Soy Artista: student creates fantasy and RPG character-inspired makeup looks
Sitting in the living room on the couch in front of the TV, Jessica Lewis has all her makeup scattered around on a small table, ready to begin a four to five, or more, hour long makeup look to upload on their Instagram.
“I’m trying to branch out,” Lewis said. “I’m trying to do things that I actually enjoy, that I wanted to do as a child, so kinda like, I’m trying to make my inner child happy basically. I’m trying to make them proud so I’m continuing to do it for them.”
Lewis describes her creative makeup looks as editorial, digital art-makeup. Lewis grows inspiration from different makeup artists, other art creators, and fantasy and role-playing games that she used to play as a child. One day Lewis hopes someone creates a video character based on one of her makeup looks.
“I typically like to think of every single look I do as its own character,” Lewis said. “I like to think that if I was in charge of making my own video game these would be the characters that I would put in. That’s what I base my thing off of.”
Growing up, Lewis was a timid kid, and her intention while in glam is to make her inner child proud. Lewis acknowledges that she isn’t a professional makeup artist but is going to continue creating her art and growing her platform slowly.
“When I put on the wig, when it all comes together I definitely do feel really powerful,” Lewis said. “I feel pretty.”
The beginning of sharing looks on Instagram
Lewis was scrolling on TikTok when she saw a video about a creative Halloween makeup look and it inspired her to create and post her first makeup look on Instagram in October 2020.
“After I didn’t get a lot of backlash and a lot of support from my friends and stuff like that I was like ‘Oh this isn’t so scary, I can keep doing this,’” Lewis said.
Over two years now of creating and uploading makeup looks, Lewis continues to branch out in art in her style. Lewis tries to create looks based on other people’s art that isn’t makeup-related, she makes it apparent that the person that she took inspiration from is always going to be mentioned in the caption.
“I think it’s really interesting because I’m not a makeup artist,” Lewis said. “The only type of makeup I used to do was the wing, a little bit of glittery eyeshadow on the bottom, mascara, and just blush and that was it.”
Through this artistic, creative, makeup journey, Lewis feels that it has pushed her to try more things in her everyday life.
Creative process
It takes Lewis about five hours or more to create a look. She begins by applying glue to her eyebrows. After that, she applies her foundation with a white color product to help blend with another color. Lewis continues through her work around her eyes and contours her face until finished.
Once the makeup look is completed Lewis takes and edits pictures, prepares a caption and finally uploads on Instagram for followers to view.
“For my Instagram I know I’m not an influential person as of yet,” Lewis said. “I mean I’m slowly growing my Instagram but when I was trying to grow my Instagram I realized I put a lot of pressure on myself.”
At 570 followers on Instagram, Lewis felt that if she didn’t produce enough makeup content weekly she would lose followers. She also knew that as a college student in her final semester at Cal Poly Humboldt that her studies were just as important. Leaving her to take a break from makeup and focus on school.
Lewis realized that if people unfollow her account they weren’t following for the right reasons.
“After I graduate I’m hoping to put out more,” Lewis said. “I do have a lot of ideas and I wanted to create a series for the longest time but I’ve been having to put it off because of classes.”
Lewis’s Journey and Future
Originally from Roseville, Lewis came to Humboldt five years ago to attend Cal Poly Humboldt to study a major in wildlife management conservation and a minor in music and philosophy.
At 23, Lewis has a variety of experiences and eventually wants to have more than one career throughout her lifetime. She wants to continue to do makeup, one day have an avian field technician job, and have more music-related gigs.
Creating more video content is something that Lewis wants to develop next. However, she knows it’s going to take a couple of years to get that started due to learning how to accomplish the editing process.
“I’m trying to not put a lot of pressure on myself,” Lewis said. “I know I still want to do makeup and I’m hoping that with more time, as I graduate, after that I’ll be able to do more makeup and actually try to grow a following.”
Follow Lewis on Instagram
You can follow Lewis’s Instagram @jesslaurpage to see more makeup looks, learn where she gets her inspiration from, and continue to see the future of Lewis’s fantasy, RPG, game-like characters come to life through a picture and post.