It’s what’s underneath that counts…

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So, after playing around with long false lashes and beauty spots, I decided it was time to go to the opposite end of the spectrum and get ugly… On the flip-side to loving Hollywood glamour, I also absolutely adore the gruesome, gory makeup in the movies, especially those seen in the legendary horrors way before CGI where makeup artists had to create special effects in original and incredibly skilful ways.

   

I’m not sure if anyone reading will have seen or heard of “The Horror Makeup Show” at Universal Studios in Florida, USA, but it is one of my favourite attractions there for this very reason. Not only is it immensely funny, but it shows the techniques of the movie pastime where make up artists had to deal with challenges that computers were not yet around to help overcome. Figures such as Jack Pierce and Lon Chaney who created the infamous characters of Dracula, The Mummy, Frankenstein and The Phantom of the Opera are exposed in the show, and for good reason of course. They are legends in makeup artistry history and hugely inspiring.

I started off small with a skeleton look that was influenced by a few different images and tutorials I found online, but my fascination with horror and gruesome makeup effects means this will certainly be a first of many. So watch this space!

For this, I used white Grimas face paint to cover my entire face. Using a black khol eyeliner pencil, I sketched the outline for the skull, using my own bone structure as a guide. After identifying which areas are to be blacked out, I used black face paint to fill them in. Once this was done, I used a fine brush to add in some additional details such as the teeth and shading to create a more 3D effect. I blurred some of the edges with a sponge whilst the paint was still wet to make the skull look less neat and more realistic/creepy and used grey to add more shading. I added some more black on my neck to create a quick spine/neck to complete the look.

BOO!! :)

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