Theater Makeup

For now I must put away my blood, and move on, with a tear in my eye.
We have moved on to theater. meh.
First off, old aging, can kiss my ass. That shit is hard, long, and I hate it. Point finale la.

Past week, we have done chinese opera, where to me everyone looks like a mexican wrestler, which lead me to a 20 minute conversation on Nucha Lucha! I use to love that show. She is from mexico, and was surprised they played it here.
I didn't practice to much, I was tired and went home.
We also did over the top stage makeup where my teacher used me for her demo.
From close I looked like a 2 dollar hooker, from far it looked great.
You have to always remember people in the back row need to see your makeup. I didn't want to take it off, but people stare, and I get enough of that already. Be dramatic with stage makeup, don't be afraid to use colors, and sparkles!

When I used to go to dance school, and we would have a huge dance show at the end of the year, I remember the amount of makeup I would put on, and it never was enough. So usually our saying is "Less is more"
Now "More is more" doesn't make much sense but its true.
Theater is a really hard business to get into. People usually stay in it, and they always use the same makeup artist...or because there are so many shows, the artist do their own makeup everyday. A makeup artist comes in, teaches them how to do, then they do it on there own. Yes that makeup artist gets paid well to teach but I doubt I could live on it.

No one prepares you for this. I'm living my dream, but at what cost?
I have to stick to it no matter what. I love what I'm doing and its making me happy.
Been a while since I've been truely happy.
I had a panic attack the other day after going to backstage studio. where I could've probably done my whole training for so much less, and got more out of it. Called my best friend ranting, and freaking out about the whole situation, she just flat out told me " Tess you're the most motivated person I know in life...I've never seen anyone dedicated to making herself something then you...you're going to go far, and when you do i'll live in your mansion"
Shes right, and thats why I love her.
Plus i'm getting a pool boy. Sign up here.

Jeeze, got sidetracked. Ok so bottom line I refuse to ever do old aging again.
Intense stage makeup.

Close up

This is my soul twin, after I fucked her up, worst then Chris Brown could do. (cinema exam)
She gets me through life.

Blood Competition.

Wow. Best Day Ever in class....well compares with graduation photo day, that was amazing as well.
Friday the 13th, blood competition. How cheesy, yet appropriate.
Classes divided into two teams...by my team i was elected Captain of team 1.
woohoo.

For some reason when it comes to gore, and zombies my names comes first in everyone's mind. They must think I'm psycho.
Don't care I enjoy it, when people says gross to my work I take it as a huge compliment.

Anyways, we must come up with recipes on how to make fake blood. We were given 10$ to go to the grocery store and get whatever we needed.
Basic essentials. Corn syrup, corn starch, red dye.
However we came up with two bloods.
One using cherry sauce, other had everything we could find. After using almost a whole bottle of red dye, it wasn't dark enough, or sticky enough so we used hair gel, chocolate sauce, sugar, cream, the list goes on. It looked a little purple but on the skin it was amazing.

We got scared by the other team a few times, however something went wrong for them and we were back in the lead, especially with two different kinds of bloods.

After we had to use the blood to see how it would look, being captain I thought might as well used me as the victim.
I didn't know how far they would actually run with it.
I was a walking mess. If i had extra clothes and a blow-dryer I would've let them "Carrie" me. I walked around school covered in blood, freaking the shit out of people. One girl walked into me while coming out of class, and almost threw up. Another girl put down her sandwich. Haha

Taking it off wasn't so much fun, I stayed in class pretty much with most of it on, and my clothes covered in blood. Oh well, I had a blast doing it, I think there something wrong with how much I love fake blood.
We came out the winners! Even thought technically there was no winners, everyone-gets-a-ribbin sorta deal, but we won no matter what they say.

Also watched a film on bearding. The actor Tim, had a lazy eye, was falling asleep for most of the time, and made the best faces. Me and morgie almost got kicked out of class for laughing so much, until our teacher realized how funny it was, and was pissing herself laughing, and we had to re-wind the tape to watch some parts again.
How tim how we love you.
Our ingredients

Bloody mess.

I really enjoyed my shirt I made just for the occasion.

Tim!



As I type this, my diploma just dropped into my lap. I'm graduated bitches!
I'm officially a makeup artist for artistic makeup! Now to finish special fx and no one in this world can stop me from completing my dream.

Bullet holes

Before ever trying out bullet holes; my class watched a special fx film on how to make them hollywood style.
Damn its a lot of work, and time.
The ones the guy made was from a type of plaster.
It took almost a day to make just for an entry and exit wound...where in class with latex or mostly wax can take 30 minutes.

First by making a mold out of plaster (long process) let that sit for a while.
Then by using wax make the bullet wound then let that sit over night.
Whole thing takes forever and hard to explain because of so many products. You would have to watch the film to get a better understanding.

Anyways we make the wounds by using wax, latex is a little harder to use, and mold the wound.
Depending on the wax, gylercin is used to smooth it out.
An entry wound is not as bloody, and a little bruised around the edges, an exit wound is messy, busted out, and bloody.

After applying the wax, becareful it can be moved very easily, apply the cream colors to the wound and around to make it seem real. Then add the blood. Splatter the blood around the wound and fill it with coagulated blood.
Done.
Also take into consideration if you're working on a movie set, you have match the wound with the type of gun being used.

I was a model for bullet wound day, so this is my teacher artwork on myself.
Getting it off was horrible I pretty much took the bus home like this, then right into the shower.

Scrapes and Cuts

Boy do I love cuts.
There is so many different ways to do them, and the results are insane.
My favourite thing to do. Seriously I cannot get enough of doing cuts. Every time I practice I make it more realistic.

Scrapes are really easy.
I little blood and a stipple sponge.
Set a base and dip a corner of the stipple sponge in the blood, and pat or "scrape" it on the skin. By the way this thing hurts, especially on the face.

Now on to cuts.
These can be done with Latex, wax or my favourite and is new to the market (most artist don't know about it yet) 3rd degree.
This stuff is amazing. Looks like two needles side by side, once they are mixed together on the skin you have approximately 5 minutes to form your mixture into anything you want.
Only thing its a little pricey about 25$ per tube.

Once it is dry, blend the edge into the skin by using concealers or foundations.
Fill your cut with dark cream colors, blacks, burgendy, or reds.
Now fill the inside with blood, as well as around the wound.
Finished.
I've been doing cuts and scrapes for the last two weeks, so I have a bunch of photos.
I started getting creative, and adding random things to cuts.
For instance on one occasion, adding the plastic sticks from q-tips you can use it as bones coverd in blood.
or boiling asparagus, drying them, then dranching them in blood, can look likes viens.


Fight Club


Use of Wax, cream colors (carefully painted) and molding.


Blood is added to the wound. I prefer just special fx blood, not to thick so you can spread it all over.


Q-tip parts are added, drenched in blood. Finale product. I love it!


Asparagus used in a cut for more realistic look.
More to come.

Burns

Since Im so lost from the last two weeks, I'll just keep this topic to burns.
We do so much in one class, and skip from thing to thing, its hard to keep track.

Most efficient burns are used with latex.
Smelly horrible latex.
Why does this stuff need to smell so bad. I can't stand working on someone or my own hand with this stuff, I can only imange doing a Two-Faced look (which i want to do) and putting it so close to someone's nose.
Common they can't put a little rose water in this thing?
Anyways you'll need a good amount of latex, some kleenex, burns and cut color wheel, blood, charcoal powder, and some art skills.

Start with putting a good amount of Latex on the skin wherever you want the burn to be.
Peel Kleenex in two, so its very thin, and put on top of the wet latex.
Tear away excess kleenex so it looks jagged.
Add more latex (the key is to drench it) then Kleenex. Fold some to make it look uneven and add on top. Make some holes by picking at the new skin. So some of the burn has depth.
Blow dry on cool, to not actually burn the person at such a close range.
Once that is done, and your satisfied with the look, you can now start to "color it"
Using the burns and cut wheel, add blues, reds, pinks, and purples.
Charcoal can be added on top, for a better effect. Once that is complete throw blood on top, by brushing it on.
Make sure the edge of the latex and skin blend well.
You're done!

It all depends on the type of burn your going for. This is obviously a 3rd degree burn, where it is so burnt its eating at the skin to the bone, where blood starts to exit the wound.
Pictures are great to have a references, but hard to look at a burn victim so early in the morning.

Once you get the hang of it, burns can be done in a matter of minutes.
Really easy stuff.
I enjoy making burns but cannot stand the smell.
Also in winter then tend not to ship Latex due to freezing while shipping. The latex i have is a small amount and must be warmed up before using, the big bottle which smells a lot worse, but its better for using on bigger wounds, is from class, and they sold out in most places, so now I have to wait.
I dislike waiting.


First burn I ever did without even knowing how to do them. We told to try to see if we could do it on our own.


Burn done on me. My burned hand grabbing my boob. Why? Whynot!

Taking it off is not as fun.

My own work, on myself. Not bad for my first time.

Requiem for a dream

How did I let this movie slip through the cracks?
I never saw it till that friday I got back from Quebec City.
8:30 in the morning, starting my hung over day back. To much to handle that early in the morning. Shit.
Slow at first, then the end fuckin' hits you like trainwreck.
We watched it for the special fx. Amazing.
However I need to download that soundtrack.

So after watching the full thing, which we normally don't watch in class, everyone felt a little weird.
Took a break, and moved on to junkie arms.
Wax, cream colors, a dap of coagulated blood, and a lot of patience.
My first junkie didn't come out so bad, it's the viens that are the hardest to recreate.
It tends to look so feel, just poking it, makes you squirm.

I also practice what I had missed while on the trip.
We also did eczema. Its actually really gross.
Latex, wheat grains. and cream colors.

The wheat grains is what makes it look so disgusting. I really hope I don't have to do this to anyone. Its probably my least favourite FX so far.
Latex is really hard to play with sometimes, because for this you have to pick at it, to make holes, which could rip the skin, and make it bigger then you wanted.

I need a nap after that class.

Quebec City

Jeeze, its been awhile.
Life has been intense. Ups and downs. trying to juggle, school, work and life.
By the time i get home from work, I eat, and try to get things done, but mostly just look at random things online, or looking up zombie things.

Moving on.
Quebec City bitches!
My first real job in the glamourous life as a makeup artist.
5 girls, One hotel room, and one fuckin great road trip.

I remember that week, I was hardly sleeping at night, due to stress (which still lingers)
So 4 hours sleep, then on the road for about 3 hours.
Ozone hotel and bar, was actually really nice. The set up was amazing, and guys were Hot. haha
Girls in quebec city sure love their bronzer. They use it like its going out of style. Hard to put white makeup on a girl who uses orange cream on her face, which doesn't match the rest of her skin.
20 girls. 20 guys.
The makeup was really easy. Stressed for nothing.
Snow storm delayed the whole process, but great none the less.

Off for a quick dinner at Cosmos.
Then back to the room for a little break. Which consisted of downing some booze, and a quick change.
Back to work.We had to apply the lipstick on the models right before they went on,which had to be done in the bathrooms (you have to know how work in any kind of space) Guys were peeing while we did makeup. Awkward. We were now down for the day!

Show wasn't bad. I was so proud of our work, we all were.
I had great people to work with, the MUA not the models, who were picky about everything.
Then came the partying till 3am. Missed class the next day, and a 3 hours car ride home.
Ending in what almost was a horrible incident from a sandwhich left under the seat in the car.
3 hours of heat blasting, resulting in the worst smell imaginable.
As soon as we parked the car in Montreal. We found it. I was gagging, laughing, and crying at the same time. I almost threw up, and thats very unlike me.
Perfect way to end the trip.

Aging

First day of aging started on Tuesday. The second part was Wednesday which I miss due to going to Quebec City for a fashion show.

We started aging by just using light and dark browns and white makeup creams.

Around the eyes, nose, lips. Older people tend to have red around there eyes, and depends if you're a drinker or smoker the skin changes.

My mind isn't fresh on how to do it, and its rather hard to explain on here, other then just doing it.

So many points i'm missing.

We started using latex around the eyes and cheeks. It's all a matter of knowing how to stretch the skin, and where to powder.

I looked horrible, with my birthday next week it just depressed me. So no pictures of that!

However I do have a picture of me trying to be cool, and young.