Give'em hell!

The Devil’s Attic has been my home haunt since 2013. I remember getting a text from a friend to come in and take over playing the Priest character. As an “actor” I had never worked in a haunted house so I wanted to give it a try. I have to say it was a far bigger challenge than I had ever anticipated. Every weekend I blew out my voice and had scrapes and bruises all over but I loved it. Acting in a haunt was one of the more physically taxing things I had ever done and my hat goes off to all haunt actors.

Towards the end of the 2013 season I was brought into the makeup room because they had lost a makeup artist. I had minimal experience doing terrible greasepaint zombie makeup which at the time I thought were good. I really enjoyed being in the makeup room and was told if I wanted to continue to be in the makeup room the next season I would need a better my portfolio. This gave me the nudge to explore different types of makeup and work with different types artists. Over that next year I built a portfolio of SFX, beauty and Avant-Garde makeup. In 2014 I joined the makeup team full time. It was the exact push I need to find my passion.

In 2015 I was made the manager of the makeup room. Working with different artists had exposed me more to beauty makeups which I really enjoyed. I think that had some people questioning my ability to take over the makeup program at a haunted house. This wasn’t helped by the fact I wanted to add beauty elements to certain characters, get rid of blood where ever I could and give our vampires some shimmer highlight. I really like the idea of being drawn in by something oddly attractive to have it bite off your head. At first this was not received well but I felt it gave us an edge and set us apart. Our owner Jason came around to the idea and started to trust me with the makeup room which I couldn’t be more grateful for.

Without the Devil’s Attic I would not be where I am today with makeup. The Devil’s Attic drove me to be a better artist and try new things and learn new techniques. I wanted to absorb everything I could to bring back to our makeup team which I named Team Demon Fabulous. The name to me said “beautiful monsters” which was my original idea for our style. I wanted to keep brushes in my hands all year long to sharpen my skills and hopefully set an example for the team. I tried to do my best to let my team create makeups and make cool stuff (within the confines of the characters). I wanted to empower them as well. They were not my assistants; they were artists in their own right and I wanted them to feel as such.

As Team Demon Fabulous we started to get some recognition. When I took over the management position one of my goals was to bring home some honors. Having our makeups mentioned in reviews was cool but I wanted awards. In 2018 this finally happened with our first of several awards which continued in 2019. This would not have been possible without an amazing team and support from our owner Jason. We were given a lot of control over the makeups we created and all the support we could ask for.

All of the above it why this decision has been such a hard one to come to but I feel it is time. Some times in life you have to just take the leap and get out of your comfort zone. I will be stepping away from the Devil’s Attic after the 2020 season. Nothing negative has happened at all and I couldn’t imagine a better experience at a haunted house. I want to try and explore other opportunities during haunt season. Jason has entrusted and empowered me as his makeup manager and I sincerely hope I did him and the rest of the crew proud. It has been such a major part of my life and a point of pride as I believe the Devil’s Attic is the best haunt around.

I have made some of my best and lifelong friends through this crazy wild place. I know come September part of me is going to miss that musty building and all it holds. I would be lying if I said part of me wasn’t afraid to leave. I will never forget all of the great times and challenges and amazing memories from the Devil’s Attic. Not to mention the vibrant, eclectic, beautiful motley crew that inhabits the DA family. There is nothing like working in a haunt and I will miss it. I am confident whoever takes my place will kill it and continue to help make the badass monsters that the Devil’s Attic is known for. With that I say; Give’em Hell!

Photos by: Antonio Pantoja, Misha Kidwell, Danny Alexander and Tate Chmielewski.

Billie Eilish: Team Demon Fabulous Makeup Challenge

On my friend and team  member's birthday we went out for chips and margaritas. We were  talking about music and about the type of music I had been into lately. I had  been listing to things that were basically pretty dark in subject matter but  that if you didn't really pay attention to the lyrics sounded kind of innocuous.  She lit up and started telling me about Billie Eilish and about how her songs were often beautiful but the lyrical content could be a bit gothic in  nature. When we parted ways that evening I pulled Billie up on Spotify and gave  her a listen on my way home. I really liked the breathiness of her often times  haunting voice and lyrical content.

After listening for a couple days I got this idea.  Team Demon Fabulous, the makeup team from the Devil's Attic ( http://thedevilsattic.com/darknessfalls/ ) hadn't had a makeup  challenge in a while and I thought a Billie Eilish theme would be a good one. I  have always been inspired by music in my art and I wanted to see how the team  would interpret her music. Billie  herself has said she doesn't like to explain her songs too much because she  wants the listener to be able to make up their own narrative which was perfect  for us. The only rule I gave was a time limit and to just be inspired by Billy  Eilish. After issuing the challenge to the team I quickly realized I had no idea  what I was going to do.

The songs I had been listening to I loved but  they didn't speak to me visually. That said I had been listening to the same 5  songs on repeat. I opened up my playlist to all of her music and found my inspiration song  almost immediately. When "All Good Girls go to Hell" came on I knew that was the  inspiration for me. I saw a dark demonic figure plainly standing with a very  sweet and innocent looking girl in my head. I didn't really have more than that though,  but that was enough to get started. The next day scrolling through Instagram it  really all came together.

I saw a painting by an artist named Natalie  Shau titled "Wendigo". The painting was amazing and was a heightened version of  what I already had in my head. I posted the image to my Instagram story simply  saying "Vibes". I didn't want to give to much away as it was for a challenge.  The painting got me thinking about the story of if all, and the seduction of the  devil. The painting "Wendigo" was a good first step but the story needed more.  Days later completely unrelated I came across another image titled "Secret Date"  which played into the whole seduction idea but also the resistance. As it turns  out that painting was also done by Natalie Shau. The third painting I was using  for inspiration was "American Gothic" by Grant Wood. To me that image speaks to  them being equals and living long lives together and embracing the temptation. 

Inspiration image by Natalie Shau "Wendigo",  "Secret Date" and Grant Wood's "American Gothic"

Now I had to build a team for this photo shoot to  create these images. The first person I asked was photographer Donovan Cole. He  shoots a lot of fashion and editorial type stuff and I knew that's how I wanted  these images handled. He is young but has been churning out a lot of amazing  work. Given the demon makeup I knew I'd be doing I didn't want it to look like a  monster photo shoot and a photographer without vision may have taken them in  that direction. I knew Donovan could keep the images on track. I kind of figured  I would be the model for the demon makeup especially since in past challenges  most of the team has been their own models so I figured it was time for me. For the "Good Girl" I needed a model that  could really pull of the sweet and innocent look as well as the demon's equal.  Working on Steve Squall's film "Mujō" I met actress Olivia Duff who plays the  lead Meta in the film. My job when meeting her was to paint tattoos on her that  are specific to the character. I knew she had the perfect look and as an actress  would be able to pull off the story in these photos.

Mujō promo photos by Steve Squall featuring Olivia Duff with Tattoos by me.

With my team in place I was ready to get started,  or so I thought. As I was doing makeup for a fashion show designer Andie Kaye  came up to me saying she had seen the Instagram story where I had posted the  "Wendigo" painting and she wanted in on whatever I was doing. I never posted I  was up to anything but somehow Andie knew. When she referred to the image as  Persephone I knew I had to have her involved. In Greek mythology Persephone is  the wife of Hades and they ruled the underworld together. With that I knew Andie  got what we were doing and I brought her on as a stylist.

Before I get into our actual photo shoot lets  look at the amazing work of Team Demon Fabulous;

Being the go getter that she is Kelsey Eisenhut was the the first to turn in her look.  Here is what she had to say about her makeup,  "When Matt announced we would be having another challenge I was so excited. I always love the interpretation aspect of the challenges and I might be the tiniest bit competitive. However, I found myself thrown for a loop when the genre of the challenge was announced. I had no clue who Billie Eilish was, what her music sounded like, what her personal style was, or what she looked like. I have never gone into a challenge before so ill prepared so I found myself in a very uncomfortable position.

My first step was to take a deep dive into the music, videos, and interviews of Billie. As I was researching the other team members were quickly reserving the songs that they were going to base their looks around. Although it is not a rule that two artists cannot use the same inspiration, I like to keep myself away from the pack. All the big hits got scooped up quickly so I found myself going further and further down the rabbit hole until I hit the song “Hostage”.

From the opening scene of the video and the first few beats I knew I had found my inspiration. I listened to the song and watched the video around 40 times over the next two days letting the words, music, and feelings sink in. The song has some obvious visual characteristics called out that I knew I wanted to use, gold leaf and gold fingers, but I also wanted to make it mine. About the 35th time I listened to the song and idea started to form.

The thing I found most striking about the song and video was the internal struggle, a struggle I myself have felt. She describes the struggle to want to love and be loved but in the process being self-destructive by being mean and pushing her lover away. I wanted to create something that at first glance was beautiful but upon further inspection showed signs of a fight. At first look you see the gold and the beauty but if you take a closer look you see the busted lip and the bruised eye.

Although I had no idea who Billie Eilish was coming in to this challenge I dug in deep and found something I could truly feel to create this look. Plus I came out with some great new songs on my Spotify playlist!"

Photo: Gingerkat Photography 

Model: Jacy Inskeep

Makep: Kelsey Eisenhut  

Lauren Bradley didn't pick a specific song,  well... I'll let her explain, "I was inspired by Billie as a whole for this shoot. these are a few of the photos that turned out. it was done with film so we don’t know what happened to the black and white pics of pancake (the tarantula) on my face. if those didn’t turn out i’m gonna do a different shoot with her bc she deserves to be a star. Danny used expired film for a moody creepy effect and that’s what i was looking for."

photos by Danny Bloom

Model and Makeup Lauren Bradley  

 With having a 4 person team of all very busy  individuals it was hard o find a date we were all available. There was literally  one day that we could do the photos on so we got it all pulled together pretty  quickly. We debated on having a floral backdrop for extreme juxtaposition but  decided against it due to it being a bit distracting. Billie uses a lot of flat  color back drops in her music videos so we opted to barrow a nice pink back drop  from my good buddy Danny Alexander. Given the subject matter pink was the  perfect color which also made the blues in the makeup and Olivia's blue eyes  really pop. Andie pulled a few things from her wardrobe for Olivia to wear  including her own prom dress.

Sketchy Tank design 

As far as the makeups there is nothing wrong with red devils or demons I just didn't want to do what was expected. I wanted something dark, very dark. The original idea was just to paint myself all black with black contacts, black horns and a black hood. After some thought I just felt that was too much and a lot of the details would be lost. First I scrapped the black hood for a black suit playing off of the phrase "Trust no Suits", based on a Sketchy Tank design meaning to not trust corporations or really anyone in power. I started off applying some Woochie ( https://www.woochie.com/ ) latex horns to my forehead. I still painted my face all black using Woochie water activated makeup as a base. I then airbrushed EBA Performance ( https://performancemakeup.com/ ) makeup starting in purple and then building to the lightest blue before white to give it a glowing effect. I used a chip brush to flick on some EBA alcohol activated makeup from their encore chrome pallet to break up the color and also give it some glints of shine. I used the Anastasia Beverly Hills Aurora high light pallet on the super light points and my horns. I pre-painted my nails the night before using EBA's Autopsy pallet. I applied the nails after my face and neck makeup were completed. I then added wax around the cuticles to give them a more monstrous look.

Prepainted Nails

I had originally planned on using a pair of  lenses from Primal ( https://us.primalcontactlenses.com/ ) that were mainly black  with some blue accents. with the makeup already being so dark I changed my mind  last minute and went with Primal's White Walker Lenses. The lighter lenses  really popped surrounded by all of the darkness in the makeup. With the way the  makeup seemed to glow the contacts looked amazing and almost took on a glow  like the Night King in Game of Thrones. Ideally I should have done Olivia's  makeup first. Unfortunately Olivia couldn't get to the shoot until a bit later  so waiting to do her makeup first before I did mine would have put us getting  out much later. Due to the timing of everything I had to have all of my makeup  applied before Olivia got there which I'll admit caused a few  issues. Not Olivia's fault at all, this was just the only day we could all make work. Getting us all there around the same time was like threading a needle in a hurricane.

When Olivia arrived I had a bit of a problem  applying the makeup not just because of the nails but the wax around my cuticles. Because of where  my brushes would rest when I used them they kept sticking in the wax. I  couldn't paint the wax yet which would have cut down on the tack due to fear of  transfer of black paint on Olivia's face which was suppose to be a clean look. Looking back I probably should have powdered them. Once I found my grove working with the nails I was able to do a clean  understated makeup. The idea was to make her look very sweet and innocent. I  really wanted to play up the pink blush on her cheeks and even added a bit on  her nose for a bit of whimsy.

Doing Olivia's makeup in nails and wax cuticles.

Wearing a white dress shirt the nails caused  another issue. I didn't want to wear the white dress shirt while I was painting  myself black. The problem was with the nails on I couldn't button my shirt or  tie my tie. Andie pretty much had to dress me which wasn't embarrassing at all.  This also made using the bathroom impossible which once everything was ready I  had to do and couldn't. Using the reference images we worked through the story that fit with  the idea and lyrics of the song. The first look was more her introduction to  Lucifer. Olivia was wearing Andie's vintage looking lace prom dress which was  perfect and soft for this uneasy introduction. From there we moved to more of  the forceful seduction. Not necessarily being seduced by the Devil but more the  idea of being bad and giving into temptation. Andie had Olivia wear the dress  off her shoulder to denote the idea of giving in. For the last look she has  given into the darkside but we still wanted her to look like "the Good Girl".  Andie had her in a darker dress which was still sweet looking and I darkened the  eye makeup slightly. Olivia posed as an equal to the demon, accepting her  darkside having given in.

I showed Andie the unedited images and she pointed out from a story telling perspective it would make more since to flip the first to images.  She thought that Lucifer would start with a forceful seduction which would lead to their reluctant embrace. I respect Andie's opinion so I wanted to give it some thought. After thinking about it for a bit I started to see that she was right. I flipped them and I give you "The Persephone Switch".

Donovan really knocked it out of the park with  these images, making everyone's hard work shine. I believe in getting people  involved for the jobs that they do. What I mean is to get people for what they do,  not what you want them to do. Everyone really did a great job on this and not  one of them could have been replaced. I am also very proud of Team Demon  Fabulous. It is so cool seeing different interpretations on the same subject matter. I am pretty sure this is why Billie and other artists like  her don't like to spell out exactly what their songs are about. Everyone  consumes art differently and it's not really up to the artist to tell you how  it's suppose to make you feel.

So Billie, what do you think?

Illustration by J. Lopez @jdotcreative

Van Gogh

“I dream of painting and then I paint my dream.” -Vincent Van Gogh

I met Rebecca Rhodes years ago. We had met on a Facebook makeup group and became fast friends. Back then I hadn’t really done that many body paints and certainly would not have called myself a body painter but it was something that interested me. At the time I was doing a lot more fashion editorial and avant-garde looks. I don’t know that I would call myself a body painter now even, but I love challenging myself. Speaking of challenging myself around the time Rebecca and I met I was gearing up for a body paint competition so it became one of our topics of conversation. We talked about doing body paint together someday with her as my model. That led into, what would I paint. I stupidly asked what she would want to have painted on her body and without much hesitation she said “Starry Night” by Vincent Van Gogh.

“Van Gogh has been an inspiration to me since I was little. In the art room of my grade school we had a replica of starry night painted on one of our walls that was done by past students and art teachers. I used to stare at that mural all day.

Years later I got to see starry night in person and I remember sitting in the MOMA staring at the painting in complete awe. It was beautiful and precise yet so haphazardly painted it was amazing. So when I met Matt a few years ago and he told me that he was interested in body paint I told him I wanted to be painted like Van Gogh's masterpiece.” –Rebecca Rhodes

When I am asked who my favorite artist is I can never name just one. Even though I have so many I draw inspiration from I  always say three names; Andy Warhol, Norman Rockwell and Vincent Van Gogh. They are all very different artists but I like them all. When Rebecca mentioned “Starry Night”, on the outside I confidently said yes but inside it scared the hell out of me. “Starry Night” is one of the most famous and recognizable paintings in history, which is a master-work by one the greatest artists to ever hold a paintbrush. The idea of having to paint that on a curved body was scary enough. Then add in a heavy time constraint seeing as how you can’t have a model stand for days on end sounded daunting. I remained confident outwardly and put the idea on the back burner.

Since then Rebecca and I have become very close and have a great working relationship. We have also done quite a few body paints together since we talked about the Starry Night years ago. Not to say Starry Night hadn’t been brought up over the years, mainly by her but we never planned it out. This time of year I am working at the Devil’s Attic ( http://thedevilsattic.com ) as the Makeup SFX manager where Rebecca is also doing makeup with our two other amazing artists Mary Proctor and Phoebe Conrad. I love our team and we have become a family. I enjoy doing the makeups at the haunt and we all try to put as much of a personal signature on the characters as we can. Throughout the week I miss my creative outlet so I told Rebecca I wanted to do body paint but I didn’t really have any ideas. “Well, we never did do Starry Night” She said.

“It took three years of talking about it but we finally decided that it was time.” –Rebecca Rhodes

“I often think that the night is more alive and more richly colored than the day.” -Vincent Van Gogh

I knew Starry Night would come back around and I also knew I couldn’t back away from it any longer so I agreed. Rebecca is a great makeup artist herself so I suggested we collaborate. I would do the body paint and she would do the face makeup. Our mutual friend Danny Alexander also agreed to photograph the body paint. I knew he was the guy to capture this look. I have recently been doing a lot of super hero body paints which consist of very hard and graphic lines. With “super suits” there is not a lot of room for artistic interpretation. Everything has to be very tight and precise and lots of airbrushing details. With Van Gogh as scary as it was I thought it may be nice to do something a bit more loosely and free form. Me being the idiot I am I spouted off, “Why not do “Starry Night” on the front, “Skull of a Skeleton with Burning Cigarette” on the back, and the “Sunflowers” on the butt and back of legs?”

“What would life be if we had no courage to attempt anything?” -Vincent Van Gogh

As we got closer to the day I was seriously reconsidering my idea of doing three paintings on one body in one day. She said she could and was willing to stand that long but I did not want to do that to her. The Skull is one of my favorite Van Gogh Pieces but I was willing to sacrifice it for the sake of time. I merely suggested the sunflowers because I thought they would fit well. Starting painting at noon knowing our amazing photographer and friend Danny ( https://dannyalexanderphoto.com/ ) would be there at 4pm. That gave us 4 hours not only for the body paint, but for the beauty makeup as well. I really wanted to do the Smoking Skull but only if I had enough time.

Of Course Van Gogh never used an airbrush so I knew I wasn’t going to be using that. Not only that, but his paintings are known for their very heavy and chunky brush strokes. I wouldn’t be able to get my paint as thick as his because body paint has a tendency to crack if you get it too heavy. Using nothing but airbrush at the haunt (which I love) I knew using nothing but brush strokes would be a nice break.

“Great things are done by a series of small things brought together.” -Vincent Van Gogh

I started by blocking out a light blue for the sky. It looks to me like he started with a darker color and layered on top. I had a feeling starting with black or something darker may cause the paint to mix and get muddy. I knew I would later be using different darker blues and black to build up depth so I knew the lighter base would give the look I wanted. I was going to go color by color. Starting with the lighter colors for the most part and working my way up to the darks. “Starry Night” is a horizontal painting, so I knew going in that I was going to have to change some things working on a slender vertical body. I decided to omit the houses and buildings in the village. When I think of “Starry Night” I can’t recall ever thinking about the buildings. I knew I couldn’t hit every detail so I decided to put my efforts into areas that would make it as recognizable as possible. Color by color it started to come together, and a lot faster than I expected.

“If you hear a voice within you say 'you cannot paint,' then by all means paint, and that voice will be silenced.” -Vincent Van Gogh

I was very happy with the way that Starry Night turned out and given the time I thought I would give “Skull of a Skeleton with Burning Cigarette” a shot on Rebecca’s back. In Rebecca’s words, “We decided that we would also add a second painting done by Van Gogh in order to make the most of the experience. The Skull Smoking a Burning Cigarette was a painting I hadn’t been super familiar with but I saw it and knew it was perfect.” I didn’t have the correct color pallet but I thought I could get pretty close and if it looked terrible we just wouldn’t photograph it. Same as before I started with the lighter colors and worked my way up. I blobbed the basic shape of the Skull on first. I wanted it to take up most of her back. In doing so I didn’t leave myself a lot of room to do the sternum and ribs. Normally the last color I paint is black because it will cover anything but putting in the pops of white highlight at the end was the way to go with this piece. I tried to add in some of the paintings imperfections too because they are some of the things I love about it: Imperfections like the stray brush stroke on the back of the skull, and how the paint is a bit fuzzy on the top of the head. I spatter painted on some yellow to give the idea of some of the bare canvas showing through.

Danny as always was able to photograph the pieces and Rebecca’s makeup and makes us look good. My “Starry Night” is not perfect but I think when people see it they will know exactly what it is. Rebecca’s beauty makeup matches the painting and over all feel of the body paint perfectly while still staying within her own style.

My version of “Skull of a Skeleton with Burning Cigarette” is far From perfect. Luckily it’s not one of Van Gogh’s more famous pieces or the mistake would be more apparent. Looking at it now I wish I would have taken the sternum and rib cage down on her butt. One of my favorite things about the Van Gogh version though as I stated before are the imperfections and how it looks a little unfinished. It was one of his earlier pieces and just has an awesome raw feel to it. I hope I was able to capture that vibe.  Van Gogh’s Original painting aside I really like my skull.

“While standing for hours isn’t my favorite thing it was so worth it. Matt did a beautiful job and I was so happy with it.
 

Danny also did a fantastic job when it came time to bringing these photos to life. The way he helped me to pose brought out the shape of the paint beautifully and I’m so happy he was willing to shoot this. 

All in all I’m so happy I finally got to do this and I’m really happy I got to be a part of the creative process.” –Rebecca Rhodes

I am so happy we were finally able to do this painting. It’s always good working with Rebecca and the fact that we were able to collaborate made it that much better. I cannot thank Danny enough for always coming through and making me look good. I love the way this turned out and couldn’t be more proud. Until Next time!

“One must work and dare if one really wants to live.” -Vincent Van Gogh

Spider-Gwen

Sometimes things do not go as planned and you have to play the hand that you are dealt. Months ago I took a meeting with a promoter of sorts. They wanted me to do a makeup exhibition showcasing makeup and body paints by me as part of a bigger convention. I was excited about the venue and the idea but scared at the same time. I was expecting them to want me to curate a show of like-minded artists which I suggested but they only wanted me. The fear was if it wasn’t good it would all be on me, but that was also kind of the fun part. I was going to have to fill a 30 minute runway show with only makeups and body paints by me. It was going to be a lot of work but I thought with the abstract style I sometimes like to work in I could make it work. I was going to call it the “Corvin Arts” which is a surname based on the Latin word Corvus meaning Raven if that gives you an idea of the feel I was going for.

I don’t like to waste time on these things so I started planning immediately. I cast all of my models and even a stage manager. I wanted a very dark vibe so I was working with a DJ to put music together that would fit the feel I was going for. I even planned on doing a very quick, choreographed and abstract 10 minute body paint as part of the runway show. It was all coming together. I contacted the promoter about advertising for the show since there was a month to go before the event only to find out the date and venue were changing. Not only did the possible dates they were looking at not work for me but things were just to up in the air for me to stay the course. I wished them luck and I pulled out of doing the show. If things were going to go bad I didn’t want my name attached or string along the amazing team I had put together.

Needless to say I was bummed. I messaged my team and told them the show was off. Not only was I embarrassed but I was upset that this vision I had built up in my head may never see the light of day. Luckily they all understood. One of my body paint models, Melanie Smith messaged me outside of our group chat. She knew I was bummed out and had seen on Instagram that I had wanted to do some more super hero type body paints. Comic book character body paints couldn’t have been further from what I was planning for Corvin Arts but still something I wanted to do. The first time I worked with Mel was on a fashion photo-shoot about a year ago and she had mentioned wanting to do a Spider-Man body paint at that time. When I asked her this time what super hero she was thinking of she said “Spider-Gwen”. I honestly had no idea who that character was but upon looking it up I loved the color scheme. Spider-Gwen is the alter ego of Gwen Stacy in an alternate universe where she is bitten by the radioactive spider and not Peter Parker. I had actually done a “bubble gum Vampire/Ghoul” themed body paint on Mel before in close to the same color scheme and even used spider webs.

Photo by Dusty Dunaway

We decided to do it on the same date the Corvin Arts show was scheduled. I was excited and I started planning right away. I thought how cool would it be to if I had Alexandra Lee ( https://www.alexandraleestudios.com/ ), the best cosplay photographer around to photograph this body paint. I had wanted to work with Alex for a while so when she said yes I knew we had to make this big. Even though my show was canceled I thought we could make this an event of its own. I decided to stop into the Destination Comics ( http://www.destinationcomics.com/ ). They have a really nice sized room in the back that they use for gaming that I thought would be perfect for painting. When I mentioned the idea to the owner Brian he jumped all over it having seen my Venom body paint with Rebecca Rhodes as the model and Danny Alexander as the photographer ( http://mattgoodlettmakeup.com/blog/2018/5/25/venomiss ). Going from painting such at dark “Spider-Verse” character such as venom to some something as bright as Spider-Gwen was exciting.

Photo by Danny Alexander

Mel has short brown hair and I knew we would need a wig. I contacted my hair stylist friend and the best wig guy I know Matthew Tyldsley to see if he had something that would work. Mel and Gwen both have blue eyes but I wanted it to be over the top blue like in the comics. Primal ( https://us.primalcontactlenses.com/ ) makes these great blue lenses called “Captain Superhero” that I knew would be perfect which they agreed to send me. While I was at it I thought I’d push my luck  and see if my friends at EBA Performance Makeup ( http://www.europeanbodyart.com/professional-makeup/ ) would be interested in being part of this. They offered to send me some paints and with that I was set.

I started looking around and I was finding different suit designs. They all had spider webbing but none had a spider on them which was kind of a letdown. Don’t get me wrong, there is no spider on her suit in the comics but it just looked a little simple for a body paint. I was lucky enough to come across a design that was drawn by an artist that never appeared in the comics. Miguel Mercado ( IG: @merkymerx ) had done this awesome suit design that included a spider spanning the whole chest and back. Miguel does a lot of really cool alternate superhero designs that add a different element but still stay true to the character. His Spider-Gwen design was way more dynamic looking than any of the designs I had seen. I understood it wasn’t cannon but it looked cool. In his drawing you could tell by the face he had designed this look for Emma Stone’s Gwen Stacy character from the Andrew Garfield Spider-Man movie. Matthew Tyldley even cut and styled the wig in accordance with Miguel’s sketch.

Miguel Mercado’s Design

I started by doing a fairly simple beauty makeup on Mel. I put white in her waterline to not only to give it a more open look but it would complement the blue contacts and make them pop. Before I started the body paint I airbrushed a tan color in alcohol based makeup to cover her tattoos. I knew I would have a hard time covering her tattoos with just white paint, and the water based makeup wouldn’t be able to wipe away alcohol based paint. I had done a Venom body paint as seen above and the spider across the chest on Miguel’s design had some similar forms. That said there was an extra color to consider which doesn’t sound like a big deal but for my sleep deprived brain it turned out to be. I also wasn’t going to paint the hood which also changed a few things. Instead of their being white above the spider like in the drawing I would bring the purple on the neck down onto the chest to the top of the spider since the hood wasn’t there to break up the white to the neck. Black is always the last color I paint because it will cover anything. I wanted to start with the white so I was essentially painting the spider in reverse. For whatever reason painting the negative space spider in white while conforming it to her body and matching it up with the one on the back which was a different spider design altogether confused me more than it should have. Several times I had to wipe things away and re-sketch things. Once I got the white placed it was fairly smooth sailing, not to say it wasn’t time consuming. The purple got an overlay of fluoro pink airbrush paint with a hexagon stencil to give it that super suit texture. Then on top of that went the blue webbing. Each color got a different stencil overlay to create different fabric textures.

With all of the little details it took longer than I expected but I couldn’t be happier with how it turned out. In Mel’s words, “This body paint was an incredible experience to say the least! I was thrilled that Matt wanted to do Spider-Gwen, as I’m a huge Spider-Verse nerd. That and his superheroe work is incredible, so I knew the paint would turn out perfectly. The whole day was just a fun setting, chatting about comics and superheroes. The body paint was stunning and we had the best photographer for the images. I’m always sad to wash off the body paint after modeling them, but this one was especially hard. Matt captured Spider-Gwen perfectly and I think our rendition of her was spot on. It was a blast bringing her character off the pages of comic books and into real life.”

Photo By Alexandra Lee

Alex again proved that she is the best cosplay photographer in the region. Mel was the perfect Spider-Gwen and Matthew Tyldley matched the wig perfectly. We could not have had a better team for this photo-shoot. I can’t thank the guys at Destination Comics enough for hosting our craziness. We are in talks about doing another comic book character body paint at their shop and I can’t wait! Until then I hope you all enjoy this body paint as much as we do.

Photo By Alexandra Lee

Refraction

Before my good friend and photographer Chelsea Marrin moved back to Chicago this past February she asked me if I wanted to do one more photo-shoot. During Chelsea’s short time living in Louisville we became very close. We worked on a lot of fun and some very emotionally charged projects together. It was always interesting seeing the crazy setups she would do. She helped me create art to help me through a tough time and I hope I was able to do the same for her. That all said I couldn’t pass up a final opportunity to work with someone I had become so close to. The only time she had available was a Saturday evening. Turns out that Saturday I already had 2 other makeups to do. The first of which was a beauty shoot. Then from there I had a 30-40 minute drive to my next makeup which was the Hindu Goddess, Kali which was character body paint. Knowing that both of my other photo shoots were all so far out and even sprawling from each other I knew I couldn’t pass up working with my friend one last time. I did makeup on her first photo-shoot in Louisville and I wanted to book end it by working on her last.

Wheels were set in motion so we got to planning. The first model we cast was Abbie Purdie who I had worked with a lot recently and she always does a killer job. Chelsea and I knew we wanted to do something wild. The inspiration photos that Chelsea sent me had these crazy shadows and bugs incorporated into the makeup. She thought it would work best with two models. With Abbie being a Tall blonde I though Leah Goforth who is the same height and brunette would be great and the two would complement each other well.

For the bug element we decided to go with bees. We were short on time so I looked around a few place locally to find realistic looking fake bees. Nothing I could find really matched what we were going for. As it turns out finding dead bees intact in the middle of winter was not easy either. I called around to a few places that had hives to see if they had any that had died of natural causes. They did but they were not in good condition. With legs or wings missing they wouldn’t work for the looks we wanted. We needed them to be pristine. I am sure the models were happy I couldn’t find any dead bugs to work into the makeups but that meant we had to rethink our concept.

Up until we showed up at the studio we didn’t really know what we were doing. I knew we had a great team with great models and Caleb Yeske doing hair. I like going in with a plan but I knew somehow we would be ok. Chelsea had an idea to use this crazy lens for her camera that can warp images and distort light called a Lens-Baby. Chelsea was also shooting through a separate piece of glass to catch the lights reflecting. It’s a really cool effect but I knew with that on top of the gels she was going to be using the makeup would get lost if I didn’t do something drastic.

I decided to do the makeups almost as if the models were already in gelled lighting. In regular lighting the makeups looked pretty out there, almost like something you would have seen on Star Trek in the 60’s. I gave Leah a purple tone and Abbie a blue tone. I used all cream based makeups because airbrush would have been a little bit to clean of a transition. I thought they were very pretty but also other worldly. It’s important as a makeup artist to take the lights on a photo shoot into consideration. The makeups were extremely pale and blended down the neck to the chest. I used a really heavy copper to contour and then covered them both to finish the makeups off I used a frosted gold shimmer powder. With all of the lights I knew the shimmer would catch the lights and create a really nice effect. Luckily I have worked with Chelsea enough that she trusted that I had an idea of what I was doing.

We were all looking at the images as they were being taken and they were looking phenomenal.  With the hair, the lighting setup, the crazy lens, makeup and the amazing models we got some really amazing images. I actually like how in the images you can see where the makeup stops and the skin starts. I think it shows how the lights really effected the overall look of the makeups. After the shoot a few of us went out for drinks. We went to a bar that has some dancing and a lot of neon lights. Abbie didn’t take off her makeup and when we got there I think she was afraid people would think she was nuts. The funny thing is with all of the neon lights in the bar she pretty much looked like how the final images turned out.

Derby Daze

I could really break this up into two blogs but with it being all Kentucky Derby related I have decided to keep it all in one. Derby for me always starts months prior to the actual event. There is planning to be done and schedules to be made and this year was no different. The Haunted House where I work and I had an event to run and do media for and I had two parties I was scheduled to do makeup/body art for. Now that I think about it I was only scheduled for one party but I will get to that.

The haunted house where I manage makeup, the Devil’s Attic (www.thedevilsattic.com) also runs the Louisville Zombie Walk which is the biggest Zombie Walk of its kind with over 45,000 participants last year. This past fall our Haunt owner Jason told me about an opportunity that had been offered to us by one of the biggest festival’s in Kentucky. The Kentucky Derby is cool and all but it’s really all about the Kentucky Derby Festival (KDF) which goes on for about two weeks leading up to the horse race itself. The KDF wanted us to bring what we do for the Louisville Zombie Walk to their festival. What we came up with was the Derby of the Dead.

For Derby of the Dead I would be making 4 zombies. Two zombies would be for a local news stations, and the other 2 zombies would be for the day of the event. One of those zombies would be to work the crowd and the other one for a live demo. My team (Team Demon Fabulous) would also be making crowd walking zombies. Lucky for me EBA Performance Makeup (  https://www.europeanbodyart.com ) and Woochie FX ( https://www.woochie.com/ ) supplied me with makeup and prosthetics to make these zombies real show stoppers. I love EBA’s makeup but I had never actually applied a prosthetic before and the first time I would be doing it would be for a live news broadcast.

Some of the Prosthetics from Woochie

The first zombie I did for the news was on Morgan Dayton. Even though her segment was for Friday which was the day of the event it would be recorded the same day as or live segment which was the preceding Wednesday. On Morgan I didn’t use any prosthetics. I just did what I call a “Standard Paint Zombie” and played with some marbling techniques and layering. I was very happy with the way she turned out.

Morgan Dayton in Zombie makeup by me

Rebecca Rhodes was going to be my Zombie for the live broadcast so I had her show up a little bit before Morgan at 7:30am. Having never applied a prosthetic I wanted to make sure I gave myself enough time. I laid on some pros-aide cream adhesive where the prosthetic would lay. While that set up I put some more of the adhesive on the back side of the prosthetic. This prosthetic was a half face, covering only the ocular sockets the cheeks, bridge of the nose and the forehead so it was pretty easy to place. Once it was in place I painted a layer of Pros-Aide on top of that to seal it before I powdered and painted it. Foam latex prosthetics are very sponge like and if you don’t seal them they just suck up all of your paint. Once you seal it with the pros-aide you have to powder it to keep it from being sticky. I base painted it with a mauve color to neutralize the yellows in the prosthetic before I painted it using the same color scheme I used on Morgan. For it being my first prosthetic application I was pretty pleased.

Rebecca Rhodes in Zombie makeup by me

This is the live broadcast from WHAS Great Day Live! https://www.whas11.com/mobile/video/features/great-day-live/derby-of-the-dead-on-great-day-live/417-8107460

The day of the event I had distressed a jockey costume for our actor Jeff Howell who would be my “hero” zombie walking around the crowd. I would be applying the full face stage 3 zombie prosthetic from Woochie. Jeff was excited as he always is to be a zombie but I was concerned. Having only applied one facial prosthetic before this would be no small task. I could already tell it was too big for his face. I placed the prosthetic and secured the nose in place first and then worked from the top down making sure all my edges were good and seamless. After smoothing the prosthetic top to bottom there was a lot of slack left under the chin and neck area. I tried folding it over to make it look like wrinkled hanging flesh but it wouldn’t hold. I ended up having to cut a dart/triangle out of the part that wouldn’t hold and pulled it together. I then made a bridge with latex and deli paper. Once it was bridged I added some latex and cotton to give it some texture and then sealed it all. Painting the Woochie prosthetic with the EBA Performance makeup was probably my favorite part. The sculpt was great but before it gets paint it just looks lifeless, pardon the pun. I loved breathing life into it and was very happy with it. I named the character Pat Day of the Dead after the famous jockey Pat Day.

Photo of Jeff Howell as Pat Day of the Dead by Tate Chmielewski

From there we packed up all of our gear and headed to the event. I was lucky that Tabby Sharp of youtube fame (https://www.youtube.com/user/tabs24x7Official ) agreed to be my subject for my demo makeup. She is so much fun and great to work with. After the issue with Jeff’s prosthetic I was worried the one for Tabby wouldn’t fit either as she is very tiny standing at 4’10. I placed it on her face and it looked like it may overlap just a bit on the sides but not enough to be incredibly noticeable with her hair down. The demo was taking place outside at the waterfront (Ohio River). As you can imagine airbrushing in high wind on a raised stage is not ideal. I had to wait for the wind to die down at times to try and paint otherwise none of the airbrush makeup would make it to her face.

In the process with Tabby Sharp and myself

I was also working against a time constraint. Due to scheduling conflicts I went from having an hour which was already pushing it down to 45 minutes. With Tabby’s bright pink hair and the colorful onsie she was wearing she looked like a piece of chewed up bubble gum when I based her in the pinkish mauve color. Once I was able to get my color scheme from EBA on her it all came together. With Tabby’s diminutive size it added an extra element of creepiness to the makeup.

Photo of Tabby Sharp by Tate Chmielewski

Photo of Jeff and Tabby by Tate Chmielewski

 I have been lucky enough in years past to book gigs for derby parties. About 2 months before the Derby I met with Josh Meredith of the Original Makers Club (OMC). The OMC was going to throw a huge Derby Eve bash at 21c which is an amazing art gallery and boutique hotel. I have worked there in the past and it is an fantastic venue and I was excited to work with Josh for the first time. I had done a makeup on my friend Katye Estes with a lot of geometric shapes which caught Josh’s eye and prompted him to reach out to me.

Sponsored by BMW and Woodford Reserve 

The inspiration for the party was based off the recent Gucci designs featuring a king snake and bright pink flowers. I knew straight away I was not going to paint a snake, at least not in any way that would be expected. I had looked up a bunch on snake body paints. I wasn’t looking for ways to do it but rather for what not to do especially since we wanted a more "Art Basel" feel. The body paints I found in my research went from more character based body paints to just painting on a full coiled up snake. What I came up with was using the king snake’s pattern as a sash. On the lower half of the snake sash I would do the pink flower’s emerging from underneath. On the upper half I would give Josh the geometric style which prompted him to call me in the first place. I liked the idea of the top being very structured and the bottom being more organic.

Rough sketch of body paints

Upon entering 21c to start the body paints for the party I realized I had forgotten my air compressor for my airbrush. Fellow makeup artist and good friend Rebecca Rhodes was going to be my date for the party so I called her up right away. Rebecca was also my zombie for the above news spot. I asked her if she could be there a couple hours early and bring her compressor so that I could do the finishing touches with airbrush. I got to use 2 of my favorite models again for another doubles body paint. I had painted Karoline Hix and Mallory Mims as jockeys last year  for a different party in the same venue which you can see on my body paint page. With this year’s body paint I started on the pink flowers first. As I was getting the flowers worked out Josh excitedly came in and wanted me to come take a look at how the party was coming together. When I was done with the flowers I popped out to check the event space. The main bar was covered in the King Snake pattern and there was a huge King Snake,… well,... snaking down the railing of the stairs. The décor had a very leathery almost snakeskin kind of feel to it. Luckily I had not started painting the snakes on the models because they had replaced the cream colored stripe of the king snake with gold.

Photo by Morgan Worley

Photo by Morgan Worley

Having seen the event space changed my color scheme. I of course changed the cream in the snake pattern to gold. The geometric shapes were originally supposed to be pink, red, and black. I changed out the pink for gold which gave the paint a more dynamic look. There were more than a few things that didn’t go my way on this paint and I was running out of time. I am a bit of a control freak and I never like to ask for help. I knew I didn’t want to sacrifice quality for speed. I was coming down to the wire and I am just glad I had a makeup artist there I could trust. I gave Rebecca the color scheme and asked if she would be able to knock out a few beauty looks and she stepped up in a big way.

Mallory Mims and Karoline Hix, Photo by Morgan Worley

Me with Mallory and Karoline, Photo by Morgan Worley

Once the models walked into the party I got Rebecca and I some drinks. It’s always really cool to see people’s reactions to the body paints. They are always surprised that the models are only wearing a thong. That or they just don’t even realize they are nude and think it’s a skin suit. The geometric shapes I had painted revealed some bare skin which made it a little bit more apparent. The models and body paints seemed to be a hit at the party and Rebecca and I were able to relax and enjoy the festivities.

Photo of Rebecca Rhodes and I by Jose Aponte of the Voice Tribune

Everything had been months in the planning stages. That said the Monday before Derby I got a call from my friend Mike Brady from King Sixteen. I have worked with Mike and King Sixteen in the past and have always enjoyed it. They were doing a Derby party at Rabbit Hole Distillery. Mike has amazing ideas and always wants to have a wow factor. I am lucky enough that he calls on me to be a part of that.

Sponsored by Porche and Rabbit Hole

I had sent Mike an image of a woman in a bathing suit made of reflective material that looked a bit like a stylized golden shattered mirror. When Mike asked if I could do something similar with 4 days until the event I quickly went out to try and find the materials I needed to accomplish the look. I knew I couldn’t get it exact because not only had the image I sent been edited heavily but the model didn’t need to move around in the material. She just had to pose for a photo, and could be reset in between shots. Ideally some sort of plastic formed to their bodies would have been perfect. It wasn't really in the budget and we definitely didn't have time for that. I needed something really reflective that was light weight that would flex with the body and wouldn’t crease too badly. I think the material I found was pretty close. Oddly the models that were cast already were Karoline and Mallory who I had worked with the night before with the addition of male model named Darren. I also added a dark smoky eye to all 3 models with some silver accents just to add a bit of sexiness.

Photo of Darren, Karoline and Mallory by Danny Bloom

Hunter S. Thompson has been famously over quoted as saying that,  “The Kentucky Derby is Decadent and Depraved,” and he was not wrong. After all the Bourbon and late nights I was ready to give my body and liver a rest. That said, I am already looking forward to next year.

Photo of Darren, Karoline, Mallory and myself by Danny Bloom

Dark Heart Woods

While at Transworld (which you can read about in my previous blog) I was able to speak with the talented Alana Rose Schiro. She was on season 3 of Face Off among other things. Alana is also the creator of Rotten Roses. She was one of my favorites on Face Off and is such an amazing artist. It was so nice to be able to talk to an artist whose work you admire and actually be able to converse with them. I was with my friend and fellow artist Rebecca Rhodes who was also my demo model for EBA Performance makeup at the convention. Alana had seen Rebecca the day before in a possession type makeup I had done on her and didn’t recognize her out of makeup. Alana seemed to take a liking to Rebecca’s look and suggested her and I could tag team a makeup sometime and Rebecca could be our model. Of course when hearing this Rebecca and I both perked up.

I was ecstatic at the idea to work with someone so talented but there was no time to try and do so at the convention. With Alana living in Los Angeles and me in Louisville,Ky. I couldn’t see how it would be possible any time soon. We talked a bit about it and came up with the idea that we would each do a body paint based on the same inspiration image. One of my many flaws which can also be a blessing is once I get my mind set on something I don’t let up until it’s done. I was sending Alana possible inspiration images and probably driving her insane. Understandably Alana was extremely busy and said she would have to wait until things calmed down before she could really dive into this project.

I had looked up so many possible inspiration photos but one really caught my attention. The image was of a gloomy forest with a path running down the middle. From the path was a column of light with a lone figure standing in the clearing.  The image had a very isolated and lonely feeling to it. Not to sound like a dark cloud but I have felt very much like that lately. The image of the lone figure standing alone in the path of trees spoke to me. I knew I had to do a body paint inspired by this picture. I was already considering using Rebecca as my model because of Alana but beyond that it just fit. With her jet black hair and strong yet elegant features I knew she would be perfect. That said I also knew that Rebecca had never done body paint modeling before. Modeling for body paint is a lot to ask of someone. They have to stand there for hours in most cases nude. It can be very vulnerable but also equally empowering. We had talked about body paints before but when it actually came time to ask I didn’t know what she would say. Luckily she trusted me and my vision and agreed.

I asked Rebecca if she could give some insight into her experience as a body paint model. This is what she had to say, “I don’t really consider myself to be a model. I have stepped in front of the lens a couple times, but I consider myself to be an amateur. However, I hold the art of modeling in high esteem and respect, and the work that it takes. In the past I have done shoots almost entirely focused on my face and the makeup, but this time was extremely different. Matt asked me to be a part of the process and while I was nervous, I was so excited. Matt and I have a great working and personal relationship and I consider him to be one of my best friends as well as my mentor when it comes to my own personal growth as a makeup artist. So, when he asked me to be a part of this body paint, I was honored. Having never even done an implied nudity shoot to straight body paint was a big leap and it took a lot of mental determination to keep my own personal doubt from getting in the way of my work as the model. The night before the shoot I’d unfortunately been sexually harassed while out celebrating for my birthday, so I was feeling a little guarded. This being said, I knew I had to let the walls fall even though I’d be cold, exposed, standing for at least a couple hours, and I knew I was going to be antsy by the end of the process. However, Matt took care of me and made sure that I was in a comfortable environment and helped to put me at ease. When it came to the painting it took about 2 and a half hours and Matt did his best to work diligently, and doing the live stream on Facebook while being painted was also really fun and it kept things light and interesting. All in all, I am in LOVE with the paint and the way it turned out and I would definitely volunteer myself to be a body paint model again.”

I definitely wanted to alter the imagery of the inspiration a bit. Because of how it inspired me I wanted to twist the limbs of the trees into a heart with the light source emanating from the dark thicket. I also knew I wanted a lone figure in the heart so I chose a bat. I wanted to keep the bat small though because didn’t want it to really be a focal point. I wanted the forms to really fit Rebecca’s body so instead of using a generic body chart I asked if she would allow me to attempt to sketch it out on her body to see how the forms would flow. I am glad she did because the way I envisioned the heart in my head was not as long as it turned out being given the length of her torso. In the sketch I used different colors for the trees to denote background, midrange the foreground trees. With the sketch being as rough as it was I fully expected Rebecca to question my ability to pull it off. It looked like a huge mess but I could read the lines. I knew what it all meant and weather she did or not she trusted me.

With my inspiration and model ready to go I knew I wanted a good photographer to help document the work. Danny Bloom is new to the creativity community in Louisville and is a hell of a photographer. Lucky for me he was all over the idea when I asked if he would be interested. I also knew I wanted a head piece or crown to pull it all together. I contacted my friend at Velvet Rose Vintage and asked how I would go about building such a thing. She listened to what I wanted and looked at my inspiration and sketch and said that she would just go ahead and build it herself. When I saw the Head Dress it was perfect for the look and feel I was going for. Danny brought some great ideas to the shoot as well. With it being dark and gloomy feeling body paint my first instinct was of course to have a dark back drop. Danny made the right choice in going with white which made the body paint and amazing head dress from Velvet Rose Vintage really shine.

When doing body paints I don’t usually like to use pasties. Women’s bodies are over sexualized in media. You can see a billboard of a shirtless man but for whatever reason we deem the same type image of a woman as dirty. Aside from body paint being an art it’s also a celebration of the human body. That being said I just feel like it sends the wrong message that there is something about the female form that should be shameful and covered. However we had decided to do this body paint on Facebook live as Rebecca mentioned above. I knew we would unfortunately have to cover her nipples.  We used what are called Monster Pasties and they are seamless. Most pasties take paint terribly but makeup and body paint is what Monster Pasties are designed for. Once you get paint on them they disappear. I used two different types of paint on this as well. I used all EBA Endura alcohol based makeup in my airbrush. They make the best airbrush make up and it is all I will use. For some of the blending and Speckling I used Mehron water activated Paradise paints.

I am so excited with how the body paint turned out. I appreciate everyone who helped this vision come together. I still plan and hope to do a body paint challenge in the near future with Alana. It will be very interesting to see how we interpret as single image differently.  That said I would like to do more of this type thing with other artists who I respect. It is always good to challenge and push yourself.

https://www.velvetrosevintage.com/

@dannybloom

Transworld 2018

Transworld is very much in a way like Christmas to haunters. I look forward to it every year and get very excited about it. Then in a weekend It’s over and similar to Christmas you're left kind of dulled by all of the excitement. For those that don’t know, Transworld Halloween and Attraction Show is the biggest haunted house convention in America. Given how Americans celebrate Halloween probably the biggest in the world. This year I had two out of three artists from my makeup team “Team Demon Fabulous” which is the makeup team for the Devil’s Attic haunted attraction in Louisville, Kentucky Mary Proctor and Rebecca Rhodes (www.thedevilsattic.com) going with me. Seeing as how I was the only makeup artist from our haunt that went last year having almost my full team with me was exciting. Hopefully next year Phoebe Conrad will join us and we'll have the whole team.

This year I was set to do a makeup demo for my favorite makeup brand European Body Art: Performance Makeup. They are such a cool company and everyone that works with them are awesome. I was originally  slated to do my demo sometime on Saturday. When I confirmed my demo time on Thursday the day before I would be leaving I found out I was instead doing my demo on Friday morning at 11am. This wouldn’t be an issue if I were riding alone but I was riding with three other people. We generally leave Louisville Kentucky around 9-10am which would be too late to get to Saint Louis in time. Luckily everyone was able to leave with me earlier. That said I didn’t anticipate how long it would take to get registered once we got there.

My artsists and friends Mary and Rebecca  (who was also my model for the demo) could see how frustrated I was and kept me calm. Once I got in and set up I was a few minutes late. I hate being late for anything so to say I was flustered would have been an understatement. From the demo stage I asked Rebecca to grab my airbrushes out of my bag.  When she couldn’t find them I realized in all of the rush I had left them in the car. Not only was I late, I was unprepared. Luckily Alden Silvestre with European Body Art (EBA) had a spare which saved me the 20 minutes of running back to my car.

After looking like a slacker who showed up a few minutes late without his most important tool I was able to get started. We have a Reagan character from the Exorcist at our haunt. One night after doing her makeup the actress put on a bubblegum pink care bear pajama union suit to stay warm before we opened for business and she would be in a night gown the rest of the night. I loved the contrast of the pink against the greens, browns, and deeps reds of the makeup. I also loved the juxtaposition of the creepy makeup and the cute pink pajamas so that is the look I wanted to recreate on Rebecca. At the haunt we can’t afford to use prosthetics every night. What we do is build everything on the actors face in cotton and latex. While the latex is drying we work on other makeups. I knew I wouldn’t have time for latex to fully dry in that time frame so I used molding wax for the scars. While it is faster and looks better wax would not hold up to the abuse of an actor in a haunt. In a convention setting it would work perfectly though. Not as perfect as prosthetics but I had expected to be able to walk the floor before my demo and pick some up. All in all I was very happy with the way it turned out and being the actress she is Rebecca really sold the look with her go to line being "Have you seen mommy?" With all of the pictures people wanted with her I am sure her and the makeup are all over the internet.

Nix Herrera and Myself

The next day Mary was asked to act for Heather Henry’s company High Noon FX. She would be popping out of a very realistic silicone body all day in full body paint. I will post a video of her performance at the bottom of the blog. That left Rebecca and I to wander the convention  floor. We saw all kinds of cool and inspiring things. The best for me though was talking with people I have met in years past who’s work I respect and are just good people like Jessica Mellow, Stephanie Masco and Alana Rose Schiro to name a few. The more I walked around the more I wanted to do another demo. When we stopped by the EBA booth to pick up some makeup I mentioned to Alden I wanted to do another makeup if there was time. Come to find out Nix Herrera who I look up to was going to be doing makeup for them all day the next day. I couldn’t be upset, I got to do my one and I was happy for that opportunity. After we walked around a bit more we stopped back by because Rebecca “needed” to buy more makeup. Nix came up to me and said he had heard I wanted to do another makeup on Sunday and that he would split the stage with me and we could do demos at the same time. So not only would I get to do another makeup but I would be doing it with someone I look up to.

Mary Proctor in makeup by Heather Henry of High Noon FX

Myself and Nix Herrera sharing the EBA demo stage.

Rebecca Had brought this dress made by a company called Western Evil. It was a white collared black Wednesday Addams style dress. On the front of the dress is what at first glance looks like Disney’s Magic Kingdom logo, only it’s not. The spires are crosses on fire and where it would say “Magic Kingdom” it says “Tragic Kingdom”. I let this be my inspiration for my Sunday demo. I love adding social commentary into my makeups and the first thing that came to mind was Banksy’s Dismal Land. I framed Rebecca’s face in black and brought the forehead down into a peak like Mickey Mouse. I had Rebecca do her black hair up in space buns to resemble mouse ears. I gave her face a very dead and sickly look using washes of white, with fluorescent pink, deep reds and deep purples. I then dripped the black down her neck to bring in a street art feel. I topped it off with a crudely drawn dollar sign on her forehead and bruises on her knees. I won’t explain the piece totally so you can draw your own conclusions but I will say it was about big business and corporate greed. Over all I was very excited with the way the makeup turned out. It’s probably one of my favorite horror style makeups I’ve ever done and I am so thankful to Nix for letting me share his stage.

All in all this was another amazing Transworld. It always energizes me for the haunt season among other things. Whether you are an actor, a makeup artist, a scene/prop builder, costumer whatever you will be inspired. If you can leave this convention and not be inspired you might be in the wrong industry. Now I am looking forward to haunt season and I am ready to dive in. Then on November 1st I will be looking forward to Transworld.

Building the Look

I wanted to talk a bit about building a look. To me it reminds me a bit of the phrase “cleaning top to bottom”. The reason you clean top to bottom is so when you clean things higher up it knocks the dirt down to the floor. If you swept first and then dusted and or wiped down your counter more times than not you will end up having to sweep again. I know it’s a strange way to think about building a makeup look but in my head I guess it kind of works. When building you generally work your way up from clean and simple and ending on a more dramatic look. This way you don’t have to strip off a makeup to build another, pretty simple right? I guess I look at the complete reapplication of the makeup like going back and sweeping the floor a second time.

Photographer Ahmad Merhi just moved to Louisville Kentucky from Massachusetts. We talked a bit about working together and started brain storming ideas. One of the ideas Ahmad mentioned was a drippy foundation makeup. I have seen a ton of them being done on Instagram so I knew I wanted to go in a different direction. Not only that but I kind of already did one a couple years back with dripping the foundation color down a throat tattoo giving the illusion of her face melting. We talked about it a bit and I started getting the idea that he wasn’t hung up on dripping foundation but just dripping. Once that was settled I asked him if he had a model in mind.

Model Abbie Purdie and I had been doing a lot of shoots together and we work really well with each other. Ahmad had seen our work and when he met me the first time he also met Abbie. Ahmad asked me if I could get Abbie to be our model and without much hesitation she agreed. He and I had already talked a bit about a dramatic drippy makeup concept but Abbie wanted to know if we could do some more fashion type shots before we went crazy with the makeup. I was totally into it because I knew I could build the makeup and give use more bang for our buck.

Looking at the inspiration that Abbie provided I knew a dramatic smoky eye and simple lip would be the way to go. Abbie has beautiful piercing blue eyes so I knew using gold for the drippy portion of the makeup would be perfect to make her eyes pop even more. I could then extend the black from her smoky eye using the same eye shadow. I wanted to give the gold something to stand out against so I used the same black eye shadow on other areas of her face as well as her neck and coloar bone. Then before I started applying the gold I added a bit of glitter on the black areas to give it a little extra pop. The Glitter had a bit of blue fleck in it to bring in the color of Abbie's eyes a little bit more.

Ahmad changed up the background and the lighting to give it a darker and more dramatic feel. With the makeup built upon and the back drop and lighting changed it looked lik two completely different photo shoots. Ahmad did a killer job handling both concepts in such a short amount of time. I am so glad Abbie suggested to do the other look and that Ahmad was totallu game for it. The change over took no time at all and the results were vast. Building a look can also be something as simple as going from day to night makeup by just adding a little more drama to the eyes and a bolder lip.

Ahmad, Abbie and myself

Frost

I feel like one of my jobs as the makeup manager for Team Demon Fabulous which is the makeup crew for The Devil’s Attic haunted house is to keep brushes in the artist’s hands in the off season. A couple weeks ago Rebecca Rhodes messaged me and told me she was going to play in her makeup. I liked the idea of playing in makeup just to see what happens so I asked her to send me images when she was done. What she sent me inspired our first of hopefully many challenges. Rebecca’s was a beautiful cool toned makeup with a snowflake of her cheek she called “Jill Frost”. This would turn out to be her test makeup for the challenge.

Rebecca Rhodes in her test makeup

The challenge I came up with was Wintery seasonal makeups. Since we are all versed in different kinds of makeup I opened it up a bit. We normally do special effects makeup as a team but I wanted them to be able to show what they could do with any style they wanted. I decided I wanted to do a frostbite look. I started research and looked at photos of actual frostbite. After looking at a lot of reference I was a bit discouraged. All of the images looked red and irritated. They almost looked more like charred flesh than anything. I wanted my makeup to have cool tones so I knew I was going to have to take some artistic liberties with the coloring.

I did a test makeup to see if I could make it work. I used wax to give the bursting skin look to reveal the blackened flesh below. Then I used a lot of pale coloring. I did some speckling with a chip brush and molded on some darker colors to denote skin rot. I wanted to use all brush work to give it a very organic look. This is why tests are important though. After looking at the photos of my test I realized it looked more white than I wanted. That’s when the bulb in my head clicked to make it more of a character look and not so much a straight up frostbite makeup. I would add more blues and some cool toned high lights and even a bit of glitter in my eyebrows and facial hair. I wanted it to be a more tragic brooding portrayal of Jack Frost.

My test Makeup

The amazing Danny Alexander as always helped us out with the photos. Not only that but he opened up his home studio to us. We usually shoot photos in the makeup room at the Devil’s Attic. With it being a winter themed shoot also being shot in the winter the haunt was too cold to work in. This also meant we had to show up in makeup. Usually we are all together when we do makeup and can feed off each other’s energies and sometimes get inspired. It was interesting to show up in makeup not knowing what everyone else had done. It also made for an interesting drive.

Phoebe in her makeup

Photo by Danny Alexander

Phoebe Conrad showed up in a Jack Skellington style makeup. "I chose to do a Jack Skellington makeup because I’m not in to this whole Christmas thing and if you asked me to pick my favorite Christmas movie, I’d of course pick the one that’s also a Halloween movie." said Phoebe. 

I would venture to guess that Nightmare Before Christmas is a lot of haunters favorite Christmas movie so It made sense. She was able to pull off a near porcelain finish. It looked as good in person as it does in the photograph. It was very controlled and restrained. I really liked the beauty route she took with it. She could have gone way overboard with it but what she did hit just the right tone.

Rebecca Rhodes in her makeup

Photo by Danny Alexander

Having seen Rebecca’s test I thought I knew what to expect but I was wrong. She used airbrush to create this awesome color-blend on her chest and carried it up to her face. For having never done a color-blend with airbrush before I was very impressed. The highlights she added just made all of the cool tones pop. She changed the color of her lips and snowflake from her test which I though was a good choice as to not match too much with her chest and give depth. The final look was extremely clean and elegant.

Myself in my makeup

Photo by Danny Alexander

I pretty much did the same thing I did in my test makeup. I added some more blue and more speckling. I used more purple around the perimeter of my face and hairline too to give more depth and contrast. I made the skin in the nose opening smaller so It wasn’t as over powering. The final touch was adding iridescent highlighter. I am very happy with the way it turned out.

Jack and Jill Frost

Photo by Danny Alexander

After looking at the coloring of Rebecca’s makeup next to mine and them being based on Jack and Jill frost it only made sense to get a photo together. Three photos in and we nailed it. Danny did such a good job it looked like a promo for a movie or TV show on the CW we joked. It turned out to be my favorite photo of the shoot. I always want to be inspiring my artists and pushing them forward. As it turns out this time one of my artists inspired me. It just goes to show that we are all on the same playing field and you should never discount inspiration from anywhere.

Days of the Dead SFX Makeup Challenge

I like doing things that challenge me as an artist. I feel like every challenge is a lesson. Win or lose you should learn something. I cannot remember how I came across it but I saw Days of the Dead was doing a Special Effects makeup challenge. Days of the Dead (DOTD) is a horror convention. I had never been before but I was extremely interested. I contacted the promoter Chris Blair, of the SFX Makeup Challenge and it turned out there was no entry fee. With that said you had to submit a portfolio and they would pick the best four artists to compete. I submitted my portfolio and hoped for the best.

Photo By Jeri Mize

Weeks later Chris Blair contacted me and let me know I was one of the four artists that made the cut. That’s when the anxiety kicked in. There is a good and bad thing about this competition and they are both the same thing. No matter how much money and equipment you have or don’t have doesn’t matter. The playing field is evened with one box. Every artist gets one box full of odds and ends you could find around your house and that’s it. The kicker is you have no idea what you have until you are on stage and the hour timer starts. Only then can you open your box which is the bad thing. Well not bad I guess, Just extremely challenging. I liked to go into a competition having a plan. Everyone gets the same items in their box that Chris lovingly calls his box of fuckery. The competition is described as Face Off meets the cooking show Chopped.

Photo by Jeri Mize

Chris later told us we could bring one item, but just one. Airbrush was a no go because it’s technically three things; the airbrush, the hose and the compressor. With that said even if I could have brought it there would have been no makeup in the box to use with it more than likely. I also had thought of a Ben Nye color wheel but later found out that multiple colors weren’t allowed. Coming from doing beauty makeup and knowing I was going to bring model and fellow makeup artist Rebecca Rhodes as my subject I would be able to make an attractive monster. I decided to go with my dual sided domed foundation brush from Crown. I didn’t know if there would be any color makeup or anything in the box but if there was this tool would be invaluable. Fast forward through the weeks of trying to plan for something you can’t plan for and second guessing myself. I went back and forth on my one item. I thought of everything from skin adhesives, gel blood, or even just a black Mehron Paradise paint. I always went back to my first instinct with the dual sided brush.

Photo By Jeri Mize

The morning of the competition came and my friend and fellow artist Kelsey and I grabbed some breakfast before we hit the convention. Since the competition wasn’t until 6pm we had plenty of time to look around. There were a ton of awesome vendors and some really cool celebrities ranging from Gary Busey, Bill Mosely, Lisa Marie, Eddie Hudson etc. There was one celebrity that really surprised me. As I was walking around I looked up and there was David Naughton from American Werewolf in London. I was taken aback a bit because before Kelsey and I met up I had watched American Werewolf in London that morning to get me in the mood for the challenge. It has a lot of really cool makeups and the best werewolf transformation scene ever. We talked with him a bit and I told him how I had just watched his movie and that him being here had to be a good sign.

Photo By Jeri Mize

Just before the competition Mr. Blair in his storm trooper suit briefed us a bit. When I say storm trooper suit, I mean a suit with a with a storm trooper pattern not the armor. As he announced the artists they walked out on stage and the anticipation built. I was the last artist called to the stage and saw the box just sitting there on the table mocking me. As the timer started we all tore into our boxes. It was about 90% miscellaneous stuff and 10% makeup. There was everything from Vaseline, school glue, fake fur, glitter glue, tampons, latex, a cheap makeup kit you’d find in the Halloween section at your local grocery store, cherry jello, a prosthetic face, etc. I unpacked my box and it looked like a junk drawer had exploded.

Photo By Jeri Mize

Looking at the given materials I had to make a decision fast. There were a few things that stuck out to me; The prosthetic face, the cheap makeup, the tampons and a few other odds and ends. I quickly decided I would do a Lost Boys and the Craft crossover.  I ripped off the top part of the prosthetic face to give her a furrowed brow. This was before I realized there was a pair of school scissors in the box. Not that I could have made the edge much cleaner had I cut it. I then shredded one of the tampons to use with the latex to blend the edges as best I could. Once that was on it was on to painting which is where my one tool came in handy. The makeup given was terrible but I was able to make it work basing her out in white and then contouring with reds, purples and black. I made sure to move from light to dark since the only way I had of cleaning color out of my brush was a dry paper towel. I also used a strange glitter gel that was in a ketchup type packet as highlighter.  Once makeup was where I wanted it I mixed some water with the cherry jello and dipped the remaining tampon in to make a kind of tampon lollipop. Since I had no fangs to use the idea was that she got sustenance from bloody tampons. I know it’s gross but it’s a horror convention after all. I stepped back and knew if I kept working on it I would just mess it up so I finished 5-10 minutes early.

Photo By Jeri Mize

I came in second place behind SFX Artist Scott Thieman whose “V” inspired makeup took first place.  Kelsey Eisenhut and Tiffany Age also did impressive makeups given the time and materials. I am very happy with the makeup I did given what I had and I wouldn’t change it. If I am being honest I was upset that I didn’t take first place. That is not to say that Scott didn’t deserve first place because he did. I wasn’t really concerned with the prizes I just wanted to win. Looking back I had a great day at the convention and got to hang out and compete with one of my best friends. The lesson I learned was being happy with what I had done and just trying harder next time. All said and done seeing as how you had to be chosen to be a part of the competition in the first place we were all winners.

Photo By Jeri Mize

Twin Cheeks

A handful of makeup artists and me do these makeup challenges. There are no winners and no losers just creativity and art. We get an inspiration image and then we have just under a week to produce something cool inspired by it. We haven’t done a makeup challenge in a while so when I was told we were going to do a new one I was torn because I never back down from a challenge. With that said I was so busy this time around that I didn’t think I would have time. It has happened before where I said I was too busy but the inspiration image was just too cool I did it anyhow. I had no intentions in participating regardless of how cool I thought the inspiration image was.

 Last November I did makeup for a fashion show and two of the models walking were twins. I didn’t get a chance to talk to them at the time and couldn’t find them on social media so I kind of gave up. The same day I found out we were doing another challenge I just happened across one of the twins and was quickly able to find the other. Their names are Avery and Mallory Grant and they have such a strong look even as single standalone models. The fact there are two of them is just a bonus. As I was talking to the Grant twins the makeup challenge inspiration image was posted. This time around it was actually a picture of a face in abstract makeup. Usually the image isn’t even of a face, let alone distinct makeup. It struck me it would be really cool to do a similar look spanning two identical faces.

Inspiration Image: Artist Unknown

With an idea in my head I asked the Grants if they would be interested. Using twins was the only way I was going to do it so if they declined I wasn’t going to participate. As I say that but I probably still would have. It wouldn’t be a makeup challenge without my good buddy Danny Alexander shooting it so I asked if would. Lucky for me he said yes and with that I had a great team of people and it was a go.

I did a pretty basic beauty makeup on Avery and Mallory. It was interesting to do the makeup and then turning around and doing the same makeup on the same contours and everything. My plan for a pose was them standing hip to hip with their faces looking somewhat towards each other at a 45 degree angle to get a three quarter look at opposing sides of their faces. I had them stand together so I could get the composition of the abstract portion to plow from one face to another.

Mallory and Avery Grant. Photo By Danny Alexander

Getting them in front of the camera in the pose was a different story. In that pose there was just too much space between the faces. We had the sisters get uncomfortably close but the gap still took you out of it. To Danny’s credit he suggested a pose where Mallory would be in profile and Avery would be behind her looking straight on as her sister’s face intersected her. I had the models stand in position and tweaked the abstract portion a bit to maintain the flow. Then when they got in front of the camera it just clicked, pardon the pun.

I love all of the makeup challenged we have done together but this may be my favorite. I almost counted myself out of this one and I am so glad I didn’t. Just because you are busy doesn’t mean you can’t carve out time for the things you love.

Me with Mallory and Avery Grant. Photo By Danny Alexander

Danny Alexander: http://www.dannypa.com/

https://www.crownbrush.com/

https://www.wonderbandsystems.com/

Coming Clean

This is the third of the makeup challenges that Bethany Hood has given her fellow makeup artist friends. The image this time was picked by designer Gunnar Detherage. Knowing what I know of his style I didn’t expect so many bright, almost neon colors. I have enjoyed these challenges so far so I thought I would give this one a shot. I contacted a model for the shoot and my good friend and photographer Danny Alexander and wheels were set in motion. Now I just needed to settle on an idea. With all of the colors and textures I had a few concepts rolling around in my head.

An hour or so before the makeup application and shoot the model messaged me and after some texts back and forth we determined that she would not be able to make the shoot. The image had to be done by the next day so there was no time to reschedule. There was also no time to find a replacement model. I was scrambling trying to think of what to do. Instead of canceling and I decided to shave my face and chest and do the makeup on myself. I’m no model but that's why it's called a challenge.

I know it is strange for a makeup artist but not only do I not wear makeup but I hate wearing it. I think it goes back to when I was a kid. I had really bad acne and was embarrassed by it. One day I decided to hide it and use some of my mom’s makeup. I covered up all the redness with some of her Covergirl concealer and a powder compact. I didn’t like the way it felt on my skin but I thought it looked better than all of my blemishes. It was like I had discovered a magic trick. This went on for several weeks at least if not much longer. It was over the summer when I started so I didn’t have to worry about the other kids at school.  I thought it was working and no one was noticing.

 I don’t know why I didn’t think the other kids wouldn’t notice when school started because they most definitely did. I denied it until I was blue in the face but after another kid snatched off my baseball hat the makeup ring in the inner band was a dead giveaway. I never fessed up and they knew I was lying. I knew they knew I was lying but I couldn’t come clean. I gradually stepped it down because I didn’t want to be obvious. Eventually I stopped wearing it and soon the kids moved on to something else. I should have come clean and owned it. With that said, kids that age will make up reasons to pick on each other and I didn’t want to give them any more ammunition. I walked on eggshells and probably joined in on picking on others to deflect attention from myself which just made me feel worse.

Three schools, two states and several years later doing a play in high school we had to wear makeup. I was the only guy in the production that had any knowledge of how to apply foundation. I ended up helping all of the other guys in the play and was appreciated for it. When asked how I kind of knew what I was doing I chalked it up to the fact that I took art and painted as well. Part of me knew it was because I wore my mom’s makeup when I was 11 or 12. To a bunch of drama kids me wearing makeup when I was in middle school would have just been another story about how we were all “outsiders” and it would have been expected and embraced. It would have been the perfect opportunity to come clean and bond with my fellow actors but I didn’t. Even as an adult doing makeup I’ve still never shared this story with anyone. This is the first time I have really come clean about it so if you are reading this blog, now you know.

Back to the subject at hand; I explained to Danny how we no longer had a model and I would be doing my own makeup. Danny wasn't phased by the change and didn’t miss a beat. I changed a few things to make it fit my face a bit better. I decided to throw in some contacts and the makeup went from pretty to creepy really quick. I still don’t like wearing makeup but I am happy with the way this one worked out. The most important thing I hope you take away from reading this is just be you. Don’t care what others think and own who you are. Chances are someone is going through something similar and can relate. I know that’s easy for me to say now but had I listened to this advice as a kid maybe I would be a lot further along than I am in a career in makeup. Support your passions and surround yourself with others that support them as well.

Danny Alexander: http://www.dannypa.com/

https://www.crownbrush.com/

https://www.wonderbandsystems.com/

Mandarin Duck Challenge

As a way to help bring our artistic community together fellow makeup artist Bethany Hood decided to have a challenge. There were no winners and no losers.  This was just be a great way for people to show off their talent and creativity.  Bethany had an outside source pick an image that we would all have to use as inspiration and design our looks around.

The image that was picked was of a Mandarin Duck. They look like you gave a coloring book of ducks and a 64 color box of crayons to a kid and said go to town. The colors are so vivid and beautiful and blocked off. I had no idea what I was going to do. All I could see was the duck. I didn’t want to do feathers or anything birdlike, that much I knew. I struggled with it for a few days. I went back to look at the image of the duck and squinted my eyes really hard to try and take the bird out of the equation.

That seemed to do the trick. I decided to do a very abstract piece using as many different brush strokes and colors as were on the duck. Since I have never liked makeup on myself and the only camera I own is my phone I enlisted the help of some friends. I messaged my friend and great photographer Danny Alexander who I knew would capture the makeup the way I wanted. I then messaged my friend and Model Kaylynn Nyree. I felt her face would be beautiful for this look. While doing the makeup I would step back from time to time to make sure the color balance was right. The main thing I took from the duck was the white around the eyes. I thought that would make for a cool aesthetic. Since it was a makeup challenge the only editing I wanted Danny to do was making the sclera of her eyes black.  I was incredibly happy with how it came out.

Seeing all the makeups from all of the other artists was so cool. Everyone did such an amazing job. It was very interesting to see everyone’s interpretation of the same image. I cannot thank Bethany enough for doing something like this. It was such a cool way to bring a community together while fostering creativity.

Uploaded by Matt Goodlett on 2017-06-16.

Danny Alexander: http://www.dannypa.com/

https://www.crownbrush.com/

https://www.wonderbandsystems.com/

Transworld HAAS 2017

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 Herrera and I

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. 

Me working on Lucas. Photo by Justin Sinkler.

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/

Lenore

Photographer and documentarian Kory Easterman asked me a while ago if I would be a part of his body paint documentary. He is making the documentary to showcase talent in our region (Kentucky/Indiana/Ohio). Most of the body painting I have done outside of competition has been more of the abstract avant-garde type. Being part of a body paint documentary I knew that style wouldn't fly.  While I like how beautiful it can be in it's simplicity, more is usually expected of body painters.

I never declined but only having done more traditional body paints in competition with guidelines I had no idea what to do given free reign. I was scrolling through Instagram and came across a body paint of a skeleton in a tuxedo dancing with a beautiful woman by an artist named Georgina Ryland (@gearginaryland). It was so dark, beautiful and haunting. The way it was painted made me think of Edgar Allan Poe and my love of Ravens.

With that my mind was racing. I started sketching a few ideas. The first of which had the arms covered in pages from a book and the whole abdomen was a gradient graveyard. I sat on that for a while and began chatting with my friend Amanda Danielson with Velvet Rose Vintage who was going to make the head piece. She smartly suggested feathers on the abdomen. To me that was perfect. It was like the wings of the raven which represents death, embracing the grave of Lenore. The weakest point to me though was the arms. 

With the wings of the Raven/Death engulfing Lenore I found it fitting that the Model's arms represent a graveyard. After I got it all sketched out I was becoming more and more excited. I had found the perfect model to be my Lenore. Only problem was where to do it. I knew my studio at the Devil's Attic (www.thedevilsattic.com) would be a nice setup and fitting for the macabre. Plus, it just feels like home for me but it has no heater. In early march the weather was a nice and crisp but the basement of a haunted house retained the cold. 

I placed space heaters everywhere around my model (one can be seen in the above photo). Our haunt owner Jason, bundled up in his winter coat and knit cap who was there working on a new room even brought us down a propane heater. It looked like a jet engine blowing a blue flame. I had a little glass container of water placed of top of a space heater to use in activating my water activated cake makeups. It was so cold that steam would come off of my brush after dipping it in the hot water. I gotta say, our model was quite the trooper all through out.

I knew if I was going to put this much time, effort and love into something as well as our model's time an Amanda's amazing head piece I wanted and equally awesome picture. Kory would be getting some great footage for his documentary but I wanted a photo. I asked my good friend and amazing photographer Danny Alexander to come photographer it for me. 

Lucky for me he said yes and we have this amazing image above to show for it. My girlfriend Tia came along to hang out and watch. As it turned out she was needed. Tia stood in for lighting while I was painting and did a ton of other stuff to help out. I can look at this piece and see areas for improvement on my part. With that said I am very happy with what we were able to pull off. After doing this I actually want to do more body paints and not just for competition sake.

Photographer: Danny Alexander http://www.dannypa.com/

Model: RB

Head Piece: Amanda Danielson https://www.facebook.com/Velvet-Rose-Vintage-281424868648765/

Assistant and BTS: Shatia Rogers

I would also like to thank my sponsors at Crown Brush www.crownbrush.com and Wonderband Systems www.wonderbandsystems.com

Marionette

Sometimes the masks we wear aren't to hide who we are but to express our true nature.

When Hunter came to me with this marionette concept I instantly thought of David Bowie. The makeup was inspired heavily by his "Pinups" album cover featuring Twiggy and his "Pierrot" clown makeup look. I love how this all came together.

I think we can all agree that 2016 was a rough one but let's not dwell on it. Going into 2017 let's focus on making the world a more beautiful place. Focus on what you have passion for and help and support others to do the same. We are all on this spaceship we call Earth.

I am going to do my best to inspire other artists and in doing so get inspired by them. That's what this is all about. Inspiration upon inspiration will only foster growth for us all.

Photo: Hunter Zieske
Model: Jacey Calloway
Makeup: Matt Goodlett, Matt Goodlett, MUA
Hair: Rian Miller
Photo Assistant: Louis Tinsley 

Awakening

This is by far the most important project I have ever worked on. Our model not only represents our native people that we have taken advantage of. She also represents us as a whole, not to mention our planet. We have an extreme addiction to fossil fuels that has to stop and we have the power to start changing that.

The black latex represents oil and how it is a pollutant. It clings to her body and is uncomfortable to pull from her skin. With that said it had to go. it took some work but we got it all off and got her clean. The metaphor isn't only in the photo but in the actuality of the clean up. Freeing ourselves of fossil fuel dependency will be hard but the sooner we start the better.

We are building long lasting infrastructure for a fuel source we need to start phasing out. We should be focused on improving other sources. The technology to be less oil dependent is there and it will get better. Our Native American's joining together at Standing Rock to stop the Dakota Access Pipeline I hope was a wake up call for all of is. The fire has been set, It's up to us here and now.

For 500 years my people have been suffering. Everything was taken from us to build this country, our ancestors lives, our languages, our dignity and our traditions. Our tribes were torn apart and everything we loved was ripped from our arms. For the past 500 years we have been rebuilding, re learning our languages, bringing back our traditions, and ridding our lives of the european influence of drugs, alcohol and segregation constantly hindering our people. And finally, in 2016 we are together again, thousands of indiginious people from tribes all over the United States are coming to the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation, in North Dakota, to fight a pipeline that is threatening the lives of our grandchildren and destroying our mothers natural recourses. For the first time in 500 years we are back together again, we are building teepees together, singing traditional songs together, praying together and taking back the sacred that was stolen from us so long ago. After this war is over we will forever be changed, we will be stronger than we have ever been, we will be together forever. -Gabrielle Colton Photographer | Gabrielle Colton Makeup | Matt Goodlett Hair | Matthew Tyldesley Model | Stephanie Johnson Music: Forever You Said by Peter Gundry

"Hold on to what you must do, even if it is a long way from here.
Hold on to my land even if I've gone away from you.

Not only was this photo shoot long, exhausting and emotionally painful for me, it was also physically painful for Stephanie (our model).

I took this photo at the very end of the shoot as she was pulling the black latex, representing the oil that is killing us, from her body.

Going into this shoot, I did not know the latex would hurt her as we took it off, this pain brought the perfect photos to my lens. Stephanie's strength to continue modeling as she tore the latex from her skin led to us being able show the pain of Native people perfectly.

Thank you all for passing your strength to me, to the water protectors and to all people. May we rise in strength through this war, in our old ways, protecting our mother forever." -Gabrielle Colton

Prints available at: https://www.gabriellecolton.com/nodapl/

Proceeds will go to Red Road Awareness in support of the Dakota Access Pipeline Resistance

Photo: Gabrielle Colton
Model: Stephanie Lynn Johnson
Makeup: Matt Goodlett, Matt Goodlett, MUA
Hair: Matthew Tyldesley
BTS: Blake McGrew, Dark Heart Creative
Makeup Assistant: Portia Greene

Antonio Pantoja's Photography Worksop

Ever since I started doing makeup for photo shoots Antonio Pantoja was someone I strived to work with. He is seriously one of the nicest and hard working photographers in the industry. I have worked with him several times over the past year and am proud to have some of our works together as part of my portfolio. 

On November 21st 2016 being the giving person he is, Antonio decided to do a free photography workshop showing his entire process from makeup to editing and everything in between. I was honored when he asked me to be the makeup artist for the class. I will say, doing makeup in front of a class of over 150 people and having your working blown up on 4 screens around the Kentucky Derby Museum at about 30 feet by 15 feet a pop to be edited for the class was very intimidating.

Being a part of this amazing team was extremely humbling. I have a lot of respect for all of them and am thankful I could share this platform with them. It was very inspirational to be a part of a team that was coming together to teach others. Art shouldn't be about keeping your process secret. Share your knowledge and maybe the people you help can help you someday. We should all be here to grow.

I was lucky enough to have Dillard's at Green Tree Mall in Clarksville IN. sponsor me. They provided me with all Smashbox Cosmetics which performed amazingly. Huge thanks to the team and all of our sponsors listed below:

Photography and headpiece: Antonio Pantoja
Model: Katya Estes
Makeup: Matt Goodlett
Makeup products courtesy of Dillard's: Smashbox Cosmetics
Location: Kentucky Derby Museum 
Hosted by: Misha Squeweebop-Kidwell
Lighting and assistance: Joey Goldsmith
Wardrobe: Frances Lewis
Behind the scenes: Gary Barragan
Backdrop: Savage Universal
Lighting: Paul C. Buff, Inc.
Sponsored by 3 Legged Thing

Katya and I discussing her wig while Antonio is teaching behind me.

Antonio shooting Katya live for the class.

Talking to the workshop about my role with Antonio and other photographers on how sometimes you are given free reign to create. Other times you are given guidelines or even told exactly what to do. collaboration and listening is key.

It was a pleasure sharing the stage with such amazing and talented people.

This image was shot and edited live for the class by Antonio Pantoja

Edited by joey Goldsmith