SFX MAKEUP - 4/8

RESEARCH

I based this look on my favorite horror movie, Lake Mungo - more specifically, the makeup look done for Alice's corpse. The entire movie is based around the concept of death literally coming to get you in the form of your own ghost - not in a malevolent way, but eerily inevitable. The idea fascinated me, and so I based my SFX makeup on the idea. I studied the way it seems the blood has pooled around the nose and chin, and the bluish tint of the skin.

BEFORE

AFTER

This look was interesting - instead of working in shades of red, I worked in shades of blue and black. I had a lot of trouble with this look, and I was never quite satisfied with it. Once I'd finished the basic "drowned" look, I tried to add injuries - at first, a bullet hole on the neck, then a cross carved into my forehead, and finally, when neither look was to my satisfaction, I made a generic cut across my forehead. To finish the look, I mixed eyeshadow with water and flour to make a black liquid to spit, wet my hair, and covered myself in leaves and dirt to appear as though I'd just been pulled from a lake.

What I Learned

This look ended up being one of those learning experiences where you learn more from your mistakes than what you did right. I realized later that I could have been a bit less ambitious (images of bullet wounds or cuts are really difficult to find on drowned bodies, so I was working with very little reference material), and I could've used molasses for the fluid out of my mouth. I also could've applied the dirt with makeup rather than literal dirt - it got in my mouth, which was nasty. Overall, I'd like to try this look again someday, but for right now, I'm not particularly satisfied with it.