Hi, this is Emily at Masters Costumes in Arlington, Virginia and we are doing a cat face today. We have been through the steps of superimposing the cat bone structure onto your own, to create the optical illusion of width and the bridge of the nose, forehead and cheeks.
Now, we are going to go to the fun part which is, using effects makeup to create the specific kind of cat that you are. Right now, we have kind of a lion face, lots of gold, light colors and I did choose that, because it’s consistent with Heather s skin tone and it’s really easy way to use the least amount of makeup and get the most effect.
However, if you are a different-colored cat, black cats are really popular over Halloween. You can also be a tiger, a cougar and this is really fun for kids and because of that, we are going to be using a water based makeup which is actually going to be pretty dry to the touch, sometimes a little damp, but the main thing is, that it is activated with water and that it does dry with contact to air. It’s not going to require powdering, the way that the cream makeup that we use as base, highlight and shadow did.
We did already powder that, so, that we have a nice, dry surface that we can paint on. So, after having powder to cream makeup, you can use a water based makeup on top of it.
So, let s start with something pretty common which is going to be hair techniques. We will go ahead and stick with this pallet for right now and do the hair techniques. Since we have already got a lot of golds and browns, we do want to continue with that, but, use a couple of contrasting colors.
If you look at a cat s hair, not all the hairs are of the same color, so that’s going to give you a lot of depth to your face. We will start with a little bit of a gold color and what we can do, sometimes it s good to look at a picture of a kitty, just to see, the way that their hair goes.
But really, you are just following the lines that you have already made with the highlight and shadow. So, along with cheek-line there, you are going to have kind of a fuzzy place, like for kitty s jaws if we get some of the hair that s fine.
You are either going to be using a wig or you want to color the hair somehow, I mean you can use these paints in your hair, the water based paints will wash right out with shampoo.
The brows obviously have more texture to them. You can go over top of the existing brow. Now, in addition to this color and what I am using as a flat tip brush, so that you are able to get a nice fine line, you can get a real thin brush too, but this is a really good multipurpose shade brush.
Once you have the one color in, you can go over with any other color that you have in your pallet. I have got white around her eyes and that s going to be a good color for a lion, so let s take a couple of little white hairs in there.
This is really going to give it some depth, especially where you see a highlight on the hairs, you can create, a couple of little white strokes there or all go in the same direction. It is best to let the colors dry in between and a little bit of blending isn’t going to hurt in this demo. Then we can go over with the darker color, darkest on it s usually what she wants to use last and you want to be a little spares with it, because you don t want it to dominate the entire effect.
We will continue that on to your head that way. Just continue on until you get where you are not going to see it anymore into the hairline, you can extend it that far or wherever your wig or your earpiece is going to fall.
Now, if you are doing a black cat and you have got a darker color base, I always recommend even if your whole costume is black, even your hair and your ears are black, go with a nice gray.
If you want to do something fantastic, you can go with a silver accent as well. So, even with the black cat, you want to start with something lighter than black, something like grey, something like silver, and there you have already got a nice base so, let s start with the base here.
There is no reason to have to do the whole face and in really, really sharp contrasting color like black or white. You can usually just use this effect, with making the hair, just use lots of wispy strokes. Then go over that with the deepest color which will be black. You can even put a couple of little white hairs in there too, because if you look at any kitty, they do not have all the same color hair. Every little hair is kind of a different color and all comes together into one big effect, that s how cats have expression even when they’re all one solid color. You will see an expression that you definitely want there to be expression with this face.
Then you continue to add layers of complementary colors just think that, maybe if you got a little bit of tan in your costume. Silver and gold are in a lot of the really fantastic cat costumes and those are really fun colors, working to an effect and you don’t have to be too pronounced with the color to really make it pop. The silver and the golden can pop right away.
Now, I am going to show you a really brief demonstration on how to make tiger stripes and leopard spots. These are really fun for kids, you can just paint these on kids and they get a real big kick out of them.
Simple, simple techniques like this are really fun to get into character no matter what age. I always recommend using water based makeup for kids, as supposed to the cream based makeup because it s a lot easier to wash off.
Stripe is basically, going -- you are welcome to just make straight lines, they are very effective. I also like to use this technique which tends to me more realistic, -- can you look that way for me Heather, bit more thank you -- What you are doing is you are kind of following the way that the hair goes and just bringing that out, following the jaw line and then if you do want the costume makeup to go down to the neck, than you can just continue on the other side once again getting small on the other side.
You can just fix in that right in over the hair effects and just blended them with the hair effects. So, you want to make them go the same direction but -- all the hair pretty much goes the in same direction.
For a leopard spot, we are going to work on this side and it is nice to look at the picture of a leopard if you are doing this, it’s basically a nice glob and then that s usually a little glob right there. See what I am doing. I am almost making the letter C and then, little dots to compliment it. Think of these all over the place and then everyone in a while, you got a nice big, kind of mouth shaping letter C, that s going to create perfect spots for a cheetah or a leopard s camouflage.
Of course, you can extend those over to the nose. I like to use on a smaller scale on the nose, little bit smaller. Just look at it as a whole, so you can know if there is a little gap, you can fill it with a little bit of effect. Then just have a lot fun, make it all come together and you can t be striped and spotted at the same time.
Now, we have got different effects that can help you create the perfect cat or Sea Lion face for your costume, no matter what kind of cat you are, it is super easy to use cream or water based makeup, prosthetics and effects to get the most of your Halloween costume.
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