There is no cure for curiosity."
- Dorothy Parker
I have a folder on my laptop entitled “Halloween”. Throughout
the year, instead of frantically looking for an inspiration only days before
the occasion, I save the images I stumble upon and find inspiring in this folder.
When the time comes, I simply choose among them the ones I like most and try to
recreate them. What I am trying to say is: the makeup ideas featured in this post are not mine, and I really have no idea who to credit them to, because who
knows where I got the photos. Unfortunately, this is the reason why I can’t publish
the reference photos and make comparisons with my creations.
Anyway, although I had different plans for my Halloween
costume this year, I eventually decided to put them off until Mardi Gras,
simply for the reason they involved too much effort for the Croatian version of
Halloween (discussed in my "Halloween on a Budget” post). So I had to find an
alternative solution that involved no special effects makeup or any makeup
products "out of the ordinary" whatsoever. But all the photos I had saved in the
folder seemed quite professional, using liquid latex, colour contact lenses or FX colours. Curious as I am, I
thought I might make an experiment to see if it is possible to achieve the
same effect with only the makeup products I use daily. I can tell you right away
that the answer I have found is: "yes, but..."
Please note that I am an absolute amateur in this, and that these were my first and only attempts at recreating the costumes. I have not practiced recreating the masks before, and all the photos illustrate the results obtained
from a single try. Also, I have not based my work on any sort of tutorial,
but simply on studying the relevant photos and making my own way of
rendering the creations onto my face.
Makeup idea #1: ALIEN
I like to think of the creature in the first photo as some
sort of alien. As you can see,
creating it involves covering up a greater part of your nose and mouth, and creating
an illusion that the nose is a lot smaller, and the mouth a lot bigger. I can
say right away that achieving this was nothing but simple. For the sake of post length, I am not going to discuss the details here, but the hardest part was drawing the nose and teeth. I had to redo
them at least five times. Although I am still not pleased with the way they
turned out, I think the conclusion is that this particular Halloween makeup
idea can be partially realized by only using ordinary makeup products. Still, it surely
looks way better if you apply some black face paint on the mouth area because
it really needs to be pitch black (in reality, it was not as shiny as the
picture may make out; my camera flash is to blame for this).
If you would like to try this for yourself, all the
products I used are listed below: you probably already own all of them, or you
can at least buy them in the nearest drug store. The only “out of the ordinary” product
is the black face paint, but I still wouldn’t refer to it as an FX item.
The snake makeup was a piece of cake compared to the alien one. I really don't think anyone needs a tutorial for this one. The trick is simply to draw the nose and the mouth exactly as in the photo, everything else is just arbitrary. For example, the photo I used as the reference had a blue scale, but for some reason I decided I wanted mine to be golden. I also applied black face paint all around my eyes, but this wasn’t necessary at all. The conclusion is; this makeup idea can be fully realized by using only ordinary makeup products; also, it is cheap, simple, and looks very effective! And to put the finishing touch to it, you can cover your neck in scales, too.
Thank you very much for reading and happy Halloween!
P.S. please ignore my hair, I am aware I need to see a hairdresser ASAP!
- 1:54 pm
- 2 Comments
