OPALUS - Did you face any obstacles during this shoot?
BEN - Haha.. Thats where my best stuff springs from! The plastic wasn’t sticking how I wanted, so I ended up wrapping and tapping it with electrical tape, then I had to make sure Nicola could breathe. The makeup ended up transferring with Nicolas amazing movement so rather than 1 jumping in to remove it I let that happen and become apart of the organic feel that I like my work to have.
OPALUS - How do you make your models feel comfortable while creating such unusual looks as these?
BEN - You would be surprised at how many models love to have their faces ‘beautifully destroyed’ with my artwork. In this case Nicola and I had been wanting to work together and was very familiar with what may happen on the shoot. But always when doing work like this for example, before I wrapped her head in plastic I ask if she’s comfortable with it first and then say at any point if she’s not comfortable to tell me and we will remove it. I constantly check in with the model during the shoot to make sure they are ok, and then endlessly thank them afterwards in trusting me and my vision to create art no matter how extreme it may be.