The Makeup Artist Handbook

by Gretchen Davis

  Where to Stretch

  Furrow lines: Area between brows is pulled upward and outward (Figure 8.17).

  Figure 8.17 Furrow Lines

  Forehead: Subject scowls to lower brow line, and hairline is pulled away from face (Figure 8.18).

  Figure 8.18 Forehead Wrinkles

  Crow's feet: Pull away from outer corners of both eyes (Figure 8.19).

  Figure 8.19 Crow's Feet

  Eyelids: Pull up at eyebrows, both eyes (Figure 8.20).

  Figure 8.20 Eyelid Wrinkles

  Under-eye area: Pull down and toward center of face, both eyes (Figure 8.21).

  Figure 8.21 Under-Eye Area Lines

  Option one: Lift area away from center of face.

  Option two: Puff the area to be aged.

  Nasal labial fold: (Figure 8.22).

  Figure 8.22 Nasal Labial Fold

  Upper lip: Puff entire area to be aged (Figure 8.23). (Puff means having the person fill the upper lip with air and hold it until application is dry.)

  Figure 8.23 Upper Lip Puffed

  Chin: With neck arched, pull both sides of chin away from the center of the subject's face (Figure 8.24).

  Figure 8.24 Chin Stretch

  Cheek: Using the subject's index finger, reach deep into the cheek and push out. This is a perfect opportunity to tie the nasolabials, under-eye area, and crow's feet together. Do both sides (Figure 8.25).

  Figure 8.25 Cheek Stretch

  Neck: Begin with the head back. Do the throat first. Then, with head turned, do both sides (Figure 8.26).

  Figure 8.26 Neck Stretch

  Repairs

  Depending on how many layers you have applied, areas around the mouth may crack or flake. You'll most often notice this damage around lunchtime and near wrap. Repairs are easy and quick:

  1. Paint 99-percent alcohol in the direction of the wrinkles.

  2. Apply Telesis 4 Thinner and/or acetone (faster) with a brush. Then apply Green Marble SeLr with a brush, sponge, or spray.

  3. Apply the original ager material.

  Removal

  Massage isopropyl myristate or IPM Gel with your fingertips into the skin that has been aged. Take your time. The material will dissolve—slowly, and then faster and faster. When the product has loosened, follow with a hot towel for thorough removal.

  Stretch and Stipple

  W.M. Creations, Inc. has old-age stipple available in four formulas: A, B, C, and Crusty. Neutral and dark skin formulas are available by special order.

  A: Used in a perspiration-free environment. Will give slight wrinkling effect when applied to un-stretched skin.

  B: Perspiration resistant. Under normal use, gives heavy wrinkling effect even if the skin is not stretched. This is the most widely used stipple.

  C: Heaviest wrinkling effect possible. Good for use on hands.

  Crusty: Gives the illusion of deeply weathered skin. Great for use on hands. Apply a thin layer of Pros-Aide or Beta Bond before stippling hands for maximum adhesion.

  1. Prep the skin with 70- or 99-percent alcohol.

  2. Decant stipple into a small container, and heat in the microwave for two seconds.

  3. Be careful not to overheat, or the stipple will coagulate.

  4. Stretch and stipple skin area with a light coat of old-age stipple.

  5. Powder and release.

  Castor oil makeup base or Stacolors may be used as translucent washes over or under stipples for a natural look. A wash of castor oil and 70-percent alcohol may be used to remove the powdery look of latex over the stretch and stipple area.

  Removal

  1. Massage liquid hand soap into stippled area, and let soak for at least one minute.

  2. Apply a warm, wet towel to the area for one minute and repeat the process.

  3. Stipple may be rolled off the skin.

  Aging Hands with Crusty Old-Age Stipple

  1. Clean top of hands and fingers with 99% alcohol.

  2. Airbrush or paint on veins and age spots with W.M. Creations, Inc. Stacolors Old Age Spot and Black/Green.

  3. Stretch skin and curl fingers while stippling Crusty Stipple onto skin. Dry each layer before applying another layer. Make sure each additional layer is stippled within the perimeter of the previous layer; otherwise, thick edges will be produced.

  4. Powder with RCMA No Color powder after four to five layers have been applied and dried. If additional layers are needed, wipe off the powder and reapply more stipple. Dry and powder again (Figure 8.27).

  Figure 8.27 A, Clean Hand. B, Painted Hand. C, Stippled Hand. D, Final Old Hand

  Courtesy Matthew Mungle

  Contact Lenses

  Custom contact lenses are a great way to complete a makeup design, and are sometimes necessary to sell the look of the makeup. Examples of contact lenses being necessary to complete a makeup are a badly beaten face, illness, death, or portrait makeup (look-alike). With a badly beaten face, if there is bruising/wounds to the eye area, there would be broken blood vessels in the whites of the eye. In illness, you would show yellowness and broken vessels. In death, you would use a death lens that is cloudy. In portrait makeup, you would change the eye color of the actor to match the person they are portraying. In all of these situations, having lenses to remove the “life” in the whites of the eye, or to change the color of the iris, completes and sells your artistry. Contact lenses are a fabulous tool for the Makeup Artist.

  There are many ways to order contact lenses. Cristina Patterson, contact lens technician and special effects coordinator, takes orders from all over the world. The most common method for her is via email. Christina says:

  Depending on the production, sometimes I am asked to actually create the designs for the contacts, or the Makeup Artist requests their designs to be painted. It's tricky when a Makeup Artist creates their own. A lot of times, they will design something that takes the lens all the way to the edge. People forget that lenses are round, so if you stretch a lens out one way, they also have to go the other way to complete the circle. It also depends on the size and curve of the actor's measurements. For instance, if the actor's measurements permit only a smaller size of the sclera lenses, it's definitely not going to the edge. Makeup Artists should also be aware of adding any light reflection flares to the design. Although it looks nice, the reflection can be confusing to interpret during the painting process. At times, it becomes a collaboration between the Makeup Artist and myself. The Makeup Artist will give me a design that I will alter in Photoshop to better fit the contacts to be worn. This would be the easiest way to see what the Makeup Artist wants and how the design can be executed. Most designs are created in Photoshop beforehand, and then e-mailed to me. After discussing what is doable, I'll sit down to paint. A mock-up is painted first, and, if time permits, a picture is taken to be sent off for approval.

  The most commonly used contact lenses are kept in stock with different curves. Television shows tend to need contacts at the last minute. Actors would be fitted for contacts right away to be used in same-day or next-day situations. Sometimes the contact lenses are not in stock.

  The Makeup Artist must have the actor fitted by a professionally licensed doctor. When wearing contacts, you can get tunnel vision—just like looking through a straw. Everyone is different in terms of comfort level when wearing contacts. A properly fitting lens should be reasonably comfortable. There is no definite wearing time. It is completely dependent on the actor's comfort level. Environmental conditions will have an impact as well. Artificial environments are all irritants to the eye, which affects contact lens comfort. Artificial snow, smoke, wind, lots of splashing water, and the occasional sand can make all lens wearers unhappy campers.

  Lens colors can be adjusted or used in such a way to accommodate media such as bluescreen and greenscreen. Effects can be included with this. For example, green or blue lenses have been used to make an actor disappear on-screen, or to project an effect onto the sclera lens that is being worn.

  Con
tact lenses should be the last thing to go on the actor, and the first to come off. Most lenses stay with the Makeup Artist after the shoot. He or she will bring them in to be sterilized and sealed for long-term storage. If the lenses are to be used again after they have been stored for a year or so, the Makeup Artist should take them to an eye-care specialist to be checked out for imperfections, bacteria, and so on. Also, the artwork on the lenses should be checked for fading or opacity. If the lenses are in good shape, they can be sterilized for use.

  All Lenses Are Unique

  There is no such thing as a generic contact lens. Every person has a slightly different eye curvature and eyelid tension. Only a licensed eye-care professional can fit a contact lens. You are putting your eyes at risk by purchasing special-effects lenses from online auction sites, flea markets, convenience stores, or shops, for example. Soft lenses are currently the standard of the industry. Almost anything can be painted, printed, or laminated on a soft lens. Rigid lenses are used for a variety of effects—although the wearing time is much less than for a soft lens, and rigid lenses take longer for the actor to get used to (Figure 8.28, Figure 8.29 and Figure 8.30).

  Figure 8.28 Contacts/Single Eye, Dilated Pupil

  Courtesy Professional Vision Care

  Figure 8.29 Bloodshot Contacts

  Courtesy Professional Vision Care

  Figure 8.30 Brown Eye, Old Age

  Courtesy Professional Vision Care

  Scleral Lenses

  Scleral lenses cover the sclera, or white part of the eye. They are larger in diameter (18 to 24 millimeters) than traditional lenses, which generally cover only the iris (colored part of the eye, usually 14 to 15 millimeters). Scleral lenses work great for bloodshot eyes, hemorrhage effect, jaundice, full black, demon eyes, and other monster effects, where the entire inside surface of the eye needs to be covered to avoid seeing the edge of the lens (Figure 8.31).

  Figure 8.31 Scleral Lenses

  Courtesy Professional Vision Care

  Contact Lens Information

  Cost: The cost of a lens is related to the difficulty and type of special-effects lens design.

  Fitting and Exams: All exams include internal and external eye-health evaluation to determine if the actor can in fact wear contact lenses, plus refraction for prescription.

  Getting Fitted by Another Doctor: To purchase lenses without being able to bring the actor in for fittings to your favorite special-effects lens maker, forward the information directly to the shop. This is what you'll need to submit:

  1. Current refraction.

  2. Keratometric (K) readings.

  3. Visible iris diameter (millimeters).

  4. Pupil size (millimeters).

  5. Normal iris color (photo if possible).

  6. An exact color rendering of effect to be created.

  7. If scleral contact lenses are the desired lenses, the actor must be fitted by a doctor who has the compatible fitting set. Scleral lenses must be fitted physically; they cannot be determined solely by corneal curvature measurements.

  Teeth

  As with contact lens, changing a person's teeth to go with the makeup design is an essential tool to create realistic effects. It is also a wonderful choice for character design and comedy. As with contact lenses, teeth that don't go with the makeup design will take away from your makeup job. For example, assume that you have aged an actor from 40 to 80 years old, and the actor's teeth are too white. This will detract from all of the aging work that has been done.

  It is important to use a qualified professional in both areas when designing characters involving eyes and teeth. The professional's technological and medical background protects the actor that you are making the changes on.

  Gary Archer of G.A. Enterprises, a specialist in dental prosthetics for the film and television industries, explains the process and current reasons for tooth transformation:

  One of the main reasons for tooth transformation is that in today's Hollywood society, a perfect smile is essential. Unfortunately, with the latest in porcelain veneers, implants, and cosmetic bonding, we have beautiful smiles in life—but under the lights and in front of the camera, it is entirely too dazzling and therefore unrealistic. We have had requests to darken actors' teeth to make them less perfect. We can give them gaps where no gap exists, and stains to represent neglect and poor dental care; have them missing teeth, or have them fall out on camera. We also make “grills,” ranging from single teeth with faux diamonds to full arches with designs and styles on them. We make perfect teeth bad, and bad teeth good! We have also developed a range of fake braces and retainers that will fool the most critical eye. In addition, we have copied smiles of famous celebrities and influential figures of the past to transform the actor's teeth into whoever it is they are portraying (Figure 8.32, Figure 8.33 and Figure 8.34). Plumpers are another specialty to help swell out or fatten a character's mouth, and are another unique product.

  Figure 8.32 Braces Veeners

  Courtesy Gary Archer

  Figure 8.33 Broken Teeth

  Courtesy Gary Archer

  Figure 8.34 Vampire Teeth

  Courtesy Gary Archer

  Pro Tip

  Plumpers are a great makeup tool for changing facial shape, such as for aging or swelling from a fight or accident.

  Safety Tip from Gary Archer

  The mouth is a very delicate place. Be careful what you plan to put on an actor's own teeth. All the new technology available to dentists in the advancement of “tooth beautification” means that it is very easy to damage a veneer or to stain cosmetic bonding. Stay away from “paint-on stains and colors.” They can permanently stain delicate bonding and unsealed margins on veneers.

  Obtain accurate dental casts of the actor. It is recommended that you use a dental professional when transforming teeth for a character. Do not use old molds that the actor may have from previous projects. They are usually older than the actor remembers them to be, have been used for a previous prosthetic appliance, and may be damaged or inaccurate.

  Gary takes us through the steps of dental casting and dental molds:

  1. First, an alginate impression is taken with a metal tray. Plastic trays are not rigid enough and can cause distortion.

  2. Second, a cast is made in a hard yellow or blue stone.

  3. Be careful loading the impression tray. Using too much material can gag or choke the patient (actor), which causes stress in the artist-actor relationship, to say the least. Not using enough material can lead to a shortened or under-extended impression that doesn't capture the areas that you need.

  Pro Tip

  If you are not sure of the procedure, call for help.

  Once the positive dental casts have been done, the design process starts. A diagnostic wax-up can be made to show the Makeup Artist and director exactly what the teeth will look like. This helps to eliminate surprises on the set, and will enable all parties to be on the same page. It helps to bring it all (the design) together.

  After the designs have been approved, a last wax pattern is cast to fabricate the acrylic veneers. Heat-cured acrylic is used to give the most accurate, color-stable, and realistic look for the veneers. Self-curing plastics tend to have a very monochromatic and dull appearance, so they should be avoided.

  Once fabricated, the veneers are quite thin and delicate. Given time, the actor can actually forget they have teeth in, and care must be taken to ensure that the actor does not forget they have veneers in, and go to lunch wearing them. This has happened, much to everyone's amusement.

  Pro Tip

  Remind the actor that a pocket is not recommended for storing their veneers, as they will break!

  Normal process time from design to fabrication and completion of a set of veneers is usually one week. In some cases, GA Enterprises can turn them around faster, but there are certain rules to using dental acrylics, and attempting to rush or speed up the process usually produces low-quality results.