in which I explain how you can become a pig too

I was going to write a post about the ten out of twelve rehearsal we had yesterday. But I’ve just now decided against it, as that’s not necessarily a fun thing to experience firsthand, and in that case why would one want to experience it secondhand? So instead I’m going to talk about stage makeup. Because that ties in and it’s much more interesting anyway.

Stage makeup is absolutely ridiculous. I love it so much. It is the most fun thing to put on, so satisfying to take off, and just altogether a jolly good time. Right now, as you know if you’ve read any of my other posts, I’m doing Shrek the Musical, so there are some… interesting makeup looks taking place.

As a pig, I’m supposed to be pink. A funny thing happened where the girl who designed the makeup looks for fairytale creatures forgot to do the pigs, so ours was a last minute design. It’s adorable though, and all's well that ends well, so no hard feelings.

Get the look: Pig

You’ll start with the “normal” stage makeup look. That said, if your stage makeup looks normal, you're almost definitely doing it wrong.

First, you’re going to need some foundation. Lots of it. In fact, just cake it on there and see where it gets you. You’ll probably need more, but at least it's a start. Make sure it’s a shade or three darker than your actual skin tone, because you don't want to end up looking like a piece of paper under the lights.

Speaking of paper, you also don’t want to look flat. Even if you’re a pig who’s supposed to be chubby, you still need to contour. In fact, you can contour to make yourself look more chubby. Start by creating a shadow under your cheekbone. Rounding out this shadow will also round out your cheeks. The easiest way to do this is to make a fish face and draw two lines with your shadow colour where your cheeks naturally cave. Cave isn’t the right word, but you know what I mean. Unless you don’t. Oh well. Anyway, draw two lines underneath your cheekbones and blend downward from there. To round out the cheeks, you can extend this line sort of to the bottom of your nose. You’ll also want to contour your nose a bit by darkening the sides and highlighting the bridge. Contour your jawline as well by darkening your neck and directly underneath your jaw. If you’re a guy and/or want a sharper and more masculine looking jawline, you can also highlight above the jawline. To finish off, just add some highlights and shadows where you think they'll work out. It’s really an in-the-moment process. 

a visualisation of what your highlights/contouring
should look like in a general sense

More contouring info can be found in this educational video, but keep in mind that you'll want to be about eight times more dramatic than this for stage.

The next thing you’ll need is some blush. For normal stage makeup, you can simply smile very widely and plop some blush on the apples of your cheeks. When doing the pig look, you can do this, but we’ll be putting on more blush later. Much more blush.

your blush look at this point

Now for the eyes. Remember that you’re going for a magnified version of the Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman look. Your eyes need to be dark and obvious as… Oh, I don’t know. Something very dark and obvious. First comes eyeshadow. Obviously, for this look you’ll do pink. Cover your lid with white, and add in some different shades of pink on the edges, in the crease, etc. You should probably highlight your brow bone as well, but that step never seems to actually work for me. Eh, do it anyway. Next, line your eyes with white. Yes, white eyeliner. Right above your lashes you should have a line of white, as well as some in the inner corner, outer corner, and in the waterline. This will help your eyes look larger. Draw a black line above the top white line and line the bottom in either black or dark brown under the water line. I like to blend out the bottom line, but that's optional. Actually, all of this is optional. Now, apply a ton of mascara (and falsies if they suit your fancy).

a lil step-by-step for ya

Fill in your eyebrows next. Almost all of the guys in Shrek literally use black eyeliner to fill in their brows, and the girls could probably get away with going darker than they are at the time being. You can hardly go wrong here.

For pig specific cheeks, you’ll need a ridiculous blush that looks absolutely like the colour your tongue gets when you eat a red lollipop. Or like a maraschino cherry. Or like the little number icon on the messages app. It’s whatever you please, as long as it’s ridiculously red. Take this red on your finger and smile really widely. Draw a circle on your cheek and fill it in. And then add more on top of that. In a circle.

There you go.

For lips, you can't go wrong with bright pink. I like to overdraw my cupids bow and my bottom lip a little bit, but it's really up to the discretion of your very own. Blot some concealer on them to reduce shine, which will be amplified x one million with the lights.

And of course, you’ll need a pig nose. I apologize in advance for how uncomfortable it is. When in doubt, just remember how cute you look as a pig and everything will be alright. In the end, you can always un-pig with Pond’s cold creme. Or coconut oil. Take your pick. 

(The pigs are German but I don’t speak that language and even though Google Translate is almost definitely incorrect...) auf wiedersehen.

discussing why teaching yourself is a fine idea, the universal language, and words that don't exist

I taught myself to play “I Am Not a Robot” by Marina and the Diamonds on the piano a few days ago. Now, this could be a post about how sad my life is, how tragic that I spend my days teaching myself to play powerfully empathetic tunes on what looks like a large xylophone as shown in movies before colour television.

(See what I mean? I'll settle for "not really.")

Or.

Or, it could be a post about how teaching yourself is a fantastic way to “waste time” by doing something actually productive. It is immensely satisfying to be able to play a song that you know, and even more so if no one else showed you how to do it. I cannot describe to you the enjoyment of having the chords sound dare-I-say correct. When you start the song on a D and it comes out exactly as it does when you listen to the version Ms. Diamandis herself released in 2010 as her third track of her first album “The Family Jewels," it's just gratifying if I do say so.

The satisfaction that notes are universal. A C chord played at Carnegie Hall is the same one a lowly thirty-one-year-old plunks out as he tries to find the meaning of life, or at least a way to get out of his mom’s basement. The excitement that comes from the fact that there is the slightest possibility that I could harmonize with someone on the other side of the world, if the accident will. That a note in “See I’m Smiling” could be the same as one in “Seven Nation Army” as one in “Für Elise.” Now, who knows if any of those have the same notes at all, but just the possibility and the probability. What I’m saying is that it would hardly be unlikely.

Music notes are among the few things that are truly universal. Music breaks language barriers, economic barriers, political barriers, physical barriers. Caen las murallas, amiright? Music notes convey emotion because of where a dot was printed on a page and what sign comes before a measure. And that's insane.

Some disagree, arguing that lyrics convey the meaning of a song. I ask them, then, why do we have notes? For fun? Does so-and-so from that one opera sing in a minor key just because they’re picking and choosing? No. S/He/Xi does not. It’s done that way to convey certain emotions. The fact that the human ear, and maybe other ears, for that matter, can hear emotion without the language that we created is only fitting. It’s also somewhat of a miracle.

So that was a fun stream of consciousness.

As a spacer, let's add in this picture from the floor of the Marina and the Diamonds concert, because relevance etc.

In other news, on the yesterday-of-yesterday I had a “what-the-heck-even-is-irregardless” moment. Which, in fact, what is irregardless?

For those of you confused, I’m referring to the literal word “irregardless,” which makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. Let me break it down for you. Regardless means “without regard” which means “without paying attention to the present situation” or “despite the prevailing circumstances.” "Regardless" is already a negative word. The prefix “ir-“ is also negative, as in irregular, irreplaceable, irrefutable, etc., making “irregardless” a double negative word (or shall we say “word”).

People apparently got confused, probably because of the “irre-“ trend going on, and started saying “irregardless” where they should have been saying “regardless.” Now “irregardless" and “regardless" are used interchangeably by people who aren’t peevish about those sorts of things, and also probably never had a grammar geek for a mother. It's probably hereditary. Anyway, "irregardless" is apparently now in the dictionary, but at least it’s categorized as “informal” or “non-standard,” which is the least they could do.

Then again, so is “ain’t" as it turns out, so being in the dictionary barely means anything at all.

If you’d like to read the article that I turned to for answers during this time of crisis, click here. If not, that makes sense, as many people most likely don’t really care about that sort of thing. I say it's all in heredity. Cheers.