A digital makeover shows us SoraNews24’s selfie queen like we’ve never seen her before.

One of the rising stars of the Japanese modeling and entertainment industry these days is the mononymous Matt. Born Masashi Kuwata, Matt is the son of former professional baseball player Masumi Kuwata and grandson of former pro golfer Izumi Kuwata, but instead of a speedy fastball or putting prowess, Matt’s claim to fame is his “living doll” looks.

Matt denies having had any cosmetic surgery done, but he openly admits to using image editing in his photos. Intrigued, SoraNews24 Japanese-language reporter and Matt fan Meg decided to try his techniques for herself, since she frequently appears in front of the camera in her role as a member of the SoraNews24 Frappuccino taste test team.

▼ Meg

First, Meg needed to figure out what sort of changes Matt makes. To do so, she compared a photo of singer Nozomi Tsuji with another snapshot taken the same day which Matt later touched up for her.

By comparing the two, Meg could see that the first change was making her eyes look bigger, accomplished by narrowing the gap between the top of the eyeline and the eyebrow, and keeping the eyebrow straight to emphasize length. Matt also gave Tsuji’s eyes a slight droop, in keeping with current Japanese makeup trends, and made her other facial features less pronounced, to achieve the kogao (“small face”) look that Japanese women covet. Finally, he smoothed out the texture of her skin to eliminate visible pores.

https://www.instagram.com/p/B3btZfTDkI0

Looking through Matt’s online videos, Meg learned that his editing software of choice are the apps BeautyPlus and Lightroom. Unfortunately, she quickly ran into a problem with BeautyPlus. When reshaping individual facial features, the program also tends to warp and distort the background behind the person as well. Meg wanted to give herself a virtual makeover, but didn’t want to look like she was bending reality in the process, so she swapped BeautyPlus for Meitu, a photo editing app that’s a lot more user-friendly.

Meg started by using Meitu’s Reshape (リシェップ) function, which allowed her to change the size and orientation of individual facial features like the eyes and nose.

Next, she used the Slim (スリム) function for an extra kogao effect, and also the Makeup (化粧) tool to better highlight her lips, eyeline, and eyebrows.

With that, she was done with Meitu, so she took the image over to Lightroom to adjust the levels of Color （カラー）, Light (ライト), and, most importantly, use the Detail (ディテール) menu’s Noise Reduction (ノイズ軽減) function to make everything a little more natural-looking.

And with that, Meg’s Matt-style makeover was complete, giving her a photo of her new alter-ego, “Mett.”

▼ Before and after

▼ As she stared at the photo of Mett, she could feel the spirit of Matt at her shoulder.

Honestly, we’re not sure Meg needs to rely on such extensive digital wizardry, seeing as how she’s already one of the most photogenic members of the SoraNews24 team.

▼ Though some would say that’s faint praise…

That said, Meg is also in charge of the annual “Men of SoraNews24” semi-nude charity calendar, and maybe her new Matt-inspired skills can make our male staff look a little better this year.

Images ©SoraNews24 (screenshots via Lightroom, Meitu)
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