More Modeling Fun!

As you may have noticed, I have been incredibly neglectful of this site and blog. This is primarily due to work, a brief stint in the hospital involving life support and bilateral pneumonia, and simply being busy. What can I say? Life happens sometimes.

So, to make up for that, here are some recent modeling pics that I’ve done!

Photography by Joseph Veselka

Photography by Tim Hemingway

Photography by Don Donaldson

Photography by Flutterby Photography

Photography by Frequency Mutineers (Photography by Joe, Produced by Thanatos)

Photography by Kamal Hanna

Photography by Springheel Media

Naturally, I can’t be expected to have all the fun. My girl, Chula also got her chance to model and of course, she’s a natural!

Photography by S.M. Photography

I’m hoping to update the site with a few more things here and there, specifically modeling photos and updating the “Author” section with a few new things. Of course, I can’t promise anything, my life is pretty crazy at the moment. However, I have definitely been blessed and wouldn’t change a thing 🙂 Until next time, my friends!

“Modeling, for me, isn’t about being beautiful but creating something interesting for people to look at and think about.” – Kylie Bax

Creating Art

It’s been a busy month for me, hence the lack of updating, so I’m going to try to catch up with a few things on here.

Firstly, I’ve been cast in a production of Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice as the character, Launcelot Gobbo. Additionally, one of the plays I wrote was accepted into the 4th Lionface Winter One Acts, so it will be performed through Lionface at the annual showcase. I’m excited to see what people do with my script!

I’ve recently moved out of my apartment and into a new one, so I will be spending another year in Bowling Green. I have quit my job waitressing, but will be returning to Cedar Point as a Screamster in this years Halloweekends. More on that as it gets closer.

Chula is doing wonderfully, her adult fur is coming in a lot darker, so her tail is almost black now. She also won “Best in Class” at her doggy obedience class and was described as being “the happiest dog” at a local doggy day care. Her growth has been amazing and I couldn’t be more proud!

The beautiful Chula!

Within the past month, I’ve started doing some more modeling and I have been really enjoying it. I will most likely add more of the photos to my website eventually, but for now I will post a couple of the more popular ones here.

Photo taken by Capital Photos

Photo taken by 2StepsUp Photography

Photo taken by Alyson Knezevich

These photos were all taken at a group shoot in Toledo, Ohio, where I had a great time and made a lot of great connections. I am hoping to create more art with some of these talented people soon, but my schedule has been hectic. So that’s it for now, now you are caught up on my life a bit.

 

“This world is but a canvas to our imagination.” – Henry David Thoreau

 

Steampunk’d: The Chest Piece

Hello again and welcome to the last installment of my steampunk Halloween costume series! In previous episodes/entries, I showed you how I made a prosthetic eye piece and several different accessories for the costume and now I will show you how I made a pretty sweet chest piece.

I started with a thick layer of liquid latex in the shape of a sloppy triangle. I left the end of it curved for when I would add the clock piece. If you plan on doing this, you want to do it on a surface that the latex can be peeled off from, so a smooth surface that won’t have any chipped paint pieces or anything like that. I ended up using an old lid to a shoebox, which worked very well, especially if you want an easy cleanup and for your project to be portable while you are making it . After this layer dried, I added another one right on top of it so that the base would be thick and not fall apart when I added pieces to it.

I added a third layer of liquid latex and began to add pieces. As you can see, some of the pieces got another layer of latex over parts of them to make it looks as though pieces of flesh were growing over them. It also gives the impression that there are more gears inside the body, behind the ones that you can see.

Interestingly enough, as the liquid latex dried, the colors from the gears actually caused the latex to change colors. So, naturally, I added another layer over it and some more gears to see if that would cover it up. The liquid latex continued to react to the gears even as I added more latex, so I ended up leaving it the way it was. In the long run, it actually worked in my as it looked as though the gears were having a reaction to my body and therefore leaking pus. Disgusting, yet very effective in what I was going for.

Paint time! Using the same red and black acrylic paint that I used on the eye piece, I painted the latex around the gears and added some red on the gears to make them look as though they are covered in blood. After the paint dried, I used a knife to cut away some of the latex so that you could see more of the gears and I cleaned up the paint on the gears so that they would still reflect off the light. Then, I used paint again to clean up the latex pieces that I had cut away from the prosthetic.

This is actually the piece once I took it after wearing it. I attached the piece to my chest with spirit gum and then added the watch piece separately. It was actually a watch piece that I had gotten from Wal-Mart and added copper paint to it in order to keep with my gold and copper color scheme. I also repainted over some of the gears to make them stand out, as the ones from Hobby Lobby were a bit darker and less shiny then the ones I had purchased at Costume Holiday House. Once I had the pieces applied, I made strips of latex about an inch wide and about 3-4 inches long on the shoebox lid. Once I had two layers dried, I peeled them off and added them to the top and bottom of my piece to give the effect that the skin was cut apart and hanging over. It also helped to make the wound look deeper and more three-dimensional. I made a few more inch by inch pieces of latex to fill in the spots that weren’t covered on the far side of the watch piece. After all of that, I used makeup to color the latex to my skin color and to make it look a bit more bloody and natural. I topped it off with some liquid fake blood, which gave it a glossy look and made the clock look as though blood was dripped on to it as well.

Here’s what the piece looked like when it was applied. This also shows why I added the extra layers last, so that I could attach them to the skin as well as the wound and make everything look seamless. I had no trouble keeping the pieces on once the spirit gum had dried and actually had this piece on for most of the day. Now, I’d also like to point out that the watch piece is a working one and actually lit up with a blue light when you pressed a button (which was located near the number 2 and could be pressed despite the latex). Initially, I had considered using a bigger watch piece and trying to make it seem as though my heart was a clock, but I felt that this looked more realistic than that would have, so I adjusted accordingly. All in all, I was very happy about the way that this piece turned out and it will actually be featured again very soon in Lionface Production’s Dr. Faustus on the character of Mephistopheles. Pictures to come!

Photo courtesy of Laura Fairman Photography

Now we have come to the end of my series and now you know the story behind the creation of my steampunk costume. I may be doing an encore post as well in regards to Dr. Faustus, given that it is being done in a steampunk fashion, so stay tuned for that. In other news, I was voted one of the top five comedians from last years Stand Up Toledo, which means that I will be in it again this year! More information on that as it gets closer as well as some updates on Already Indie and life as an actress. Thanks for reading!

“We can control the future, my boy, just as we wind up the mechanism in a clock. Say to yourself: I will win that race–I will come first–and you wind up the future like clockwork. The world has no choice but to obey! Can the hands of that old clock in the corner decide to stop? Can the spring in your watch decide to wind itself up and run backward? No! They have no choice. And nor has the future, once you have wound it up.” – Philip Pullman, Clockwork

Related articles

• Steampunk’d: The Accessories (okoesters.wordpress.com)
• Steampunk’d: The Eyepiece (okoesters.wordpress.com)

 

Steampunk’d: The Eyepiece

Hello all and welcome to the first installment of my Steampunk series! I’ll be going step by step of how I created my Halloween costume starting with the most complicated piece: the eye piece.

It started with an empty pill bottle. I tore off the labels so that I was left with the just the translucent orange bottle. It’s a regular, prescription sized bottle that I am sure many of you at home will have lying around somewhere.

The next thing I did was use Crayola Air-Dry clay to do the mold. In retrospect, I should have used a stronger clay, as the air-dry one was very brittle when it dried, but  in the end it worked for my purposes. I went with it because of how light it was, as I knew that the weight would make a difference when it came to applying the prosthetic to my face. 
Afterwards, I sanded it down to make it smooth and flat on all sides and to clean up any of the dust left over during the drying process. As you can see, as it dried the clay actually cracked on the bottom. Oddly enough, it still held onto the bottle, unlike the top piece which I reinforced with craft glue. I actually ended up having an issue with Play-Doh the parrot where he bit off part of the top, but I was able to work around it and piece it back together. The clay was really easy to sand, so I had to be careful not to overdo it and shrink the size of the piece. I wanted to make a big impression with it and for that I needed it to be the size that I made it.

After sanding it, I gave my eyepiece its initial paint job. I went with copper and gold colors with a silver accent in the center of the eye. I also used black to accentuate the crack in the clay. When things go wrong, sometimes they can work to your advantage and this was a great case of that happening.

After the paint dried, I began adding liquid latex to the piece. I used small pieces of cotton in between the gear spokes to make it look like there was skin and muscle protruding around the gear. I also added a couple of golden clock hands which I submerged into the latex. In this photo you can actually see where Play-Doh bit the clay and cracked the top piece. Later, I find a way to make it work by adding a flat gear to the top, which actually made it look like it could be part of a gas mask.

I had to make sure that I applied the latex on a flat surface that it wouldn’t stick to, so I alternated between an upside down metal trashcan and the lid to an old shoebox. After the latex dried around the gear, I peeled it back to make it look as though it burst out of the latex.

Paint job #2! After the latex dried, I painted it with black and red acrylic paint. I also touched up the eye piece paint and added a flat gear that I got from Costume Holiday House to the top. I spatter painted red on the eye piece itself to help complete the illusion that it had burst out of the eye not too long ago.

And that’s how I did it! It ended up looking really cool though it took A LOT of spirit gum to keep on my face. Next blog, I’ll show you some of the accessories that I made to go with the costume and then a chest prosthetic that I made which features a working clock that lights up. Until then!

The finished product!

“To some, ‘steampunk’ is a catchall term, a concept in search of a visual identity. To me, it’s essentially the intersection of technology and romance. –  Jake von Slatt

Related articles

• Steampunk’d: The Eyepiece (okoesters.wordpress.com)
• Steampunk’d: The Accessories (okoesters.wordpress.com)

 

Happy Ginger Awareness Day!

Good morning,

Which is odd seeing as I have not yet gone to bed. For the record, this is not due to St. Patrick’s Day shenanigans (or as I like to call it, Ginger Awareness Day) but rather due to a late night of work resulting in some insomnia. A strange night as well; we actually had a frog sneak into the kitchen! It was a shame though that I was unable to go out and celebrate, especially considering my wonderful aunt/godmother (works as a beautician) put my hair up so I looked unusually cute (seeing as hair and I don’t get along). I was unable to show it off much due to work, but I have pictures!

Ignore the somewhat dead look on my face, twas a long night at work

A better view of the hair. It’s amazing what my aunt can do with my insane amount of hair.

So you may be wondering what the occasion was (aside from the holiday and desperate need for a haircut, obviously). I am officially getting headshots done on Monday! I’m incredibly excited about them as well! I am having them done by Glass City Stills which is an incredible photography company out of Chicago. I’m thrilled to have the opportunity to work with them!

Alas, sleep is finally starting to kick in, just as a storm started outside my window (I love storms! Not being out in them, but just the sound and sight of them) so I shall wrap up for the night. However, as my Ginger Awareness gift to you all, I shall post an interesting link that I found regarding Redhead Superstitions. It is definitely worth the read!

One other note before I leave you: I just found out today that my namesake, Octavia, was born on St. Patrick’s Day. Perhaps it was only fate that I would later become a fair skinned, green-eyed, redhead.

“May you have the hindsight to know where you’ve been
the foresight to know where you’re going
and the insight to know when you’re going too far.” – Irish Blessing

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Meghan O. Koesters was born and raised in a small town in Ohio. She was first introduced to theatre in 2004 and has performed ever since. Her most notable appearances on the stage include Lavinia in Titus Andronicus, Harriet in Boy Gets Girl, and Avril in Bird and Fish. At age 22, Koesters published her first children’s picture book on technical and backstage theatre. Around this time, she also began to do stand up comedy and modeling. Most recently, Koesters graduated from Bowling Green State University with Bachelor’s Degree in Arts and Communication with a specialization in Theatre: Acting/Directing and English. Currently, she resides in Northwest Ohio working with Lionface Productions.

For booking inquiries, please contact Meghan O. Koesters at meghankoesters@gmail.com

NOTE: This site is still under construction and may be updated at any time. Regardless, the information will remain more or less the same. Thank you for visiting!