Tag Archives: Halloween

Halloween 2014 – Part 2 Guardians of the Galaxy

November 12, 2014Makeup, TutorialsBen Nye, Femme Fatale, Halloween, MAC, NYX, RevlonChelle

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Halloween was QUITE the event this year! A group of friends and I saw the movie the Guardians of the Galaxy in August and walked out of the theatre with the realization that we had the exact perfect combination of people to go as the Guardians for Halloween. We knew it was going to be a lot of work, but holy cow did I ever not realize just how much! We got started at the beginning of October and it feels like it consumed the entire month!

Our group as the Guardians of the Galaxy!

The bulk of the work was spent working on the Groot costume since that was not only massive, but super involved. I think it came out especially well – and we have our costume designer mastermind behind it all – Steve did an amazing job pre-planning and executing the Groot outfit, his own Drax costume (amazing muscle suit!) and then did Rocket Raccoon’s entire costume by himself! It’s worth pointing out that all of those costumes were made from scratch! I got off pretty easy – all of my parts (wig, costume) were all purchased online.

I have a few details on some of our makeup below, if you’re only interested in photos, be sure to scroll down to see some amazing shots of our group in action!

My makeup took longer than I expected – about two hours to get me completely done. I used MAC‘s Chromacake in Landscape Green to change the colour of my skin. It took about two layers but I’m still not pleased with how it turned out as I feel it’s too patchy. The texture seemed to be more even on my face, but the body was especially bad. I think using an airbrush system would’ve been a better idea.

My face was pretty straightforward once I had the green base on. I kept it simpler than the trial I had done before and stuck with a single colour on my eye for shadow (MAC Print). I used the same shade through my eyebrows and to contour my face. The contour helped a lot to give me some depth and bring out my cheekbones since I looked especially flat before doing so. I popped on a pair of Femme Fatale lashes in their Catwalk style since I felt my eyes were getting lose amongst all the green. Any liner touchups were done with Urban Decay‘s Black Velvet pencil. On my lips is Revlon‘s Black Cherry because I couldn’t find a decent darker green and I was running out of time to mix shades. Gamora has a few silver lines on her face so I sketched out some rough shapes with a silver liquid liner from NYX.

Finished Gamora makeup with outfit and wig

I think the end result is decent. Not movie quality, certainly, but definitely good enough for Halloween! The wig was a $20 I got from Ebay and it worked out far better than I ever expected from a relatively cheap wig (plus I’d never even worn a wig before). I had to pin some of the pieces into the wig cap because they kept dangling in my face, but I think the overall look is relatively realistic. Let me know what you think!

My friend Steve did his own makeup for Drax and he was kind enough to share how his turned out. Here’s his summary of what he did on his face:

Creating the Drax make-up required a fair amount of thought, and I wasn’t altogether sure about what supplies to use, or if I would be able to create it properly. For the movie, the tattoos were created using foam latex pieces that were made by taking a cast of Dave Bautista’s face, sculpting the tattoos on the cast, then taking a mould of the sculpt, and then creating the foam latex out of that. I do not have the kind of skills to do that, nor the materials, so I needed a work around that would allow me to have a base coat of greyish green, with raised red tattoos over top. I was comfortable working with latex, but could not get latex that was the greyish green I needed, nor could I make the latex thick enough to hold the shape of the tattoos.

I chose to use acrylic paint mixed with latex. What I found was that acrylic alone would flake off of the latex once it dried, as the latex did not give enough to adhere to. When I mixed the paint with liquid latex, I found that the paint now stuck and kept its thickness. I started by putting on the bald cap (which was an ordeal unto itself) trimming to size first, and then applying to my head using spirit gum. I then sponged “ruddy flesh tone” liquid latex to blend it into my skin so there was no seam.

I would need a base on which to apply the acrylic, so I used the ruddy coloured latex above my eyes and below them (I applied olive oil to my eyebrows so that I would hopefully not lose them all when I pulled off the latex). I then applied a green acrylic/liquid latex blend (I used a 3:2 ratio of liquid latex to acrylic paint) and then some grey to lighten the green, blow-drying between applications to set the latex.

I then applied the red acrylic and liquid latex mix (for this I needed it thicker so chose to use a 1:1 ratio of acrylic to latex). I lacked dexterity when applying to my face, so just used the side of the brush to make lines that criss-crossed and carefully applied tails and sharp ends using a toothpick. I added a coat of grey-green over top to lighten the tattoos.

Unfortunately, as I attempted to blend everything together using Ben Nye‘s Creme Make-up in Army Green mixed with some grey made from white and black Ben NyeCreme make-up, the latex sopped-up all of the colour, and a few minor mishaps ruined the red of the tattoos. As a result, I completely blended using the make-up and then used some leftover red creme make-up to bring the tattoos out.

You’ll notice in the close-up that there is a lot of wrinkling happening with the latex. I realized after the fact that this was probably because of the acrylic. It wasn’t sticking to my face as well because the acrylic didn’t want to stretch as much as the latex. In the end the make-up worked fine, but I wish I had done things slightly differently. I wish that I had just used acrylic and latex for the tattoos to make them raised, but then just used make-up to create colour and blend everything in. In the end the latex took the make-up so well that I would have been fine to paint the raised tattoos using red make-up after the fact.

In the end, I was satisfied with the look, and of course the best news is that my eyebrows escaped intact.

And now for some amazing shots we got before heading out onto the street!

After our brief “photoshoot”, we hit up Church Street which is shut down to traffic on Halloween for the entire evening for a street party. It was seriously cold (about 2 degrees), but it stopped raining for the hour we were out there which was a HUGE blessing since most of the paint would’ve melted off us!

Posing with some characters from Game of Thrones!

This was cute… a lot of kids came up to us and Rocket was always trying to get them involved!

We were stopped so often and so frequently for pictures that we ended up with crowds and crowds of people around us!

As always, Halloween was an amazing experience on Church Street in Toronto. If you live in the city and don’t know what to do on Halloween, it’s worth it to come down to the area and check out all the costumes. Even if you’re not dressed up yourself, it’s still worth it to see what others put together. And if you DO dress up, you’ll end up feeling like a celebrity for the evening.

Happy Halloween everyone. 🙂

Halloween Makeup Test Run: Gamora

October 15, 2014Makeup, TutorialsHalloween, HolidayChelle

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As I mentioned in my previous Halloween post of the year, I, along with several of my friends, are going out as the Guardians of the Galaxy. I’m one of the lucky ones out of the group and managed to buy my outfit on Ebay. The big issue with my outfit was going to be turning my skin colour green. I’ve never worked with full body makeup or anything of that ilk, so this was going to be super interesting for me!

So this was my first time trying out this kind of makeup. I picked up MAC‘s Landscape Green Chromacake a few weeks back after doing a little bit of research. It’s a water-based cake makeup that applies quite easily to the skin (as I quickly discovered). I did find I needed several layers (roughly three in the last photo on the bottom right) to get a somewhat even texture. I’ll probably do an extra layer on the night of Halloween just to make sure it’s extra smooth.

The Chromacake pigment does feel a bit tight on the skin. It doesn’t feel as emollient as foundation does. In the hour that I wore the pigment, it didn’t crack on me, but it never really felt completely comfortable. (As a side note, foundation itself never really feels “comfortable” on me either, so ymmv.)

Since the green on its own would be too flat, I had to add in some shading. I used MACPrint eyeshadow to carve out a bit of my cheekbones. I found that blending was somewhat difficult: If I blended out too much, I ended up removing some of the green Chromacake. I also used Print to fill in my eyebrows. For highlighting, I used MAC‘s Whisper of Gilt Extra Dimension Skinfinish on the tops of my cheekbones and down my nose.

My lips turned out to be a bit of a disaster. Gamora has darker green lips but I didn’t have anything that would really work. I tried using a dark lip colour mixed with gloss but I don’t like how it came out, so I’m going to have to try something else.

Those silver lines were created with eyeshadow and didn’t turn out so hot either. Argh!

Lastly were the eyes. The promo shot seems to show Gamora having a dark purple outer corner of her eyes. I deepened it up with some black, but like the contouring, I had a heck of a time blending on top of the Chromacake. I also had a heck of a lot of fallout from the shadow – something to be aware of the next time I try this! I’ll definitely throw on a pair of huge false lashes for this when I wear it out on Halloween – that should help cover up some of the terrible blending!

So in the end, it was a decent first try. I primarily wanted to get a feel for the Chromacake and what I would have to do with it on Halloween. It seems very easy to apply to the skin, although blending is still my major problem. If you have any suggestions for me – either a great silver liquid liner, or a way to blend out the shadows better on top of the green paint, I’d love to hear them!

And no, this stuff was not fun to take off!

Halloween 2013 – Sailor Moon

November 2, 2013Makeup, TutorialsHalloween, INGLOT, L'Oreal, MAC, Physicians Formula, Revlon, Sleek, Urban DecayChelle

For Halloween this year, my friend suggested doing a joint costume. After a few suggestions (many of which were Final Fantasy-related on my end) we ended up choosing Sailor Moon and Tuxedo Mask.

It could not have turned out better.

Photo courtesy of www.photokissingbooth.com

The eye makeup is primarily why I’m posting this, but I’ll go into costume details afterwards. I had originally thought to look for an anime eye tutorial, but none of them looked like they would work on my hooded eyes. After some searching I came across Cara’s (Vintage or Tacky) Sailor Moon inspired tutorial. I had watched her tutorial years ago, but had completely forgotten about it! I’m not even going to pretend that my copy of her look is bang on, as she’s quite clearly got far better skills than myself. But as soon as I saw that look I was like “oh hell yes, this is it”.

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I didn’t have all the same products, so here’s what I used:

Primer: Urban Decay Primer Potion with NYX’s Jumbo eyeshadow pencil in Milk on top. Primer Potion everywhere, Milk only on the lid.

Eyeshadows: I first applied tape to the outer corner of my eyes to get a sharp edge. Urban Decay’s Blackout was used to carve out the cut crease, with Sleek’s Ink and Bolt (Matte 1 and 2 palettes) blended into the top of the edge to fade it out towards the brow. Sleek’sPow! was used to highlight the brow.

Moving on to the lid – I patted Sleek’s Bamm! all over the lid and topped it with a bright yellow shade from the Sephora Smokey Eyes 2 palette. MAC’s Blacktrack fluidline was used to line the upper lash line and carve out the crease as well as extend it a bit further past my inner corner. Sleek’s Pillow Talk was used to highlight the inner corner of the eye.

I then took MAC’s Deep Truth and used it as a liner on the lower lash line, with Feline Kohl Power pencil on the inner rim.

Lashes: I didn’t curl my lashes as I knew I would be wearing false lashes and I find it harder to apply them if my lashes are already curled. L’Oreal Voluminous Carbon Black in waterproof went on first and Ardell demis were then applied.

Face: Revlon’s Colorstay liquid foundation (combination/oily) in 220 Natural Beige all over with very light bronzing from Revlon’s Photoready Bronzer in Bronzed & Chic.

Cheeks: Physicians Formula Happy Booster bronzer in Natural

Lips: (All MAC) Prep + prime for lips (I cannot recommend this enough! Without it my lip colour bleeds out of my lip lines even if I’m wearing a liner.) with Brick lip liner applied to outline and fill in the lips. Russian Red lipstick over top of all that finished the look. To make sure this lasted all night, I applied the lipstick once, blotted with a tissue and then reapplied the lipstick with a lip brush.

Other: The full face shot above is before I did my hair and before I suddenly remembered I had to paint on my crown! The crown was done rather quickly with L’Oreal’s Infallible eyeshadow in Goldmine (applied damp with water) with slight shading from Urban Decay’s Half Baked. I used Inglot’s 382 (matte red) to create the crystal in the middle and then outlined the entire thing with Physicians Formula Ultra Black liquid liner.

As for my costume… let me first say I’d never even watched an episode of Sailor Moon before, although I had been very aware of the character while growing up. I had to do a decent amount of research into her costume to figure out how to put this all together and I watched my first Sailor Moon movie while putting this all together. Watching the movie definitely helped me get a feel for the character. In general, I got pretty lucky as I had most of the materials on hand. With no sewing machine or skills to speak of, this entire outfit was hand sewn haphazardly. It was time consuming, but it was a LOT of fun to make.

The skirt came from a full length formal skirt I had worn to some high school event over 14 years ago that I just happened to find at the bottom of a crate somewhere in the apartment. I couldn’t believe my luck! Since the skirt was rather large around the bottom, I cut the whole bottom off and proceeded to pleat it so that I not only would have a short skirt, but a decently pleated one to boot! The skirt was a disaster to create. I ended up sewing on the zipper backwards (and it’s still on there backwards!), the pleats wouldn’t stay put, (I ended using my flatiron to flatten the pleats as my proper iron just wasn’t cutting it.) and I was really iffy on the length. With no full length mirror in the apartment, I resorted to standing on the bed trying to get a proper look at the length in the makeup mirror! In the end, I think the skirt could definitely have been shorter.

The top was created from a long sleeve white shirt I had. I chopped off the sleeves and cut the bottom into a “V” shape. I then sewed in padding to make the edges stand out a bit by using some sticky medical badges that I layered over top of each other multiple times. The sailor cape was created by using the top half of the big skirt and the white stripes were hastily painted on with white acrylic paint. I then sewed it to the shirt so that it would stay put.

I lucked in with Christmas coming early to stores and picked up red Christmas bows at the dollar store to use for the front and back of the dress. White gloves with a painted red trim were probably the most expensive piece I bought (~$15). The boots were also salvaged from my teen years – I used to call them my “Buffy” boots and they were black suede. I painted them twice with red fabric paint, a white stripe at the top and used a gold marker to mark in the moon shapes. The choker was an extra strip of red Christmas bow that I snipped off and drew a moon on.

In all honesty, I didn’t have time for the hair bobbles, so I did my hair as best I could to resemble the meatball hairstyle of Serena/Usagi.

Full costumes! Tuxedo Mask with Sailor Moon

All dressed and ready to go, we hit up Church Street (they shut down the block for a street party every Halloween) and were stopped by easily 100+ people for photos. Never in my life have I felt like such a celebrity! There were times we couldn’t even move two feet forward through the crowd as people kept asking to take photos with us. The photo at the top of this post was done for free by a professional company and I was pretty happy to have a well-lit shot that shows off our costumes.

And of course, the obligatory bathroom selfies.

Everything stayed put the entire evening – I was so happy! I was pleased with how well the costume turned out, as I was expecting it to look quite shoddy. The only costume failure happened at the end of the night when the rubber soles of my suede boots completely cracked and disintegrated, probably due to their age. In the end I was happy I had painted them and was able to use my Buffy boots one last time!

Having never dressed up in a recognizable costume for the street party before, I have to say I love doing it and am definitely looking forward to it next year!