Captain Marvel..who the hell is she?
Back in December Quinn.tessential Effects and I booked Huzzard's studio for some body painting shoots where we also threw in a quick couple of cosplay Christmas shoots and smack in the middle I shot Donald Trumpet. I knew the day was going to hurt but I didn't realise how much. That day KILLED me. Literally. I'm not even talking write now it's my snarky ghost typing this out. I'd just past the half way mark and I was lying on the chair things (I don't know what you call them they weren't chairs exactly) because my body had admitted defeat and wasn't moving anymore. My spine does this awesome thing over the last several months where it locks up and I can't move and the pain is unbareable. It did that. I couldn't stand up properly for about half an hour while I tried to walk it off and basically demanded someones phone for Uber Eats (mine wouldn't load) so I could take some pain killers. This meant that I made Ashayla Webster stand around for some time in full bodypaint while I tried to become functional again. This is also why I quit photography until further notice. I just can't cope anymore. The gig I shot in January I spent about 95% of it sitting outside and still ended the night in the green room lying all over the couch because I was done being upright. That's also a problem with Scheuermann's Disease/Osteoarthritis pain - sitting doesn't even really help. Being upright in general is just hard work at times and you just really need to be horizontal. The pain management department on Monday kept going on about pacing and how they can help with getting you to build up how long/far you can walk or sit..how about being upright in general?
Eventually we got back into it and I was told off for dragging a stool over instead of asking someone to get it for me (I'm also incredibly stubborn because I'm used to doing things on my own) but as I was about to shoot I told Ashayla "I hope you know what to do here because I don't even know who Captain Marvel is!". Unlike my Death Note shoot, this was completely Quinn.tessential Effects concept. I never heard of Captain Marvel until the end scene of that last Avengers film. I have no idea what she does other than apparently have a killer Resting Bitch Face problem (I've seen photos) or anything so for the first time ever it was all on the cosplay model to pull this off, though if you're a cosplayer/cosplay model I would assume you'd know who you are cosplaying as or why are you even bothering? The worst part about these shoots is the shoot itself is done in about 10 minutes, despite the hours it took to paint it. Next time I need to do some behind the scenes/time lapse photos. For some of the shots I just cleaned up the background a bit but didn't alter the painting itself. I didn't even clone out the nipple covers because I didn't want to disrupt the brushstrokes. I did however remove them from the pictures below this!
So with all this free time on my hands now I thought I'd get a bit fancy with my editing. I'm no digital artist but I wanted to have a go at using flames in the photos. I looked up promo photos and posters for the Captain Marvel movie to get some ideas on what to do and hit up some stock sites.
This was the first one I did. I wanted to put some fireballs in her hands and give it a background. Tutorials made it look pretty easy but I spent way longer than I'm going to admit on them. With the background I put a blue/red gradient over it and added one of my astrophotography photos over the sky to give it a bit of a star effect. It's super subtle. The biggest pain in the ass with this photo was the wig, where the seam runs at the back there was a lump and it was just horribly weird looking so I darkened the edges to try and hide it more and blend in with the background.
Credits: Fire 1 by Adonyi Gabor / Fire 2 by Skitterphoto / Fire 3 by Moein Moradi / Ottawa by Marc-Olivier Jodoin
This next one I figured would be easier because I know what I'm doing, but nope. When I shot this I had Zac hold the fan closer and on an angle so we could get her hair moving. Great in theory but it made working around the edges harder. There are ways in photoshop to do selections for this kind of thing but I hate them so I end up doing some things the hard way but for me it's quicker and less frustration. I accidentally left off one of the photos used to make this, but the background is clouds with a fire layer over the top which gave the sky it's colour and contrast and just overall made it look more superheroey/apocalyptic. The fire around the edges was quite a few layers that I manipulated the shape of.
Credits - Fire credits same as above / Clouds by Billy Huynh / Solar Flare (used over the clouds) by Pixabay
This one I kept more basic. I played with the colour settings so she blended with the background more then added a couple of duplicate layers to create movement blur.
Credits: Cityscape by Jiarong Deng
Lucky last, this pose was just asking to be turned into the iconic "We Can Do It!" poster! I spent ages looking for a template when I realised I could have made it ten times in photoshop by myself and I'm just lazy.
The movie is out on March 8th so I'll see it at some point and finally find out who she is and why she's so important.
If you like the photos you can grab prints through the store here.
Here's some links to finish this off!
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Model Ashayla Webster - Facebook / Instagram
Bodypainting Quinn.tessential Effects - Facebook / Instagram