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.

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.

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/

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/

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 

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