Mulan

When I was faced with creating my own looks for my portfolio, I thought long and hard about the types of creations I would undertake and what they would say about my personality.  I knew there would have to be a section dedicated to Disney characters.  Ever since I was little, I have been enthralled by these cartoon masterpieces.  I spent many hours of my young life watching these movies, especially my favorite Mulan.  Since Mulan was my favorite, she was the natural choice for my first entry.

In preparing my Mulan transformation, I started by watching the movie and pinpointing the look I wanted to achieve.  The scene I chose has Mulan dressed in formal Chinese attire for her interview with the matchmaker.  I watched many videos and studied every picture I could find to make my own sketches.  Some specific things I noticed were that her eyebrows are higher set than most peoples and she has larger heart shaped lips.  In this look her hair is pulled back off her face in a loose and imperfect bun with a curled shorter piece of hair pulled down onto her forehead.  These were the major notes I used when transforming my friend Ashely into the Disney Princess Mulan.

To start transforming Ashley I had to cover her face entirely in white, including her lips and real eyebrows so that I could achieve the high set eyebrows of Mulan.  I then applied a light purple shadow across the lid, extending it passed the natural lid crease.  I used a dark purple above the lid crease to give the illusion that her eyelids are larger.  For the defined and dramatic contrast of a cartoon character I used a black liquid liner to line her eyes.  I started by extending the line across the lid into a full cat eye and dropping it down toward the nose.  Above Ahsley's real brows, I used a black pencil to draw in new high arched brows.  On the cheek, I used a cream blush in pink to make the color really pop on the white face.  The final touch for Mulan's face makeup was her blood red lips.  In the movie, she uses a paint brush and a red paint, so in order to achieve this same painted look I used a deep red lipstick that I extended beyond Ashley's natural lip line.  Remember, I covered her lips in white at the beginning so that the color on the lip and off would have the same pigmentation and look dramatic and costumed.

Mulan's hair required the look of loose imperfection.  Amazingly, creating the appearance of simplicity is not as easy as it should be.  I started by pulling back half of Ashley's hair into a loose bun that set halfway back on her head.  The second half I parted and pulled around the first half.  Then to create the individualized look Mulan tries to achieve herself, I pulled one section to the forehead and used hairspray to keep it in place.  A final allover spritz of hairspray finished the look and kept everything in place.  

A few notes:  

To create a cartoon look, use deeply contrasting colors and liquid makeup whenever possible.

To make pigments match, always use the same base color across the entire face.

And to set everything from hair to makeup, give the final look a final spray with an aerosol hairspray.

Next week:  And to think I saw it on Mulberry Street...

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