Queen of Hearts: Andrea Christine (Model Mayhem #632662)
Mad Hatter: Jeshua Viveiros (Model Mayhem #525367)
Alice: Lyz H (Model Mayhem #504980)
White Rabbit: Justen Phelps (Model Mayhem #757853)
Wardrobe stylist: Karen at the Art Farm (Model Mayhem #757129)

*computer is still out being maintenanced, so I had to sneak onto my dad's to edit this--I couldn't resist. I submitted this one at a bigger image size for the sake of detail, and therefore had to watermark twice. Sorry.

So this is like a "cast photo". Just everyone together so you can see the styling all at once!

The most people I've ever had to conduct for a shoot, so that was pretty exciting all by its self. We would have included more characters, but it was hard enough styling 4 costumes, and getting 4 models show up on the same day!

Karen and I had been planning an Alice shoot since July, but we were both so busy and couldn't come up with a proper date for it. I had seen the white and blue dress in her wardrobe and immediately thought it was perfect for an Alice, so we began discussing and planning the other costumes. We decided we did want it to be part fashion while still staying true to the tone of the original book (having nothing to do with the Disney movie, with the exception of Alice's dress colour). It's one of my favourite books from childhood, and I really didn't want to fuck it up. I've always been conflicted about Wonderland shoots because they're done so often and can be rather hard to do well. "Slutty Alice" seems to be quite prominent...

I wanted mine to be highly stylized and intricate and dark and colourful all at the same time. Karen basically came up with both the Mad Hatter and Queen of Hearts costumes all on her own--and they were perfect, as far as I was concerned. I put together the necklace Andrea is wearing out of different parts, as well.

The White Rabbit was a bit more difficult to plan for us, even though the costume itself is rather simple. We knew using a girl model would be too stereotypical--too easy, really. We wanted to do a white rabbit that was masculine (which was difficult to plan! Rabbit concepts tend to be feminine, and we didn't want anything remotely resembling the Playboy bunny!). And Karen and I both have this thing against "fake things". We like things to be realistic as possible, but we didn't want to include any fake ears (just like we agree on no wings with faeries, no fishtails with mermaids, ect). We decided on our simple costume and included the rabbit fur on Justen's shoulder. It was either that or some awful bunny suit, which would again enter the realm of "fake things". But yes, the fur on Justen's shoulder is real fur. Nobody kill me, and I really don't want to hear about the evils of photographing animal fur. That thing was skinned before I was born.

Alice was the hardest to cast. The dress itself is incredibly small at the waist. Andrea is supertiny and even she had difficulty fitting into it. So in addition to needing someone really small (and small enough to basically play a child), I needed a blonde, and someone who could look appropriate to the part. I couldn't think of anyone to play her. Then one day Lyz contacted me through Model Mayhem about shooting and said that she really wanted to do an Alice in Wonderland shoot. I looked at her port and I think I may have said aloud, "Oh, my GOD, she's PERFECT." I messaged her back and told her that coincidentally, I had been planning one and she had to be my Alice. Fate!

We had asked a make up artist to help us with this shoot, and then the day of the shoot, didn't show up! (See? Models are not the only ones who flake!) I asked everyone to show up at 10:00 in the morning (as it never hurts to be prepared for the worst), and luckily thought to bring all of my make up and hair supplies. When the MUA didn't show, I did the hair and make up by myself (except Justen's hair, because I'm so bad with guy styles). It took me from about 10:30 in the morning to about 4:00 in the afternoon to finish with all four models. And then the shoot itself was 2 1/2 hours (basically until the sun was low), so by the end of it, we were all pretty tired.