Gary Crozier Dolls

I’ve admired Gary Crozier‘s doll-like portraits for some years, since I was first asked to collaborate on a shoot with him. We have since made contact but didn’t manage to arrange anything so it was a nice surprise to get a message from him, nearly 2 years later, saying he was coming to Manchester and would like to shoot.

I thought his style would lend it’s self well to my new lingerie range, Persephone, which features a mixture of light and dark, delicate and edgy designs.

We shot in my studio and I invited 2 of my favourite girls to join in, Amber and Hannah. If you follow my work you should already be able to recognise them.

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We had our hair tied back during the shoot and at the end Gary took close up pictures of twisted sections of our hair, which he then used to create the crazy, elaborate hairstyles you see in the pictures.

I’m really pleased with the results, I think Gary did a great job with the background and making each model look like an individual character. I really think these would make a good post card set. If anyone fancies themselves as a Gary Crozier doll, you can get a quote and some info here.

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Demons

I wanted to plan a shoot to better showcase some of the accessories from the Chimera collection and had an idea for a demon series. Though not totally related to the inspiration for the collection, I felt like the concept would work well with specific pieces in mind.

I had a few different ideas about what the demon would look like and a few different types of make up in mind that I thought would be appropriate for the shoot so I decided to do a series showcasing the different styles. This gave me the opportunity to try out most of my styling ideas and create a gradual light to dark effect in the images.

I shot the set with Jennifer Byron as the final part of our accessories project as I thought we needed a set with darker thematology, most of what we have previously shot has been quite light and colourful. All chainmail components were created by Richard Ayres.

With regards to the editing, I wanted to make sure it looked different to the other sets Jenni and I have collaborated on so I thought of making the characters look statue/gargoyle-like with a stone/marble-like texture. I think Jenni did a great job with the editing and the texture in the background really ads to the images.

For the last two images, I used a hair-piece that I made as part of my Halloween outfit for TG. There has been some interest in the hair piece so I’m going to include a brief tutorial for anyone who would like to make something similar. To save making this too long, I’ve decided to put it in a separate post, here.

Personally, I am most pleased with my hair for the first two looks as its an unusual look for me. I have seen similar styles in a few magazines recently and was waiting for the opportunity to try something like that for myself. The look was achived with gel and white hair spray. I have found white hair spray to be very effective at making roots look better during shoots in general.

Featured products:

First image- nutmail cuff, nutmail cross (chainmail chain), organic lace bustier.

Second image- studded cross necklace, O-harness, studded cross gloves, crystal spike pasties.

Third image- inverted cross necklace, nutmail choker, O-harness (back to front), trophy pasties (black latexlace).

Forth image- shield necklace, chimera bra, chain garter (on forehead)

All items can be purchased from www.eustratia.co.uk (If you can’t find the item you are looking for please get in touch via the order form and we will do our best to help)

Deer Series

Hope everyone had a good Christmas and is looking forward to the new year (hopefully with some exciting parties)!

We recently shot the last part of my accessories project with Jennifer Byron photography and the outcome of one of the sets were these (quite festive) deer characters.

All the accessory shoot sets were planned out at the same time (September) so it was quite a lucky coincidence that the deer ones happened to fall in december. This gave me an excuse to include some of the new winter accessories that weren’t originally going to be part of the shoot.

Cold deer

I had this glitter tears idea ages ago and tried it for a different shoot but it didn’t really work so I’m glad it came out well in these.

Blood deer

I actually used a glitter glue pen for the tears on this one, it was the best looking red glitter I could find but was quite stingy so I wouldn’t recommend wearing it for too long.

Dark deer

I have a few dark images that are kind of similar so I tried to pic something different for this one with a softer and more animated pose.

Notice the Aesthetic contradiction logo necklace? I’m planning a little giveaway for these soon. All other accessories (excluding the body jewellery :p) can be purchased at www.eustratia.co.uk!

Antlers are made to order, please email enquiries@eustratia.co.uk for details.

Best wishes for the new year,