Wednesday, November 8, 2017

Vampire Makeup

My Linked In work anniversary states; 2 years working at Watchcat Films, funny it feels more like 3. Thanks for all the congratulations.

The day after our annual Halloween party, I had to do some makeup to turn unsupecting actor Michael Hatch into a Vampire character for a friend's feature film project called Noir.


We wanted a Nosferatu type of vampire which was suppose to look more like this.
However, when we saw the actual makeup package only included foam pieces of a forehead brow, cheeks and a nose; no bald cap, no pointy ears and no fangs, we had to make a change. We ended up using a foam ape face instead, with a separate bald cap and larger pointy ears.
After attaching the bald cap, I glued on the ears. I had to add tissue paper and liquid latex to reinforce the ears to the bald cap and cover several holes. I was considering adding some wire to secure the ears so they wouldn't wiggle as much. Luckily, the vampire is shown very briefly in this black and white sequence, so the ear motion wouldn't be seen.

The day before, I painted the mouth area, gums, teeth and added the long fangs to save time before the makeup session. Those are plastic fangs are from a pumpkin carving kit, which I glued into where the foam fangs were. The ape mask was then glued into place, blended to the face and bald cap. I used tissue paper and liquid latex to create skin all around his neck and hands.

Once the head was done, I had to makeup Michael's hands and apply sharp false nails to his fingers. The entire makeup process took about 3 or 4 hours to complete. 


Michael was very patient throughout the whole process and in the end, gave a great performance. Here's a clip.


Michael was so good as a vampire, we had to use him in another part of the film as a Nazi Demon after slipping him into a German uniform and helmet.

One more pose before returning to the world of the humans.


 
Need some makeup in your next film project?