The Circes

The Circes are named after the Greek witch Circe, who turned Odysseus and his men into pigs. Although we don't intend to go quite that far, we do turn men (and women, or course) into creatures, with the help of prosthetic make up. The Circes are Alana, the creative knowledgeable one, and Amanda, the enthusiastic and organised one. Alana came up with the idea of taking fancy dress parties to a whole new dimension by using similar make up to that which is used in films, and this is a blog to record our efforts from (almost) the very beginning. Moulds we've got so far: * The ever popular gruesome wound * Buffyesque vampire forehead * Scars In production: * Bullet wound * Vampire bite * Lion claw marks.

Yes, yes, I know

I haven't posted for a while. Sadly Alana and I got distracted somewhere along the way with things like work (summer holidays are sadly a thing of the past) and college. But no more! We've pulled things back on track, as you will see from the following photos. We got asked to do the make up for a locally based indie film, featuring Barry of 'Extras' fame. So we got a bit of practice in:

I would like to point out that that is make up: Alana didn't just push me down the stairs. Although sometimes I can see a certain look in her eye and I do wonder whether she's contemplating it. Especially as it took us about fifteen shots just to get a decent one; I kept giggling at inopportune moments. Few things are less convincing than a giggling corpse.

So once we felt that we'd got the basics down, Alana was sent off to make our friend Alex's mum look mortally wounded. And I think she did a pretty good job!

See, we can do pretty...

Yes we can, pretty pretty:



But just in case think we're girly girls, Lana insisted on, yes, being a bit gross. Enjoy:

Very impressed

I've just got back from Spain, and as though in an attempt to stop me going away again (or perhaps to make me go away more often) Alana has stepped up yet another level, and I think the last vampire/ icky wound effect she did are frankly marvelous. Thank goodness she has a patient brother who needs any excuse not to do his revision.

Great. Disgusting, yes, but absolutely great.

On another note, I was watching Holby City - well, not watching it, it was on in the background, honestly - and I wasn't grossed out by all the surgery scenes. Two months ago I would have had to look away. Now I just watch interestedly, and wonder how they get it to look so icky. Thank you Alana, for making me less squeamish. Now I'm just a bit worried that people will just think I'm wierd for watching so avidly.

Well, it went a bit wrong, but Alana saved the day...

The other night Lana and I decided to practice on two hot boys. Rude! But no, it was very unrude. Wellsy volunteered to be made up as a tattooed jungle man, and Dave as a vampire. Unfortunately the vampire stuff wasn't ready yet, so he had to be content with getting a bite to the neck.

It's all trial and error... it went a tiny bit wrong, but it's all part of the learning process... I still think most of it looked cool. And of course, the boys absolutely loved getting their kit off. Then after we left Alana decided to really step up, and did the following, which I think is pretty goshdarn impressive:

A bit gross, but I think that's the point.

Really, it's just an excuse to go out and have fun...

We went out on Friday night all tattooed up. Fo serious, yo. No, not for serious. Lana and I love the business, but we're not going to take it that far. Intricate tattoos are simply another service that The Circes provide. For example:

Or:

It was indeed brilliant fun, especially once we got a bit drunker and had the brilliant idea of adding to Lana's tattoo:

We recieved such choice compliments as "Hey, what's with the Winehouse tattoo?" and "Bloody hell, how long have you had that?".

Good times.

Then last night I went over to Lana's and we latexed up a whole bunch of moulds ready for tonight's very exciting photoshoot.

Pictures to follow.

From humble beginnings

I went over to Alana's last night to have a look at some clay moulds. She's made three more; a bullet wound, a vampire bite, and my favourite, lion claw marks. They. Look. AWESOME.

I would have paid more attention to them if she hadn't had a box with a baby monkey in. Seriously. A tiny baby monkey that looked like a cross between an ugly bat and an uglier bear. It was so ugly, it was beautiful.

Getting back on topic now, as I have to stop myself talking about the baby monkey - so cute! So, so cute! - before I get carried away. Alana's put a few of the clay moulds into other moulds with which we will be able to... mould... the latex, which is all very exciting, if a little confusing.

We went out last Friday and made up my arm with the first latex piece Alana made. We had great fun experimenting with different techniques, and then went out to shock the good citizens of Dover. Unfortunatly I nearly crashed my car on the way there (totally not my fault) and sort of forgot that I had what looked like a huge cut across my wrist. People in the pub were giving us some very shocked looks until Alana reminded me that I looked like an extra from a slasher horror.

I can't wait until we have the lion claw marks ready.