The Maiden is an architype throughout art and literature that is usually used to portray the damsel-in-distress character or the helpless girl. Usually female, she is beauteous, elegant, extremely feminine and most often seen as asleep of trapped.

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After looking into classical interpretations of The Maiden character in art, I started creating my own version. In almost every depiction, she has long flowing hair so my way of showing this was by having the front hairs of my model, waving down her face as if wet. This helped to develop my message of being trapped by femininity as she is genuinely being enclosed by her hair. 

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For the makeup, I made the model paler, to reflect past interpretations, with over blushed cheeks. Her lips are red with hints of silver glitter and an accentuated cupids bow. I wanted her to look 'dolled-up' almost like she is playing the part of The Maiden rather than actually being her. I want to make it clear that she does not want to be this character. To show the classical femininity of The Maiden, I glued back the models eyebrows and attempted to cover them up before drawing in thin, black ones. These 50's brows help to echo the message of beauty in women. For the eyes, I used white eyeliner to gently line and also coat the models eyelashes as well as dabbing it around her eyes too. This area is supposed to show the connections to nature (mostly flowers) as well as purity in the colour white which is usually associated with this character type.

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When posing, I asked my model to tilt her head up a lot. This would give the impression of elegance which, coupled with her low eyes which seem to long for something more than this, create a sad look of unfulfillment. The Maiden is trapped by feminine ideals and cannot escape, you can see in her expressions how she has been forced to live like this and wishes for something more.