Color Blinded: Gaea

Inspiration

Gaea is the goddess Earth, the mother of the Titans as well as the Greek gods. She was the one who asked the king Titan, Kronos, to use his scythe and destroy his father Uranus, the night sky. Gaea and Kronos had the Greek Gods together, but there was a prophecy that one of Kronos's own sons would take his scythe and destroy him, and cast his pieces into the depths of Tartarus. In order to prevent this prophecy from coming true, Kronos swallowed all of his children as soon as they were born. When their youngest child, Zeus, was born, Gaea gave Kronos a rock to swallow instead, and hid Zeus until he was fully grown. When he was old enough, Gaea gave Zeus the scythe, and told him to kill Kronos. The moral of this story? Gaea is not the nicest mother earth. She's a little bit evil, and a little bit crazy.

Intent

I wanted to use the deep, dark green of the earth, and the sense of evil that I think she gives off. In order to do so, I decided to do almost green raccoon eyes, blending them out to be a little more earthy. In theory, I could've gone with a sort of hippy-dippy vibe, a woman who crazily loves the earth, but I didn't want to do that because the cruel and unyielding nature didn't translate well into "harmless green-loving hippie."

Tools & Techniques

from left to right: NARS Velvet Matte Lip Pencil in Bahama, Nyx Special Effects Theatrical Lashes in Leopard, Bobbi Brown Long-Wear Gel Eyeliner in Ivy Shimmer Ink and a Sephora brand angle brush.

Above: Urban Decay Black Palette color "Libertine" (bottom right)

Urban Decay Book of Shadows III, Alice in Wonderland Edition, in "Absolem" and "Drink Me, Eat Me," (Left and second from left, respectively).

Urban Decay Book of Shadows V in "Bender" (Left, middle column).

The reason for all of the different shades of green is because (obviously) the Earth is green. I started with "Libertine" as the base color, used "Bender" to blend out into "Drink Me, Eat Me" then covered the whole thing with "Absolem." Eyeshadow is good for blending purposes, you can make it soft, and dark through layering. I didn't want to use anything else, because shadow contains darker pigments while still being blendable, as opposed to gel shadow, or liquid eyeliner. After all of the eyeshadow application, I used the gel liner to create a strong, dark wing. Last, but not least, I applied leopard-print eyelashes (which actually look birdlike because they're made of feathers). They're great-looking, but not extremely high-quality. As I tried to take them out of the container, several of the feathers came off. This somewhat diminished the effect. Either way, I think the overall look was good.

Outcome

I think that it turned out well, except the green doesn't look as dark in the pictures as it did in real life. The dotted eyelashes complete the effect, I think. I like the up-to-my-eyebrows shimmery makeup.