing artists who made me feel apart of a team, so much so this convention was the birth of the new team called Karen’s Angels!!
I then had an enjoyable three hour enjoyable journey back the Faversham due to engineering works, love public transport!