Been doing lots of fun creative stuff recently. No less than 3 drawings finished in 1 week! (That's pretty good for me considering it usually takes me 2 weeks to do just one. I'm slow!). And was also shooting yesterday with rootofsilence for HMS Latex, a really cool shoot where I got to do all my own ideas. I've been trying to do more shoots where I get a lot of input on styling and direction recently, as it's been a little while! I guess I do get to play around with my own ideas for lots of the art nude stuff I do too, but after a month or two of only nude shoots I start getting the urge to play dress-up again!

I was rather pleased with the outcome of one of these shoots I did a couple of weeks ago, I just got the images back and totally love them :) I did all my own styling (wardrobe, hair and makeup). Though credit must go to the photographer for the cool shiny background :D

Photography by Mike Tucker, shot at Coombe Cottage Studios (which is also where I was shooting yesterday actually, it's really close to my house!). (coombe_cottage)



( Replicant Blue and some other images this way... )

Hurrah shiny!

I seem to have reverted back to my usual weird unrecognisable accent now. I noticed when I was visiting my parents in Newcastle I slipped straight away back into a strong Northern accent and slang. I don't usually do it conciously, but I felt this time like I was deliberately making my accent stronger when I was with my extended family. I can't decide why. I think it's almost a defensive thing, "I'm still one of you so don't question me" type thing. Kind of interesting (to me anyway!).

I don't think I wrote about it here, but move moving to London is (almost certainly) postponed temporarily. There are a number of reasons, not least being issues with funding for my Masters so I am going to have to defer my entry until September 09. The Masters was one of the major reasons I was moving. I also have the opportunity to go to Sydney and Hong Kong early next year for an extended trip, and it just wouldn't be possible if I was studying. I really love travelling and it's not likely I'll be in the position to do extended travelling once I'm studying again (certainly not as far as Australia anyway) or once I've finished the course and have to start paying back loans!

I found a couple of images from the shoot I wrote about yesterday at The Glasshouse in Edinburgh. I didn't realise the photographer had a blog. I've added it to LJ now: yerbury_photo :)

Click for full view!

Photo: yerbury_photo
Latex: Fraulein Ehrhardt


Uber pouty lips of doom. Random awesome fact: Fraulein Ehrhardt have named thier latest dress design after me! :D (See it HERE)

There are several more images (including a funny behind the scenes one) on Trevor's blog here and here (some nudity).

I bought the latest issue of Alternative Magazine to read on the train home from the shoot and was rather interested in the 'News' section at the back, which was reporting on discrimination laws and how having an alternative appearance isnt covered by them. The bit that kind of annoyed me was the ending paragraph, it was supposed to be about the positive side to looking 'alternative' and it used modelling as an example. They had a quote from a professional alt male model "It's the easiest job on the planet and I get to look at half naked people all day" (or something similar). I couldn't tell if it was meant to be tongue-in-cheek or not. I do hope it was.. I don't want to come across as some sort of snob, but 'easy' isn't a word I'd use to describe any sort of professional modelling. I think people saying stuff like that gives such the wrong impression to aspiring models . Not to mention the 'I get to look at naked people all day' bit is kinda lame :/ I'm not sure why is bugged me so much. I guess because I rather like the magazine.

Just sat in Newcastle Central Station waiting for my train home (5.5 hours journey. boo). Rather impressed I seem to be able to access the National Express trains free wi-fi despite the fact there are currently no trains around. The connection is actually way better than when I was actually on the train O_o Alas my train home is a Virgin Cross Country and I don't think they do wi-fi. I suspect my laptop battery is about to die soon.

I was shooting in Edinburgh yesterday with photographer Trevor Yerbury and his wife (I think her name was Faye but I'm so bad with names if I don't read them first). We shot in The Glasshouse hotel, which is a rather nice 5 star luxury type place. We had a fancy suite room but actually did most of the shoot on the balcony outside as it has a really great roof and lots of interesting shapes and lines that went nicely with latex and ballet heels. It was one of those enjoyable productive shoots where I felt everything went really well. Faye did my hair in a slicked back wave, which I blasted with hairspray afterwards so it would stay in (still wearing it now. lol).

While I'm here, here's a couple of pretty new pics from my shoot with Rebecca Parker :)



Photo:Rebecca Parker
Hair & MUA: Keri & Cerys
Corset: Starkers

( yeah it was one of those 'im gonna do weird stuff with my arms' kinda shoots! )

I have loads more to waffle about but I think my battery is about to die..

Currently visiting my parents up North and suffering from lack of internet access! Just found a little internet cafe to quickly check my email (and update LJ of course). Haven't really been up to much. I had a shoot in Glasgow on Tuesday at a really awesome location (derelict/semi burned down priest's school!). I was supposed to be shooting yesterday too but it got cancelled, which was rather frustrating but nevermind! So I've mostly been pottering about my parents internet-free house, getting quite a lot of drawing done!

I have several emails with photos n stuff I would quite like to post but unfortunately the internet cafe I'm in is very 'open' and also full of teenage guys playing on the LAN stuff, so I can't really have a good look at them. lol.

This one is 'suitable' though:


(Click for full view)

Shot by the awesome Rebecca Parker
Hair and Makeup: Keri and Cerys
Clothing: Freyagushi

I have to admit, I was a bit unsure about the hair and makeup with the outfit, but it looks cute in the pic. There were lots of members of the public watching us, and one of the small children thought I was a princess :D

Returned home yesterday from a comically bad couple of days in Hamburg. For starters, I very nearly passed out for no apparent reason on the flight, and had to go and sit down at the front with the cabin crew until I stopped shaking and my vision stopped being blurry. It was a 6am flight but I had actually eaten a proper breakfast and have no idea where the random fainting came from. I think the attendant thought I was scared of flying. Kind of embarrassing!

Then there was a big crash on the motorway while I was on the bus from Lubeck airport to Hamburg and I sat for 2 hours in the non-moving traffic, complete with pre-requisite badly behaved screaming children with parents who did nothing to control them.

It was while sitting bored on the bus I realised I had left my plastic bag of liquid items at security at Stansted, including some rather expensive makeup that was practically brand new. So, in a rather poor mood, I had to skip stopping at my hotel for a shower and go straight to the shoot about 1 hour late, minus deodorant which was also in the lost bag. Schmexy.

Then for reasons that I can't figure out, I missed the bus back to the airport 2 days later. For those who don't know, Lubeck is a strange little airport that I like to call a 'special' Ryanair airport, it's a glorified shed 1 hour away from Hamburg with flights going back and forth from London Stansted. The only way to get there is by the shuttle bus, and there is only one bus for each flight. So, I had to pay 100 euros for a taxi. 100 euros! *cries*. I so can't afford that. Thankfully the taxi took cards. It should have been more but I think the driver felt sorry for me.

Of course, it wasn't all bad. The shooting for HighGlossDolls itself went really well, I got to wear lovely new latex along with my birthday present gorgeous shoes (and also a couple of pairs of Gucci shoes which were rather hot). The first day was mostly latex hoods and the second day there was a hair/makeup person and we shot some shiny dresses and lingerie. We went out for sushi both days after the shoot, and it was very good.

I think there are some small cropped previews on the latex SALE page of the website already which look nice and shiny :) (edit: oops, they must have all sold already so you can't see 'em anymore!

I need to actually leave the house and go buy replacement makeup for a shoot tomorrow now. doh. I feel my saving money for Uni is now fail!

Firstly thankyou so much everyone for all the lovely bithday greetings and well wishes, it really made my day. I actually had to catch a train to a shoot on the evening of my birthday and have barely had internet access since, so apologies I haven't got back to everyone individually or replied to all emails n stuff yet.

Am going on holiday straight after a shoot tomorrow too so today is my last 'catch up' day! And I need to pack too. Only I just got asked to go to a last minute casting in London this afternoon. lol. I very very rarely go to castings as it's rather expensive to go to London if I'm not getting paid, but this one is for a job I'm really keen to get picked for *fingers crossed*.

Oh, kumimonster and I are on the Torture Garden Rubber Ball Special Flyer with one of those cool pics by Allan Amato, the one with Kumi's hair sucking out my brains in fact :D


Kind of interesting it's the 'Rubber' Ball special and neither of us are wearing any!

Photo: Allan Amato
MUA: Bea Sweet
Hair: Robert Masciave
Wardrobe: Mother of London and Antiseptic

And some other things I keep meanining to write about but haven't had the chance:

The long-awaited Coilhouse Magazine Issue 1 soon to be available to buy!!! Can't wait to order a copy! They are having a launch party and art exhibit in LA today. Hopefully if enough copies of the first issue sell, they will be able to do a UK launch for the second issue (hint hint ;p).

And High Gloss Dolls has had a redesign and also has it's own blog now. The entries go back several years! I was quite impressed with all the random cool press that Katja's latex has had :) I added it's feed to Livejournal for those who are like me and like all thier blogs in one place: highglossdolls

I just finished watching the entire Twin Peaks season 1 & 2 for the first time ever (yeah I know, how on earth did I leave it this long).

OMG yet another TV show I become totally addicted to that gets cancelled at has an ends-in-the-middle-of-the-story ending with loads of unanswered questions. Now I must trawl the interweb reading up on theories and stuff.

I tried dying my hair yellow. The base wasn't pre-lightened enough though, it's a very yellowy orange instead rather than deep orange as it was before). Looks quite cool :)

Today is my first day of no longer having a day job. I told myself I was going to have August as a 'relax' month but I've somehow managed to end up with shoots nearly every day. Going to see my parents for a week later in the month though, that should be a nice break.

Ear is still blocked. Getting it syringed next week (nice. lol). When I talk it sounds really loud to me, like when you cover your ears and your voice sounds louder. Apparently this is making me talk very quietly so no-one can hear me. I feel like I'm shouting otherwise!

Nothing much else of interest going on at the moment. Had a shoot booked for tomorrow cancelled at the last minute but was booked for another shoot instead in record time. So I'm working now with Mick Waghorne again. Looking forward to that, he always does art nudes but with some random quirkyness or oddness. I like that sort of thing :)

The rest of the stuff I shot for Drac In a Box Clothing is on thier website now too. I was just thinking, Drac In a Box were the first 'alternative' clothes online shop I ever found, it must have been around the year 2000 when I first got internet access. I bought my first ever corset off them (I saved my student money for ages cos I wanted it so much!). I didn't start modelling till over 3 years later. I feel really lucky that I get to work for companies and artists now that I have liked since before I even considered the idea of modelling!

Here is one of the shots by damiens
For Drac In a Box

I woke up this morning totally deaf in my right ear, it's very disorientating. I guess it's blocked or something, it getting more painful as the day goes on. I want to go home early but I have to stay at work till nearly 8pm to invigilate an exam :(

I got some pics from the shoot I did for Freyagushi Clothing (the one with the slightly stinky raw heart that I wrote about last week!). This is part of the new collections that will be on the Freyagushi website soon :)





Photography by Catherine Day
Clothing and styling and makeup by pinkindus

There's more examples on Catherine's Deviantart page too :)

Yesterday I went to see the tabú_standing on the edge of the wilderness show by the nofit state circus. What a fun and unusual experience! Most of the show was in the air, with things going on all around the tent everywhere you turned, and the crowd could just move around wherever they wanted beneath the performers. There were guides telling people when they needed to move to make space for performances on the ground. As always when I see circus shows and acrobats, I was in awe of everyone's flexibility and physical strength and it all made me want to run away and join the circus.

I was vaguely amused on leaving the show at the end and hearing a woman say in a rather haughty voice that she felt it was "a bit seedy" when the whole theme of the show was the darker side of human nature. Though 'seedy' wouldn't be the word I would use. It was more a slightly surreal/dreamy macabre feeling, where I couldn't quite tell what was making it feel that way (possibly a lot to do with the music and slow narration and eye contact between the performers). I like that.

And... another pic from the shoot in Dublin:



Photography by Lorraine Gilligan
Makeup by Audrey O'Brien

I love the intensity of the black around the eyes, and the shadows on the collar bones. Very cool shoot :)

Following on from my previous post, here is a small sample of what I was doing in Dublin over the weekend:


Click on image for full size version

Photography by Ciaran Whyte
Hair/MUA: Audrey O'Brien

I'm wishing the hair was in a more stylised up-do, but I still love the angles and the lighting and styling in this one. I like the rather sinister facial expression too :) I'd quite like to do more non-alternative fashion styled stuff like this, just for a change. Though I did have fun shooting a couple of new things for Drac in a Box last week too (my hair goes really well with rusty surfaces!).

Off to London this weekend to shoot a new pic for Robert Masciaves entry into an Avant Garde hairdressing competition. I think it's going to have a medical theme so am rather looking forward to it. Will be bringing along my collection of medical goodies as props :)

Getting my hair colour touched up the day before too. Am thinking I'm going to ask them to get rid of the darker red underneath and make all my hair one shade of bright copper for now, then I can add yellow bits myself later on.

This week I've been having some doubts about going back to Uni. I'm worried about the bank loan and being tied down by debt for several years after I graduate. Probably just going through a pessimistic week, it's been a busy/stressful one! I can't wait until August. I'm going to read many good books and get on with lots of new artwork. So many ideas in my head, I'll finally have the time to put them on paper!

Currently in Dublin on day 1 of a 2 days shoot with photographer Ciaran Whyte. After driving around waiting for the rain to stop this morning we managed to do some nice fashion stuff on location in park. I was standing barefoot of some stairs that were slanted at an almost 45 degree angle, trying to look graceful as the wind tried to blow me over. I think it turned out ok though! We did some pretty natural light nudes afterwards too. Now just having a break waiting for takeaway curry and then we're going back out to do another location in the evening light. Tomorrow is studio stuff, not sure of the details yet.

I shot an editorial a couple of days ago for Angels Carrying Savage Weapons. I was wearing some beautiful pure silk one-off bridal gowns in a filthy old factory of some sorts. It was very cool but I had much fear of destroying very expensive dresses! It should be appearing in the September issue of Black Meringue magazine so can't show off any pics till then :) They were also shooting their new 'professional widow' range of corsets with another model at the same time (as one was getting shot the other of us was getting changed) but unfortunately she was feeling ill towards the end of the day and left early so I modelled the last few collection items too. My butt was slightly bigger than hers though so I had to be rather careful not to pose to enthusiastically and burst any zips. lol.

ooh curry has arrived!! more update later :)

Does anyone remember these pictures of myself and goth_amalthea? :) I think I might put them back on my website.

She's just sent me a text saying she just saw Lily Cole at Heathrow airport. lol. She's about to go away on some big excavation in the middle east for the entire summer and I probably wont be able to contact her until september. I feel bad I didn't make the time to go and see her before she left :(

Yesterday was lots of fun, I had a shoot with Catherine Day who had lots of cool colourful ideas involving sweeties, wellingtons, yellow goo and a plastic seagull called Harold. I ate lots of jelly tots and very good white chocolate and rasberry muffins (courtesy of Matt Frederick, who is another cool photographer).

This is part of what we were doing :)


Photography by Catherine Day

Harold is blatantly attempting to burst my balloons.

In the afternoon pinkindus joined us and we shot some new items for Freyagushi Clothing. One of the sets involved a raw heart. Unsurprisingly it really started to smell bad after a while! But the pics looked cool :)

Oh not long now until The Dark Knight! Hellboy 2 looks pretty cool too, it's directed by the same guy who did the beautiful but rather depressing not-the-kids-film-I-thought-it-was Pan's Labyrinth.

I decided I might try and walk home from work yesterday (frequent readers of my journal ramblings may remember my job recently relocated to an old manor house in the middle of nowhere with no public transport, destroying my ability to work flexible hours as I am forced to wait for the once-a-day bus home). Whilst the 50 minute walk 2.5 miles through the countryside of Somerset was quite invigorating (I was also impressed I didn't really get tired or breathless the way I used to when I was at school), I really didn't think it through. My boots were not made for walking and my feet are now suffering from blisters and general achey-ness. I think I could do with an extended foot massage (though not that weird kind that kumimonster does that involves dislocation of the ankle :p).

Found another bath-in-the-desert pic on deviantart:


Photo by Michelle Roberts

I think it was shot at almost the same time as the one I posted previously (there were several photographers shooting at once). I like the way different photographers see different things. This one to me feels quite different to the other, which was lost and forlorn but in a cute 'oopsie mud' sort of way. This one is more desolate and slightly post-apocalyptic. It also make me enjoy orange hair again.

This site is awesome :D

http://www.cartoonoveranalyzations.com/ (toonanalyzation)

(via http://piratesofdarkwater.net/ prompted by marauderautarki who wrote that article I mentioned here).

118 degrees in the Mojave desert.. after spending most of the day wearing leather corsets, high heels and lots of heavy hair extensions, it was rather pleasant to be told my next location was a bathtub out on the plain. Hurrah. Bath tub = naked. After copius amounts of spray-on factor 55 I made my way out to the bath. Having ran out of interesting poses sitting in a bath in the middle of nowhere, I thought it might be cool to tip it on it's side and spray the ground with hose, and do 'falling out of bath' type poses. I didn't realise it would turn the sandy dust quite so mushy but it was all good, rolling around in the mud was refreshing

This is the first shot I've seen from that set at the Fetish Fashion Fuel workshop. I saw loads of previews on the day from this particular set that I really liked, I hope I get sent some more!


Click image for full size view

Photo by JT Photo Studio
Hair and makeup technically by Daven Mayeda but it totally blown out in the wind by this point, and my face hosed with water and covered in mud. lol.