What is Professional Artistic Makeup?

Today we will talk about the different kinds of makeup that we can find in a surreal and fantasy environment: the so-called artistic makeup, a great freedom and a dream for many professionals who work with brushes and colors.

Professional Artistic Makeup vs. Conventional Makeup

Like any other technique, it requires rigorous study and very serious and studied practice. Normally, the person who practices this makeup is usually a great professional in the field with years of experience behind them.

Normally, you work with some previous sketches and try to adapt the drawing to the body and face. Airbrush techniques in this type of drawing are essential to make the work even more perfect.

Fantasy or professional makeup differs from conventional makeup in that in the latter, an attempt is made to conceal or give a natural touch or appearance, however, in fantasy or artistic makeup, the opposite is sought, it seeks to enhance and work on the surrealism as much as possible, figures of animals, monsters, unicorns, gods… and countless figures more typical of cinema and theater are treated with this kind of makeup.

With this type of makeup, we are not only referring to applying color with a brush, but also to extensions of hair, skin, and original and extravagant fabrics that make it appear what one is not, a very noticeable difference from natural and conventional makeup.

In reality, the same products as conventional makeup can and are usually included, but generally, more specific ones can be used with greater capacity to cover the faces and, above all, with greater permanence.

Fantasy makeup, unlike conventional makeup, lasts longer when used for other purposes more than shows.

It must also be taken into account that artistic makeup not only entails the makeup itself as we have said before, but also countless hair and skin extensions, even glitter or shine on the skin and face…

Below we show you some images of what professional artistic makeup can be.

Steps to follow

To perform artistic makeup, the first thing to take into account is the idea we want to represent.

Before doing this type of makeup, we have to take into account the type of character we want to represent. To do this, we begin by making a paper sketch of the character, coloring it with colored pencils and you can even fill the sketches with the color of the makeup.

Therefore, it is very necessary to know the drawing techniques and be able to capture it on the skin and face to the perfection of the sketch.

Makeup styles

The products used for fantasy makeup are special, however, there are different ways of presenting them, such as, for example, liquid makeup, which usually covers a lot of the skin, occupying its porosity, and is spread with brushes.

There are also others that have another kind of format or particles and are usually applied with an airbrush, which we talk about in an entire article, but today we will give you a brief summary of it.

There is also a wide variety of shades, which are applied with brushes and airbrushes, as well as glitters and shine that give it a more artistic and professional appearance.

Other elements in professional artistic makeup

There are feathers, petals, detailed crystals, skin extensions… all of this adheres to the skin to give it a specific and perfect finish.

There are not only liquid makeups but also stick makeups which cover a lot and are applied with a sponge, brushes or brushes.

Fantasy applied to the face

It is about adapting the character we have drawn exactly to the face. The mission would be to beautify and perfect the work, but for all this we have to take into account the morphology of the person, that is, if we work on wide, slender, thin faces… it is very important to take into account the shape and characteristics of the person to use a material of one type or another.

To give an example, working on the face of a person with small eyes and lips is not the same as working on a person who has larger eyes and lips and therefore can work better.

If we work with wide or thick faces, oblique lines will be flattering to the person.

Types of artistic makeup

Fauna

Artistic makeup related to fauna represents the most realistic way to recreate animal fauna, to adapt the morphology to your body and face, and to be honest, it is not an easy task, if we visualize the makeup of some professionals we see lines of perfection of the skin, in the spots on the face and bodies, simulating the perfection of the animal world.

Artistic

These are the responsibility of the professional or artist, it may be conditioned to what he wants to create, surreal or realistic. There are countless characters that adapt to this type of makeup.

Thematic

They are those that are related to a specific theme, festivals, carnivals, costumes, traditional village festivals, famous characters, cartoons, funny…

Flora

We talk about the flowers of the trees or some part of them, well a trunk for example…

Symbolic

Here we also refer to the creativity of the author, this is very important to work with these makeups that represent something as a symbol, for example, solar energy, fire… it is about representing something.

Where to start working?

First of all, the skin has to be clean, therefore, the first basic and fundamental step will be to clean it. You have to clean it and also moisturize it deeply so that the makeup is more wearable.

The tone and skin tone of each person must be verified and adapted, therefore the next step we will talk about corrections, that is, correcting imperfections, wrinkles or dark circles on the face or spots on the skin according to its tone.

To cover imperfections, the first thing we will do is cover with an airbrush base, which results in a strong but natural makeup.

As for the eyebrows, you don’t always want them to be made up or worked on, there are even cases in which it will be necessary to blur them and not define them, that is, they tend to make them disappear or at least conceal them because sometimes the character does not require it.

If the eyebrow needs to be defined, the first thing we will do is define it by combing it well and then passing it with a brown or black brush.

Eyes make up

As for the eyes, it is a very important issue, because as we have said, the person’s face will tell us a lot about the shape that we are going to use with the eye as well as its tones.

We will begin to outline the eye and draw the appropriate lines according to the drawing we want to make.

Once the eye has been outlined, we blend it with color until we achieve the effect we want to obtain. It should also be noted that the blush favors the combination of the eye and the face.

Fantasy makeup, as we have said, can be on the face or also on the body, that is, “Body Painting” as it is called. You can create any design, real designs, abstract designs, symbolic designs…for all these reasons, sometimes false eyelashes are very important to achieve the desired effect, such as false eyelashes on the eyes.

Sometimes they help us highlight certain qualities of the character, they can be applied in the form of a combined strip or applied hair by hair, which takes more work, but the result is more natural than applying an entire strip.

Let’s remember that it is very important to find balance in the areas that are made up or that we are going to work on, above all, the distribution of the product is important. All of this can be a very expensive task if you want to do it well and with good results.

Lip makeup

Here, like the previous one, it will also be important if the person’s lip is large to be able to work on them better or, on the contrary, if it is small. There are certain occasions when it is better to work on small lips because the figure requires that we conceal them and not enhance them.

In the case of lipsticks, water makeup is used to hide the skin that we can find on people’s lips, also a pencil to outline them if what we want is to highlight them.

As we see in the image, there are endless figures that we can make on a person’s lips with the theme we choose.

Read Also: Where To Work As a Makeup Artist? Job Opportunities

Artistic children’s makeup

Artistic makeup is widely used in children, especially during carnival and costume times. They love colors, shine and glitter, however, very clear guidelines must be taken into account when applying makeup.

First of all, we will use hypoallergenic products, to avoid any type of allergy to the child’s skin, or irritations. In addition, their skin must be well clean and hydrated before and after applying makeup.

On the other hand, we will use soft brushes and sponges to avoid damaging them, since their skin is more sensitive than that of adults.

Finally, to remove it, the best way will be water and neutral face soap, but if we have worked with an airbrush, some makeup remover will be necessary that does not alter the skin too much.