We now have Transworld Halloween and Attraction 2019 show in the books. Transword HAA is the largest haunted house convention in the United States. On Friday morning March 22nd we left Louisville, Ky. to head to Saint Louis, Mo. We piled four of us in Hunter Wilson’s car. Hunter played Ash at our haunted house, The Devil’s Attic ( http://thedevilsattic.com/darknessfalls/ ) and not only was it his first year in a haunt but also his first year at Transworld. Hunter also had the nicest car out of the four of us so he got drafted as the driver. Portia Greene would also be joining us for her first Transworld. She has worked at other haunts over the years and for a very short stint was on our makeup team. Once you’re a member of the team, as long as you leave on good terms you are always a member.
Mary Proctor has been at the Devil’s Attic since 2014 and joined my makeup team in 2016. This was her second Transworld so on the way up there were two places we had to stop from the last year on the way. The first was this strange convenient store gas station out in the middle of nowhere. We stumbled upon this last year. It is far from anything special but just strange in it’s layout and it looks like it is held together with plywood, hopes and dreams. There is a long table like you’d see in a school lunchroom where you can sit and have your coffee in mismatched chairs. Then of course we had to stop at Cracker Barrel as you should do on any road trip, I’m pretty sure it’s the law.
After we got to the convention floor the first place I wanted to go was the Primal Contacts booth (https://us.primalcontactlenses.com/ ). I have been partnered with them for a while and we have had a lot of correspondence. When I got to their booth I saw that they were using one of my makeups for their brochure photographed by the great Tate Chmielewski which I thought was pretty cool but I was trying not to look too excited. Mary however was freaking out, grabbing my arm and saying, “it’s your makup, it’s your makeup”. I turned to her and told her to calm down, act like you’ve been here before and that I could see it was my makeup, holding up the brochure. Mary then pointed behind me and I realized that my Makeup was blown up taller than me as the image for their booth, with my photo in the bottom corner (not pictured). I tried to play it cool and hold it together. I picked up my contacts that I was going to use for my demo the next day and moved on to walk the floor.
I was doing a demo for EBA Performance makeup (https://performancemakeup.com/ ). Nix Herrera was doing all these amazing demos for EBA using big prosthetics so I knew I had to step up my game. I have used Woochie (https://www.woochie.com/ ) prosthetics before and loved them. I had already planned on using prosthetic horns but I felt it needed more. After looking at all their amazing foam prosthetics a decided to incorporate a brow piece with the horns to give the make a more aggressive look. I was telling Jon West with Woochie that I was going to have to apply the prosthetic in my hotel room because I didn’t think I’d have enough time on the EBA stage. He graciously offered for me to do the prosthetic application at their booth before my EBA demo.
That night we grabbed some food, drinks, went to the arch and waxed philosophical before hitting karaoke and calling it a night. Knowing I had to do a demo the next day I didn’t want to get too crazy. After breakfast the next day Portia who I was using as my model headed to the Woochie booth to start the prosthetic application. She already had her contacts in at this time and they looked great. I made the application work the best I could but I had a rough time blending the latex slush mold horns with the foam latex brow. Nix popped by and told me that I was ready to go to start paint at EBA so I finished up blending as best I could and moved over to paint.
I don’t know if I have mentioned it before but I love EBA Performance makeup, and it is the only makeup I will run through my airbrush. For the demo I was using two of my previous makeups for inspiration. The previous makeups were of a demon and one of an archangel to make a fallen angel look for this demo. I knew using the angel makeup as inspiration I could keep the skin tone fairly similar to Portia’s own skin tone to save time and paint. I then modeled in contouring building up the color from light to dark while keep the makeup somewhat pretty but off-putting at the same time. I finished off the look with a deep teal upper lip, an X on the forehead and that harsh lined black makeup on the jaw that I loved from my demon makeup. With Portia’s costume and gold grill she looked like a badass. It was awesome walking the convention floor with her and seeing her getting stopped for photos which could have had more to do with her costume than makeup but I’ll take a win where I can get it.
This was the best Transworld ever for me. It was awesome to see my makeup on the Primal Contacts booth. I loved meeting and hanging out with the team from Woochie and of course getting to use their products. Of course as usual it is always good to work with EBA. I got to meet a lot of new friends and reconnect with old one. It was awesome to be there again with Mary and see Portia and Hunter experience their first Transworld. As always, I can’t wait until next year.
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