The Correct Facial Expression

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Besides knowing the right technique to walk and pose, the facial expression of a model is also important. As mentioned in the first post, a model is supposed to sell products through body language alone. The emotion we portray, the look in our eyes, the way we pose all make an impact to the audience. At Amber Chia Academy, we are taught to portray a facial expression that is serious but not fierce.

What are the girls doing?

During our 5th class, we were taught to create the model facial expression, by, loosely speaking, squinting our eyes. The technique to squint the eyes is to move the lower eye lid up instead of moving the upper eye lid down. Doing the latter would make us look like we’re frowning or worst, like we did not have enough sleep. Hence, we had to train ourselves to just move the lower eye lie muscles up to create that sexy, smouldering look.

Failed attempt

And it’s a pretty hilarious process! We were asked to hold our index finger in front of us and to focus our eyes on that finger, while squinting them until the finger became blur. You could see all kinds of funny faces in the mirror while we tried to get it right! Here is one good example of someone who managed to do it right – Jolyn from our class.

Before

After

In one of our classes, we also had the privilege of Ethel Cho as our guest instructor. She’s extremely experienced and apparently coached Andrews’ Models before. One thing though, she’s also very strict! Never a smile during class and always straightforward with her instructions. Strict as she was, I found that I learnt a lot from her during that one class because she pushed us by making us walk rounds and rounds while giving us constructive feedback.

Ethel Cho as our guest instructor

In our 6th class, we were all asked to strut down the studio individually, doing the full catwalk starting with a pose at the beginning, another pose at the end, a half turn around, walk back to the original point and a full turn before exiting. Confusing? Take a look at the video to get a better picture.

Feliz striking her first pose

Still remember Lulu?

Basic catwalk

Can’t believe 6 weeks of classes just flew by! Classes will start again today after the weekend. Stay tuned for more updates!

Note: This is Part 4 of a series of my experience being a modeling student at Amber Chia Academy. Check out the remaining  parts here.