Heya,

I know several of you have makeup intensive roles and/or have had them in the past. What's the best way to go about designing a character that uses full makeup, whether it be an animal pattern or just a lot of mehron? What are some tips to preserving this makeup through a weekend, or designing the makeup job so it's not impossible to maintain, is a shower every day and re-makeuping the best way to go?

Also, for non-animal makeup jobs, does anyone have any good websites or tutorials on how to do other effects, ones usually seen around Halloween like zombies and stuff? I figured this was a good place to ask.

-Getting full makeup right can be difficult if you are doing something more complicated than just a layer of Mehron. It might be worth an hour or two of mucking about in front of a mirror on a day off just trying different things with makeup to get as close to the look you are going for as possible. Something that makes sense in your head might not make sense when you actually see it in the mirror.

-Isles is handy in having a sink/mirror setup in the back room of the tavern. It’s real easy to duck in there once in a while to check your makeup. Keep your makeup kit in your locker and you can do touch ups whenever it is convenient.

-Trying to preserve a single makeup job through the weekend is pretty much a lost cause. I usually end up reapplying everything each morning. For helping keep makeup in place, barrier spray works well for Mehron cake stuff (be careful, it’s “tingly”, do not get it in your eyes), while grease based makeup can be kept in place with either baby powder for light colors, or setting powder for darker shades. But what do I know, I usually end up stripping off and reapplying various parts of my makeup two or three times an event.

My makeup experience is slightly different from most people's because it's all liquid latex. I use a prosthetic sealer liquid on top of it when it's dry -- that might be another option for sealing makeup too, depending on the look you are going for. I've also used barrier spray in the past on facial makeup. You do need to cover your eyes if you're spraying it on your face, but it works very well.

With the prosthetic sealer, I usually don't have to reapply most of my face latex during the event, though I often do need to reapply the patterns on my arm.

-Kendra

They are scarification tattoos, raised scars stained blue. That's why I build them up with several coats of latex. If someone ran their hand over them, they would feel IG approximately how they do OOG: raised, fairly smooth lumps of scar tissue, pulling a little at the edges where they meet the rest of the skin.

-Kendra

If you're going with Mehron, I recommend Starblend, which goes on smoother. Also, Barrier Spray is your friend: a quick spritz before and after makes removal much easier. Also, buy a yellow sponge. Heck, buy two. They make putting on pancake much, much easier.