devilsattic — Matt Goodlett's Makeup Blog | Tips, Trends & Techniques

With the Louisville Zombie Walk (LZW), spooky season comes a bit early in the city of Louisville Kentucky. For a lot of people the Louisville Zombie Walk, hosted by the Devil's Attic ( http://thedevilsattic.com/darknessfalls/ ) is the Kickoff to the Halloween season and us at Team Demon Fabulous couldn't be happier to be a part of that tradition. Every year for LZW Team Demon Fabulous is tasked with coming up with the Devil's Attic's signature zombie looks and this year was no different. I wanted to do something completely different this time around.

I had this really interesting prosthetic that I had picked up from Woochie ( https://www.woochie.com/ ) this past spring. It wasn't quite human but definitely had some undead elements to it. To me I saw a lot if Geiger esque Alien aspects. I have seen zombie movies ie: Wild Zero where the zombie contagion came from aliens rather than some chemical or other earthly sources. I thought this would be the perfect opportunity to do something different and hopefully something no one had seen before. I like for the team to be able to do their own thing so I didn't want to push the issue but I asked if the wanted to go with a unified theme and make it look as if all of our human zombies were turned by the Radioactive Alien zombie. They seemed to like the idea so that is what we decided to go with. We had a color pallet we were going to use, slightly pulling colors from the alien but not to much as to keep them human.

Given that stereotypical alien sightings are from people off the beaten path and country folk being abducted by aliens that somehow turned into a unifying theme as well. All of our zombies ended up in overalls instead of the zombies risen from the dead in suits and ties. Primal ( https://us.primalcontactlenses.com/ was pretty clutch in getting us matching lenses for all of our zombies to pull them together. For the Human Zombies we went with the White Walker II lenses. Not exactly your typical undead look but very cool and unique.

Makeup Artist Mary Proctor and Taz Ball teamed up to create our Bubba zombie. Taz always goes as some variation of his Bubba Zombie character and for this theme he fell perfectly into place. As these zombies were turned by alien radiation, Mary didn't really have to worry about any bite marks.

Phoebe Conrad came back home to Team Demon Fabulous after going to Cinema Makeup School. Having done so she wanted to do something extra on actor Kristopher Thompson. She had Kris wear overalls with no shirt so she could really highlight his skeletal frame. Making his ribs and other bone structures really stand out helped give him that emaciated undead look and made him a very memorable zombie.

Zoe Hall is the newest member of the makeup crew so we teamed her up with Ame Ross. With Ame being a little smaller in stature it was decided to make her a little kid zombie. Dressed in capri overalls and over the top sneakers they topped her look off with a huge colorful lollipop. Something about seeing a little kid as a zombie is very unsettling and Zoe did a great job for her first make for Team Demon Fabulous.

A couple of days before LZW I decided to pre-paint my prosthetic to give myself more time for the application process to make sure I could get it all laid down seamlessly. I wanted him to have a very dark, almost black skin tone with bluish undertones. I had never pre-painted a prosthetic before but really enjoyed it. Once I got it all roughly painted I became a little worried about how dark it was and having to blend it. That said I left a lot of room for blending and detail work to pull it all together.

My actor Jeff Howell looks forward to this every year and in preparation he shaved his head and face so that the pros-aid skin adhesive wouldn't pull out any of his facial hair. This also saved me from having to use a bald cap. Once I got the prosthetic applied I painted his entire head black and then got to blending. I airbrushed on bluish white veins that mimicked electricity. From his eyes, mouth, nose and temples I built up a bright orange, pink and white to make it appear to almost be glowing with radiation from those orifices. I used the cuttlefish lenses from Primal to give him an other worldly look. to top it all off I brushed on castor seal to give his skin a bit of a shine. Our head costumer Lauren Perry killed it with an amazing alien costume that really brought the whole look together.

I want to thank Misha Kidwell and Lauren Hughes for taking these amazing photos of our zombies. With two different photographers we were able to get a different perspective on the same looks. I am so proud of this team. Everyone showed up and did a great job. I can't wait to see what this 2019 haunt season holds for us because I know we will kill it.

I had been excited for Transworld ( http://www.haashow.com ) since we wrapped our Halloween season at the Devil's Attic. ( http://thedevilsattic.com ). For those of you that don't know Transworld HAAS is the largest Halloween and haunted house convention in America and it is located in Saint Louis. You see some amazingly creative macabre things. There is tons of stuff to buy from vendors from all across the country for your haunted attraction in one place. If you just look around and use your imagination there is a lot of things to just be inspired by. I was talking with Michael Book who owns Louisville Halloween ( http://www.louisvillehalloween.com ) and Danger Run ( http://www.dangerrun.com ) about going to the trade show. Knowing how much I love European Body Art he suggested I ask them if they would want me to do a demo for them.

I kind of laughed it off because I know the caliber of artists they generally have at these types of things. Last year they had Nix Herrera and RJ Haddy. If you aren't familiar with them do yourself a favor and look them up. Both of them are amazing artists and competed on Face Off. I have followed them both and lets just say I am a fan. The more I sat on it the more I thought "All they can do is say no". I reached out to the sales rep Alden I work with at EBA expecting him to tell me that they have it covered.

Alden messaged me back telling me that the only artist they had this year was Nix and that he could probably use me for me for a demo. I was blown away, Not only would I get to do a demo, but I would be one of only two artists doing demos for them, the other being Nix Herrera.

Excitement changed to fear very quickly. I have never backed down from a challenge though, especially when I put myself in the situation in the first place. When opportunity knocks you answer and hopefully you can rise to the occasion. the first thing I did when I arrived in Saint Louis before I even unpacked my gear was head over to the convention center. I wanted to get a feel for the show because I still didn't know what I was going to do. I thought stopping by and seeing what Nix was up to would be a good idea.

Nix was doing some amazing stuff as I knew he would. I introduced myself to him and he was so gracious. He had just done an amazing zombie makeup. I kinda laughed and said "Well I guess I can't do a zombie now". That's when he put me at ease. I can't remember his exact wording but he basically told me to do a zombie if I wanted. that of course our zombies would look different but that wasn't because he was better, but just that we were different artists. For some reason that calmed me down.

I talked to the model/actor I would be working on named Lucas Turner to get a feel for what we could do. Lucas is an actor at a Haunt called Phobius ( http://phobiushaunt.com ) about forty minutes outside of Saint Louis. He was a super nice guy and through talking with him I learned he loved the Joker and zombies. When I suggested I could maybe do a zombie Joker I could tell he was into it and with that said I now had a plan.

Me working on Lucas. Photo by Justin Sinkler.

So there I was early Sunday morning on the last day of the convention. I had coffee coursing through me as I worked out of Nix's kit with my wonderband strapped on my arm loaded up with brushes from Crew 13 Productions. Once I got started I settled into my zone. I knew I was there to do a makeup. Alden had seen my work and knew what I was capable of. It was at that point I started to have fun with it.

It also didn't hurt that talking to Lucas was like talking to an old friend. People were stopping by, buying product and taking photos of me working. it was such a cool experience. to say I love European Body Art is an understatement. it is the only product we use in the Devil's Attic makeup room. Even in the hot days of September our sweatiest actors can't sweat it off. It is just an amazing product and I am so proud I got to do a demo for them.

Of course Harley has to mark her territory.

With Lucas being bald I thought that painted on hair would be something that a bald Joker would do as part of his makeup routine.

Needless to say Transworld was a great success! I couldn't have asked for a better experience. I was able to meet a ton of makeup artists that I admire. I could list them off but it would sound like name dropping. my final note would be to never count yourself out, never think you aren't good enough. You will never know if you don't ask and if they say yes it is your job to surpass expectations.

https://www.europeanbodyart.com/

https://www.wonderbandsystems.com/

https://www.crew13productions.com/

Louisville Zombie Walk 2019

Transworld HAAS 2017

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