The Skill Collector

I am THRILLED with how my skeleton crown came out!! This piece is inspired by the last season of The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina and is the start to my Sabrina cosplay of her coronation outfit. It's important to me that each of my pieces take on different lives, which is why I created this gold skeleton demon for Halloween. 💀

Stay tuned for a video on how this was made as well as a makeup tutorial for the above look! For those interested, I used a couple different materials starting with plastic skeleton fingers I cut off of Halloween decorations, created a wire+foam base, attached the fingers with some hot glue and then covered the fingers and base with air dry clay. Final touches were spray painting a metallic gold followed by antiquing with brown wax paint in the cracks and lightly over the whole crown.

The Gris game has been making me feel all kind of ways. After playing, I could not help but try my hand at a watercolor makeup look 🎨 and cosplay, inspired by the beauty of the game.

Even if you're not planning on doing any watercolor makeup soon, definitely still give the video a watch to hear my thoughts on the game and how incredibly stunning and meditative it is! If you're not a gamer, you'll still want to play 💭

I really hope you love it and that it inspires you to get creative! 💫 This was my first big collaboration with Adar Beck on my channel and we had so much fun!!

Day 002: The best way to start off this year was time warping with my favorite people and letting 2019 know who’s boss! Watch me haul a friend’s closet raid and some thrift finds and uses them to transform into a New Year’s baddie.

Until next time!

☾✩ Felicia Mariah

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Daily Vlog Challenge 001 ☾✩ Making candles for the first time!

Happy New Year my loves!! I can already feel that 2019 is going to be AWESOME! One of the things I’ve always wanted to do is have a consistent vlog, which can be difficult when you are leading a busy life. So, I am challenging myself to vlog every day. There will be a variety of days… good and bad… and I plan to take you along for this roller coaster of a life of NYC, costume fun, traveling, and friends!

Day 001 we made candles for the first time! My favorite part is finding the containers and making adorable candles. Get a sneak peek of my new craft room and watch us make a mess. We also visit with some friends for dinner and end the night bowling. ♥

After the Mermaid Parade at Coney Island this summer, my mermaid costume somehow made it to Seventeen Magazine! I had no idea until a friend randomly scrolled through their website and found 22 DIY Mermaid Halloween Costumes That Will Make You Feel So Magical. To celebrate, I’d like to share some photos of the handmade costume details and how I put it together!

Starting with the tiara, this was made entirely from scratch on a thick-banded headband. I used one large plastic shell in the middle painted with acrylic paint and covered in glitter, real shells collected by my family from various parts of the world (some I painted and some I left natural with a touch of glitter), starfish I bought from Amazon, and some details on iridescent rhinestone and pearl flats.

The top was made from a lace crop top I have had since my high-school years (no joke) and had tried to get rid of so many times but held on to it for reasons unknown to me. Well, it sure came in handy and I’m so glad I never let it leave my wardrobe! All of the natural and colored shells in the image below are real shells from my family’s collection. A coat of acrylic paint along with a coat of glitter really made the shells pop with color. I loved the mix of natural and colored materials and tried to stil in the same color scheme of the pants and rhinestones. The pearl beads are from strands as well as pearl flats that I bought off of Amazon as well.

As for the pants and shoes, I got them from Dolls Kill and honestly, they were what gave me the inspiration to create the iridescent mermaid to begin with. I stumbled upon these pants and fell in LOVE! They ran very long so I also had to pair them with the platform boots. Trust me, I wasn’t complaining. And I’ve gotten a LOT of use out of the boots since.

Club Exx Shimmy Shimmy Ya Bell Bottoms

They ran very long so I also had to pair them with the platform boots. Trust me, I wasn’t complaining. And I’ve gotten a LOT of use out of the boots since.

Club Exx Frostbitten Platform Boots

That sums up my 2018 Coney Island Mermaid Parade Costume! Let me know what you think and if you’d like to see a video lookbook of this look. Here are some fun photos from the day with my friends for your enjoyment. Can’t wait for next year!

Until next time!

My first year at Comic Con was nothing less than magical! I’ve been dying to get this video out to you since I really dove all in with creating my Diamond (Land of the Lustrous) wig and costume and I think you will love it! ^___^ This year was Thursday only, but I really hope to go again next year for the whole weekend. Look out for some more fun videos in the next couple months with different costume themes (and more importantly… wigs)!

Let me know if you'd be interested in me doing a Diamond wig tutorial or a write up of all the products that made up this costume.

Until next time!

Lately what has been keeping me awake are projects that challenge me. This was definitely one of them.

This is one of the first shots we got of Brett when we were testing lighting. We quickly moved from this high-contrast look since Brett wanted something a little more subtle for his cover and we only had an hour to work with (or so we thought). There were a ton of unknown variables to adjust to. But, after everything, this is still one of my favorite shots!

It was a week prior that he had come to me with the idea of a darkroom in mind. Never having stepped into a real darkroom myself, I really didn’t know what to expect. I was just excited that this opportunity came up because, although I love taking headshots, I’ve been wanting to play in the more “narrative” realm of photography. After hearing the song he is releasing, ‘Red Water’, I thought, HOW PERFECT!

As I started researching Youtube videos on what the process of working in a darkroom was, I started getting really jazzed up about the idea. I used unsplash.com to find some free stock images (seriously, this place is heaven if you haven’t checked it out yet), searching a few different keywords that I felt matched the vibe of the song. I ended up converting them over to black and white and then printing them off at a nearby Walgreens. They weren’t necessary or requested, but they definitely added a little extra flair! In the meantime, Brett booked us a nice little inexpensive darkroom rental at Brooklyn Community Darkroom (BCD) and we were ready!

Our biggest issue was the light, which you can really see the struggle in a few test images below. From the videos I saw, it seemed that darkroom lighting by itself would work. However, BCD was a lot dimmer than I was expecting and more of a yellow color. I’m sure this is fine for proper darkroom use, but we definitely needed more. Luckily, I brought along two light stands with LED bulbs that I use as continuous lighting for my vlogs (remember those?). I also got a small strip of red gel from a local art store prior to the shoot. I didn’t think I was going to need it, so I only got one. But man, did I wish I had two!

We started going for less contrast, first by backing up the only LED I had on with the red gel. As you can see, it was just WAY too dark.

To separate Brett from the darkness of the background, I wanted to backlight him and add some fill for the room. As I stated before, I’m the silly girl that bought only one small gel for two lights. So, we experimented with some pink cellophane that BCD had lying around. Thank goodness I had Karina along with me for this, since she was such a fabulous assistant! (Can you come to all of my photoshoots, please? Thanks. (: )

As soon as we flipped the switch on that baby, we saw it was WAY too pink! But, we knew we were in the right direction as far as intensity goes. We added a blue gel that BCD also had. (I promise that is the last of the colors.)

Too cool this time. We gave it one more try by removing a layer of blue.

We couldn’t fully get rid of the pink color, but we got to a happy medium and started shooting away! I realized in post that I could adjust those magenta colors in Photoshop Raw to a much closer red, which made the processing round a lot easier than expected!

There you have a final processed photo! This one didn’t get any detailed editing and is still a proof, but you can see the final tone for comparison purposes.

This was just such an incredibly fun shoot to play with! Much different than my normal natural lighting headshot setup. I hope this helps anyone else planning on shooting in a dark room. I may return there for another fun shoot. This time, with many more gels!

Be sure to check out Brett Miller Music’s new single ‘Red Water’ (ft. SAZE) dropping on 4.20! Spotify | Youtube

Shot at Brooklyn Community Darkroom - super chill, inexpensive darkroom in Bushwick for those of you who actually know what they are doing :)

Check out my photography website: FeliciaMariah.com

La Jolla is one of the biggest recommendations I found when researching things to do in San Diego. I only got to visit the Cove and I’m so glad that it was the place I chose!

You see, sea lions and seals can be found here in their natural habitat... and there are TONS of them!

We must have stayed for at least a half hour checking out the laziest sea creatures on the planet. I wanted to snuggle with them, which isn’t a good idea. However, you can get pretty darn close.

I was very happy to be spending the day with some amazing humans, Rachel & Murat, who I met in the hostel. We quickly became quite the adventure team. We thought we took about 20 photos, just to be safe since we couldn’t see from sun glare. That was the only picture that was actually taken. Yay, technology! On our way to La Jolla, we determined each of us resembled an animal. Rachel was a tree frog (or a giraffe), Murat was a lehmer, and I was a black panther.

Do you see it now?

I have pen pals now!! Eeeee :) I was so excited to receive my first pen pal letters right after arriving home from my week and a half trip to Florida. I had to film it! Since I haven't had a vlog up in a while (sorry!), I thought this might hold us all over a little bit.

Last month didn’t go as smoothly as hoped with my car breaking down... But, I feel I handled it very gracefully :) There were a lot of beautiful moments to even it out, including a trip to DC to see the Cherry Blossoms! I can’t believe we are already a week into April! So, without further adieu, here is my Reflections & Gratitude Vlog for March.

Happy Woman’s Day! In celebration of this fabulous and fierce day, I’m so excited to FINALLY share my Reflections & Gratitude Vlog for February! How do you feel about it already being March?? Woof. Last month was tons of fun! I got the chance to take a mini-vacation, collect a few beautiful things and memories and just got to let loose a little. Now it’s time to hit hard and refocus on goals and intentions. We’ve got this! If you enjoyed the video and want to spread those feel-good vibes, remember to #Share ^____^

Once again a HUGE Thank You to Adar who has been taking on my vlog project baby as her own by editing it from start to finish and adding in her fun, sassy flair ;) Until next time!