Channa is a very sexy girl i have know for years and she is definitely getting better with age.   Channa has been serious about her training and it shows. . . She’s  probably in the gym as much as I’m on this computer.  All this hard work is going to pay off for her in the WBFF Worlds Bikini Diva Competition in Toronto on September 19.

Here are a couple images from our recent shoot.   The next image is a ‘one lighter’   I try to light ’simply’. . .  but after placing the first light, i am thinking where to put the accents, a hair light and a ‘kicker’ in the eyes,  but i resisted my ‘playboy lighting’ tendencies and went with a single 36″ softbox with a 30 degree grid.  The Background is a stretched piece of metallic fabric mesh.  I gave her a bit of a ‘plastic’ look by using ’smart blur’ in photoshop and then hand smudging some of the transitions.

The following image is more of my traditional style with a main overhead,  subtle flash fill and an accent light to bring out the curves.  I love the lower accent light in the eyes that brings them to life and gives an air of anime innocence (The thought behind the eyes doesn’t look so innocent though).  I love doing the bedroom sets,  with just a few materials you can go from a candy sweet bedroom  to something quite naughty and dark,  I just need to find a new assistant as i hate folding up my fabric messes after the shoot!

Follow up email:

“Thankyou thankyou thankyou!!  Today was by far the best shoot ever, eveything was perfect and the pics look amzing, i cant wait to see them all!!  Im a bwp exclusive model from now on ”

If you want to see more of Channa,  Check out her blog:  http://www.channalovesmma.com

Here’s a video presentation of four makeup transitions as Colleen creates a ‘Pinup’ look.  The 3rd slide is subtle, but one of the interesting techniques i’d like to point out is the use of Talc under they eyes before she applies the mascara.  Specs of Mascara can be the most troublesome to remove and a thin dusting of Talc prevents this.   One caution with pinup is that makeup artists tend to use very Red lips.  I have Colleen lean towards a more magenta or orange shaded red. Careful with pure red as it is very hard to reproduce on press and tends to ‘Block up’ unless you are using specific pantone colors or Printing in Hexachrome.

The Pinup artists that inspired this look  are Art Frahm and J. Frederick Smith.  Both their styles are  a little ‘edgier’ while most of the other artistis of the time painted with softer lines.

Lesley came to me about a year ago with a body cage and a big furry carpet.  Luckily i had a funky space gun ( It’s actually an airbrushed toy gun from ‘Star Wars’) which gave it a ‘Red Sonia’ meets Battlestar Galactica feel.

I was sitting in front of this image for a few days trying to come up with a concept to ’spice’ up the body cage and ‘gun’  . . . Voila!  a southpark episode just played with a parody of the classic cartoon ‘Heavy Metal’ . . . yes some inspiration comes cheap!

Besides a lot of airbrush work,  I gave this image a little more of a ‘cartoon’ feel by using the ’smudge’ tool set to ‘darken’ and brushed through the hair to remove ‘whispies’.  The layer was duplicated, given a small gaussian blur and set to ’soft light’ at about 60% (this raised the contrast, saturation, and smoothed the skin – i did erase around the eyes, gun and some areas that i still wanted to apprear sharp.

Sometimes i wish i was better with Wire frame creation, but for now i’m using some stock images from Istock photo.  Here are the images that went into this file. . . can you spot where all the suit of armour pieces came from?

Follow up email:

I totally love it! The armour looks so cool and I have never looked better! Great ideas, I’m  really excited.  Thanks,  Lesley

I’m pretty excited. . I managed to get about 10 000 minutes on my iphone!!!!   How you ask?

Well Start by going to the app store through itunes and load Skype.  If you are in Canada however it is a little more work as Skype is currently not offered. . . But heres a workaround.

If you are signed in to itunes, sign out.   You will need to create a new profile.  .  . first scroll to the bottom of the page and choose ‘United States’ under ‘my store’.

Now go find a free application to download ( how about skype!). . . with a free app,  you do not need your credit card to verify your address.   Set up an account with a ‘U.S.’ address.    Now simply update your phone and you have Skype running on it.

Set up Skype. . . I went with a package that is $3 a month for unlimited talk anywhere in North America ($12 for the world) .  This also includes setting up call display that will show my Cel number whenever i call. Now you can make unlimited calls anywhere you get a wifi signal on your phone. . that was pretty simple!

It gets better though. . .

Download Quickpwn. . at this time the current version is 2.2.5 Here (mac version). Run the program and attach your phone to the computer.  This is going to update your software and allow you to load programs that are not controlled exclusively by apple.  If you have a broken (unlocked) your phone,  this is going to update your baseband to 2.30.03 which has not yet been broken. . so keep that in mind.  It’s not really an issue if you are using a Rogers phone with Rogers,  Fido with Fido, etc.  I also just ordered a hardware solution to unlocking. . .  A small card that piggy backs your sim card.   Again, there is currently no SOFTWARE solution to breaking the new baseband… if you see it out there, its a scam!!!

The rest of the downloads can be done ON YOUR PHONE through the new App ‘Cyndia’ that was just loaded by ‘Quickpwn’

Download ‘Backgrounder’

It will now show up as an icon – Run the program. . . click  ‘Application specific’  then ‘Always Enabled’ and turn Skype on permanently. . .this allows you to accept incoming calls at all times.

Download Boss Prefs from Cydia

You now have control to turn off the edge, 3G or the wifi network among other things.  This is great to test your connections like turning off wifi and running skype and seeing how it works with the 3g network.  You can also do stuff like turning the battery into a % charge remaining.

Download ‘voipover3g_1.0.1.deb’

This is the best part. . . this program fools Skype into thinking it is on the wifi network when it is actually using your data plan – 3G network.  It runs invisibly . .so you wont see a button with this one.

It seems like alot, but all runs really seamlessly.   The benefit is that you can talk on Skype from the network when you are away from wifi.  On a 1 minute phone call i used about 450 kb of data.  With the 6gb data plan that Rogers is currently offering,  you get conservatively 10,000 minutes.   You can not currenlty get a CDN phone Number through Skype but a U.S. phone number is only a few $.  One advantage  is that if you get a California #,  someone in L.A. could call you free locally and it would ring wherever you are.   I have unlimited incoming minutes, so when i call from Skype (FREE!!!), my current cel number shows up and if they call me back, its Free!!!! (unlimited incoming).

One Additonal note:

Cyndi has a great app called ‘Cycorder’.  Its Free and a much better version of the mac recorder. – It turnes your iphone into a video camera!

Enjoy!