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

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.