Samhain Jane

I find inspiration everywhere. Usually I get ideas from music which leaves things wide open for me when it comes to creating a makeup. Sometimes I am inspired by the artwork of others though which can be fun when paying homage without out recreating it exactly. I can’t remember who posted it on Instagram but it was a cool line drawing on a pretty but creepy girl. The color pallet was limited and it looked like maybe they used water colors and the for the lines ink. I am a fan of creepy girls and limited pallets so I had to check out more of this artists work. Believe it or not but for a long time I fought against embracing the spookier side of beauty make for fear it would alienate. That said I have recently felt I have been watering my work down to be more palatable, and didn’t realize in doing so I may have been watering myself down.

Some of Justin O’Neal’s Art

The artist that caught my eye is Justin O’Neal (http://justinonealart.com/ - @justinonealart ) and before I knew it I had scrolled through all of his work. His art is amazing, macabre, simple and has an eerie beauty. They scream Halloween and horror but in an almost story book way. I came across two of his pieces that stood out to me because they were a different color pallet than the rest. Like me, I see O’Neal use a lot of black and red but in these two pieces he used Black and Orange. When I saw them I knew I wanted to translate them somehow into makeups.

Inspiration art by Justin O’Neal

The first photographer I thought of was Tate Chmielewski. Tate is a great photographer and like me has a love for all things creepy so I knew he would be the guy. In both drawings the subjects appear to be brunette to black hair. I didn’t want to copy the artwork exactly and I wanted to bring in more of that orange feel. Ali Garey is a model I have wanted to work with for a while. She has such a unique face and jawline. With her fiery red hair I knew she’d be perfect. I hadn’t seen her ever do anything spooky in her portfolio so I thought for sure she would turn this project down. I thought I would go ahead and ask and at least give her the opportunity to say “no”. I guess it was more a case that she had never been asked to do anything ghoulish before because she agreed without hesitation.

For the second model I wanted to stick closer to the art and have a dark haired model. With her strong features I knew Blessing Selby would be great. I have worked with Blessing before and knew she’d be game for weird stuff and her facial features were perfect. Blessing is also just awesome to work with and have in studio.

 I do a lot of makeup shoots where we are only shooting head and bare shoulders. After casting the models and thinking I had everything in place I was working on another photo shoot with photographer Steve Squall and the amazing model Lauren Hughes. We were also working with stylist, Tia Kinser and the idea struck me. Tia and I get along well and have a lot of the same taste. It struck me that it may be good to have a stylist on this shoot. At first Tia didn’t think there was enough for her to style on a beauty shoot. That said by the end of the shoot we were working on she was already showing me ideas which were perfect. She picked up on the vibe immediately as I knew she would.

We decided to do two looks on both models with the first being the more subdued version.  Basically I would be doing alternating Orange/Black eyes with the opposite color on the lips. Tia had this awesome Wednesday Adams style dress with Planchette and Black Cat pins she had put on the collar for Ali to wear. With the Orange shadow on Ali’s eye her natural blue eyes popped.

For Blessing’s first look Tia had this really cool pentagram bra top for blessing to wear which looked so fitting and cool on her. I did a heavy, sharp black shadowed eye lined in the same orange I had used on her lips. With Ali in the Wednesday dress looking like a Witch from “Sabrina” and Blessing in the Pentagram it looked like she was the demon that Ali was summoning which played perfectly into the second looks.

For the second look we wanted to really push things a bit. For the piece that inspired Blessing’s look the girl’s head is severed and is dripping with orange blood. I didn’t want to do a severed head but still wanted that feel so I dripped the orange down her throat.  Not in this drawing but in several of O’Neal’s pieces the foreheads appear painted which I thought would look cool with the inverted cross and the flames raising from the eyes.   To mimic the eyes Primal ( https://us.primalcontactlenses.com/ ) had sent me a pair of their Jurassic II-903 lenses. They looked really red in the packaging but once we got them in her eyes they were the perfect shade of orange. Since I dripped paint down her neck Tia couldn’t really put her in any clothes or anything. Inspired by the drawing Tia did bring these awesome pair of horns that she had gotten at a renaissance fair. 

Ali’s second look wasn’t as out there as Blessings but it still left us some room to play. Tia actually made this amazing bat wing collar for her to wear. After I added a heavy orange blush on her cheeks and the tip of her nose I topped all of the orange with a tangerine Ben Nye Lumiere powder. This gave all of the orange a nice luminescence. I then drew an X on one cheek and little bats to elevate the look a bit. To really make her look like the drawing Primal sent us their Subzero – 933 Lenses. It was a shame covering up her beautiful blue eyes but the lenses looked so cool and her eyes almost seemed to glow. The lenses really helped complete the look.

I am so happy with the way these images turned out. Tate killed it as I knew he would. I know I say it every time but I am so lucky to be able to work with such talented people. It still blows me away that I am able to work with people at their level and that they were all my first choices. I think we were able to do our own think and still maintain the ideas that the original artwork was trying to convey. I hope that Justin O’Neal sees these and loves them as much as we do. If you like these go to his Etsy and buy a print! 

"I think being able to inspire other artists, even if they don’t necessarily work in the same medium, is one of the most rewarding things about doing artwork." -Artist, Justin ONeal

( https://www.etsy.com/shop/JustinONealArt )

Holiday Treats: Team Demon Fabulous Makup Challenge

"Success is never owned, it is rented and rent is due everyday" -Rory Vaden

Our makeup team at the Devil's Attic, (http://thedevilsattic.com) "Team Demon Fabulous" won several awards this past haunt season. That being said I do not want us to rest on a laurels and fall behind on our skills. I read the above quote on some silly Instagram post but it really rang true to me. Makeup challenges are a good way to keep skills up and test our creativity beyond horror based makeups. We have done challenges in the past so I thought it was time to do another. I opened up the challenge to all members of the makeup team, past and present.

 The makeup challenge we came up with was Holiday Treats. No rules other than a due date were handed out which gave everyone over three weeks. Artists could do anything as long as it was inspired by holiday treats in some way. For anyone that has seen or followed my work I don't really ever do bright and cheery things, not even in beauty makeup. At least doing bright and cheery things is not what I am known for. I could have turned the holiday theme on it's ear and made it something dark but I wanted to challenge myself. I wanted my makeup to screamed "Christmas"!

 The idea I came up with was a gingerbread person and peppermint with a day of the dead twist. Adding in some day of the dead elements I thought would live'en it up a bit, pardon the pun. I had to be careful not to go to far into "Day of the Dead" and loose the look of the Holidays. Doing more of a beauty eye and a more circular shape to the nose would keep it from going to far in the direction of a skull. After sketching it out I was able to see how to execute this look.

Rough Sketch of my Makeup

(artist portions)

Before I get to my makeup I first want to showcase the amazing makeups of Team Demon Fabulous. Kelsey Eisenhut had been with me since the beginning when I first started on the makeup team. When I took over the makeup team in 2015 she quickly became my right hand.  I was sad to see her leave when she had to move to Indianapolis after the 2016 season. She is still a member of the team and she never shies away from a challenge.

Here is what Kelsey had to say, " When we were issued the challenge of Christmas Treats I was so excited and immediately a thousand ideas started dancing around in my head, not unlike sugar plums.

Often I find that my main problem when designing a makeup is too many ideas, making it hard to create continuity and cohesion in the look. In this particular situation I was able to find a solution that allowed me to use as many different ideas as I wanted because what is more open concept and eclectic than a gingerbread man.

I knew there was a possibility that another artist would pick the same theme so I wanted to make sure I made it my own by bringing in not only makeup but also 3d crafted elements as seen in the gum drop buttons and candy cane bow. I also wanted to make sure I brought in enough different candy elements to make it recognizable without overcrowding the canvas.

I was lucky enough to find a photographer that was willing to photograph my look, the wonderful David McKenna and the final product is something I hope Santa would be proud of!" Kelsey also used a pair of Primal Colored Contact Lenses in "Lizard King" to make her look pop.

Photo: David McKenna

Model and Makeup: Kelsey Eisenhut  

Photo: David McKenna

Model and Makeup: Kelsey Eisenhut

Phoebe Conrad was with Team Demon Fabulous for the last two years. She was the youngest person we've ever had on the makeup team and was a great addition. Phoebe was always eager to help out when needed and kept the haunt in healthy snacks. She is leaving us to go to Cinema Makeup School and to live in Los Angeles.

We wish Phoebe all the luck out in California and this is what she had to say about her makeups,  "My 2018 holiday makeup challenge submissions are Crisp Kringle and Reba Ribbon! Inspired by the classic holiday candies Crisp Kringle chocolate bar and hand made ribbon candy. Two of my favourites growing up!

Model: Alicia Carper

Photo and Makeup: Phoebe Conrad  

Model: Kyle Howell 

Photo and Makeup: Phoebe Conrad

Lauren Bradley was with us for the 2016 season. She was such an asset to the team and we were all upset to see her go. She always added a bit of her own flare to her makeups and her snarkiness always added a nice dry sense of humor to the team dynamic. We were all sad when she left. 

Lauren doesn't usually like to talk about the makeups she does but had this to say, "I’m closing at work and I literally have no time to write why I did what I did in a nice manner but I chose the sugar plum fairy for obvious reasons. My team was fantastic. I made the bodysuit with rhinestones, holographic glitter, and puffy acrylic paints. I got glitter all over Clay and Alex's house and I felt pretty bad about it but they didn’t seem to care. I made the sugar plums with some recipe I found online. They were pretty cute and tasted like apple pie, but unfortunately contained no plums because I didn’t have any and was on a time crunch. They also had edible glitter, so that’s neat I guess. Andrea also let me borrow her bioglitz for the eye makeup and I’m in love. Enjoy."

Photo: Andrea Gabriel 

Model: Alex Hepfinger

Makeup and Costuming: Lauren Bradley  

 Photo: Andrea Gabriel

Model: Alex Hepfinger

Makeup and Costuming: Lauren Bradley

I have wanted to work with Kesley Moorefield as a photographer for sometime now. I have done her makeup as a model but her beauty photography is some of the best I have seen so I was excited when she agreed to shoot this look. Kesley brought in model Kerragan Fleming for this look. I started off by painting Kerragan's face brown in the shape of a half skull. I then airbrushed in some highlights and lowlights and adding a light dusting of metallic gold airbrush paint to give that golden brown look. After doing the eye makeup I still felt it needed some shimmer so I added a lot of gold and bronze highlighter. I then roughed in some white around the border of the gingerbread to mimic icing then topping it with iridescent highlight to give that sugary look.

Photo: Kesley Moorefield

Model: Kerragan Fleming

To give the makeup and extra ordinary look I cut out the teeth and peppermints on her cheeks from glitter card stock. The peppermint design on her lower jaw and neck probably took the longest getting the lines all straight measuring it out using my knuckles for spacing. I then hit the white with silver metallic airbrush paint and the red with a metallic lilac to highlight it. EBA Performance makeup (http://www.europeanbodyart.com) makes a ton of really great metallic airbrush paints if you are in the market. I capped off the bottom of the peppermint with a spider web like scoop pattern to subtly bring in the traditional spider webs used in day of the dead designs. The finishing touches were an awesome green wig courtesy of Lauren Bradley and red out X-Ray lenses from Primal Contact Lenses (https://us.primalcontactlenses.com/) to mimic the look of red hot candies and maybe add a slight bit of creepiness. I even added some gold flake for a bit of holiday flare.

Photo: Kesley Moorefield

Model: Kerragan Fleming

I am supper happy with the way my makeup came out and the amazing job Kesley did. Team Demon fabulous also turned in some amazing work and I am super proud of them. Going forward into 2019 I am excited to hopefully keep these challenges going, keeping brushes in our hand and pushing our creativity. I am looking forward to the challenges the 2019 season will bring us and meeting those challenges with this amazing team of artists head on. We don't own our success but we have signed the lease and are ready to make payments!

Happy Holidays to All!

Matt Goodlett

SFX Makeup Manager, Team Demon Fabulous

Abstract Makeup Challenge

Right on the heels of the Mandarin Duck makeup challenge from my last blog makeup artist Bethany Hood issued another makeup inspiration challenge. When the image was sent out I was waiting on my oil was being changed. My first response was “No”. Having just done the previous challenge less than a week prior I thought I’d sit this one out. The oil change took forever and I just kept looking at the inspiration image. The more I looked at it the more I loved it and knew I had to do it.

What I saw in the image was a duality of being, living with your demons and the struggle within. Along with the stark color contrast of just black and white. For some reason going from “No” because I didn’t have time, turned into full body paint because I’m a glutton for punishment. I wanted to mimic the shape of the inspiration but instead of hands I wanted bodies. One pose I wanted somber and withdrawn while the other I wanted a primal scream. I knew model Bec E. Bien was the perfect model. I have body painted her before and I know how expressive her face can be and she just went for it. When asked to scream she let it out like a pro. That’s not just a pose she is actually screaming her lungs out and I think it adds to the authenticity. Every scream was followed with a smile and a slight giggle. Also, the amazing Matthew Tyldesley had just done her hair and it was perfect. We wanted it a bit manic so we put some sea salt spray in it and messed it up a bit. I just hope we didn’t mess up Matthew’s work too much.

Working with Danny Alexander is always a treat. I knew what I had in mind and how I saw it laid out. Danny has an amazing way of figuring out what is going on in my convoluted head and interprets it. I didn’t want the makeup edited as it was a challenge but I knew having all three figures on there would be a difficult in the time frame. Danny didn’t shy away from it and just nailed it. The one edit I did ask him to do was the nipples. The only pasties I will use for body paint are “Monster Pasties”. They are pretty amazing. They take paint like skin and are seamless. I didn’t have any and I had no time to order them.  I actually painted over the areola and blended it out. If it weren’t for the shadowed sundial effect of the lights you wouldn’t have seen them. There is only so much makeup can do. I am extremely happy with what we were able to pull off in such a short amount of time.

Uploaded by Matt Goodlett on 2017-06-21.

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

https://www.crownbrush.com/

https://www.wonderbandsystems.com/