The masquerade entry that was the secret project I've been helping with for the past several weeks. It was worth it.

Gamanda, ethel and lio beat feet before I could get back for the picture. I'll try to get some pictures of them up if somebody can send me either copies or links.




Originally, I was going to try to do Wallace as a prosthetic. After fiddling around with it a bit, I came to the conclusion that it wasn't going to work because the proportions of Wallace's head were impossible to do well. I sent this image to Windy in way of an explanation.

She responded that she will have nightmares for weeks.


Some of the prosthetic bits in process.





Since I didn't know who was going to be the various zombies, rather than doing any lifecasting, I made generic pieces out of latex and cotton, and other various materials like plaster and epoxy. I painted them with some acrylics that I've really learned to like for painting latex.

These were designed to go on quickly and look decayed, since I knew that I had very little time to actually do the makeup. As it turns out, the tech rehearsal ran over time, and I had even less time to put the makeup on than originally planned-- I think it was three hours total for seven people, and they all had prosthetics. Some more than others... chebutykin ended up with something like 80% of her face covered, and lokey was only able to see out of one eye.

I think they liked it.


My workbench for making all the prosthetic bits. I am messy.


hedgiewan


lokey


chebutykin

I was a bit nervous, because I found out that Crist Ballas was going to be one of the workmanship judges. Crist is an amazing makeup artist, and I am completely in awe of his work. These little things I made weren't exactly high quality, but they were cheap and quick, and in context, they were what they needed to be.

But I wouldn't get a chance to explain the context before the judging. They had to stand on their own. I had to try and balance doing good work with having no time to do it: seven people in 3 hours gave me less than 30 minutes each for full makeup; on a movie set, 3 hours for a single person would be rushing it.


windelina


Aside from doing the makeup, I was also doing the sound tech for masquerade. mle292 did the lights, while djnoise and Tony Karna hover.


theseamster handing off his music to me.

It was an insane day. I was constantly on from 8:30 in the morning until after Masquerade ended.

Some very thoughtful person got me food from Mobile Consuite. I didn't even know it existed, but it was much, much appreciated. I didn't actually get to eat until after Masquerade started, and I don't think I actually finished until after it ended.

When the zombies came out onstage, it was so very cool. I thought they looked damn good, even with all of the variations, and the choreography was brilliant (cough Windy cough) and funny. It worked, there was applause and screaming. I was crying, just a little.

And the awards got announced. Best makeup went to somebody else. I was bummed.

Then they threw out Best in Show. And we won.

Yeah, I know. But I was a part of it. And that was very, very cool.

Thanks windelina for letting me play.

The final hook was after Closing Ceremonies, when Crist asked Lexie to find the guy that did the makeup for the zombies. She "introduced" us, but when Crist saw it was me, it was like "hey, cool!". And he complimented me on the zombie makeup. He really liked it. And he got it in exactly the context it needed to be in.

I think I'll be spinning for a while.