Cosplay and Special FX Makeup Adventures!!

Hi everyone!! I originally intended to only post a short post today, but there is a topic I really wanted to talk about today! This was supposed to be up earlier, but I had a friend pop in for a few hours. We discussed some pair cosplays we want to do and watched some anime. I showed him Death Parade which he really enjoyed and the magical boy anime. His reaction to that was priceless. It was a fun day, it's always great to hang out with him. I'm trying to convince him to come fangirl with me on twitter again, but he's over twitter.

 Anyway, enough of my rambling. We had a big snow storm yesterday, about 14 inches of snow!! I was snowed in for a while, so I decided to try working on a cosplay look I've been wanting to do: Kakashi Hatake (my baby <3). The mishaps (and little successes) that I encountered gave me the urge to talk about my journey with cosplay and special effects makeup. I will also share some pictures of some of my more notable cosplays.

When I do my cosplays, I mostly focus on the makeup, being a makeup artist. I also only am at the point of doing cosplay pictures, not actually cosplaying anywhere (hence why I can be seen wearing a tshirt in most of my pictures). I love making up my own characters and using special effects makeup along with that. I'm not a super serious or hardcore cosplayer, but I would love to be. I just can not afford to buy cosplays or have the skill to really make them. So I try to focus on the few things I can do: makeup and accessorizing.

If you frequent the anime community on twitter as much as I do, you may know me as the chick that does the creepy makeup. I love doing any sort of gory, creepy makeup. My specialty involves injury makeup. I've been doing special effects makeup for around 4-5 years now...I'm much better than when I started. I am still an amateur, although I have wanted to be a special effects makeup artist since high school, I didn't truly get serious with it until about 2 years ago.

I am completely self taught and at the moment, I only work with makeup and a poor man's method of prosthetic. I really want to find a school that will teach me to work with molds and other mediums. But for now, I work with what I know and I try to build and better those skills.

One thing I've learned is cosplay doesn't always turn out as planned. You will hit many bumps in the road, which I will share a few examples. A lot of the ones I've done don't truly look like the characters I'm trying to portray, but that's okay. I put my own spin on them, people seem to really like it.  After all, I'm not one to follow the crowd. Special effects makeup can be the same way, things don't always turn out as planned but you have to roll with it and keep practicing to allow your skills to improve.

So yesterday, I decided to make my Kakashi cosplay a female Kakashi cosplay. There's just no way in hell I can look manly even in the correct makeup, my eyes give it away. I don't own many wigs, so I had to use my own hair. I really wanted to make an awesome scar over my eye, like Kakashi. I didn't want to just draw a line across my eye like most cosplayers. I enjoy a challenge so I decided to tackle it. I haven't really done a scar before so this was new territory for me

I thought I would make a really cool, raised scar for a different take on my beloved Kakashi. That was a fiasco. I spent about 3 1/2 to 4 hours working on this scar. At one point, I had it on perfectly but it was HIGHLY uncomfortable. Learn from my mistake guys: avoid applying liquid latex on and around the eyes at all costs. My eye kept wanting to glue shut and I had the hardest time keeping my eye open. Luckily (since I didn't have glasses on) Kakashi's sharingan is on the same side as my really bad eye. To all of you makeup wearing people that don't wear glasses: you're lucky! It is such a challenge to apply makeup with blurred vision.

About 2 1/2 to 3 hours in I had problems blending an eye shadow because of the stupid latex and my prosthetic completely fell off and unraveled. I had to scrub all of it off and start over. Just as I was about to take pictures, the new prosthetic fell off and unraveled again. At this point, I gave up. I still had a line of latex from where I anchored the prosthetic so I left it and added some coloring, highlight and shading with it. Turns out IT LOOKED BETTER! So I spent hours doing something I could have done in 5 minutes. That's makeup artistry!

I was honestly so mad. But I figured as long as I could get some decent pictures out of it, my time wouldn't have been wasted. I didn't have a mask I could wear (I attempted using my neon pink scarf. It was laughable), so I used a book as Kakashi is always reading his porn books. I thought it would be funny to use a Naruto manga book. I didn't think it turned out all that well, but I got a huge response from it on twitter and people really seemed to like it! So thank you to everyone that shared their thoughts with me, boosting my low confidence. I honestly am not a confident person, but time and time again when I think something looks terrible someone at least likes it. I am my toughest critic, my close friends know I'm the first to put myself down. I am always self conscious about my cosplays. Sometimes because I don't feel pretty or attractive, or I don't feel like I am doing the character justice or I feel like it looks like shit. But the point of cosplay is to put aside those insecurities and have fun! So I still take pictures and have fun with it. Having fun is really what matters.

I also hit a few snags when I wanted to cosplay as Girlycard, Alucard's female form. I didn't have the right wig for Girlycard, so I thought I would invent a character based on Girlycard: Heathercard. I like to think of her as Alucard's little sister. The major snag I hit here: fangs. I didn't own any and I am afraid to affix fangs to my teeth with dental adhesive because of my fillings (take care of your teeth, kids!)

So I made my own fangs from fake nails and tried to make them stick with gum. It worked for a while but wouldn't stay. So there is no proof that Heathercard is a vampire. My next snag was really my face....I couldn't capture a good picture with a menacing look. I am truly not photogenic. Don't be fooled...I have to go through at least 10 takes before getting something decent.

My joy of creating creepy looks along with cosplaying led me to create this character. She doesn't have a name but it was around Halloween and I wanted to make a creepy broken doll looking girl that looked like she'd kill you in your sleep. This is probably my favorite cosplay, it is SO me.

And where special effects makeup comes in, I did this Chelsea grin/Joker type look. I do a fairly decent zombie makeup, but I do not have any recent pictures of it and frankly I do think it needs more work.

My very first cosplays were as Columbia from The Rocky Horror Picture Show and Princess Serenity from Sailor Moon. I almost every year go to a midnight showing of Rocky Horror around Halloween. I always dress as Columbia. This is from my most recent time dressing as her, from this past
Halloween:

Definitely not my most attractive cosplay, that's for sure!! Hahahaha

It is a bit of a challenge every year doing Columbia. I try to replicate her look as closely as possible. Every year I attempt to cover my eyebrows and then draw her exaggerated, fake brows on. You would think I would have learned that it is REALLY difficult to cover my (normally bushy) and semi-dark brows. Last Halloween, however was the best way I have ever handled it. I just shaded in my actual brows lightly with an auburn brow liner.

I do cosplay as Sailor Moon now, but I don't have any really good pictures of it (I need to get on that. Comment if you want me to! Hehe.) My Princess Serenity cosplay came simply from me figuring out how to do the odango hairstyle and wanting to put some makeup along with it. This is an old picture, I was about 18.

I also am a cosplay makeup artist, I love doing makeup for other cosplayers for photoshoots. I did this one with my friend Beckman a few years ago for Alucard. I really want to re-do this look on him now that I have a refreshed feel for Alucard, but he doesn't want to go back to that cosplay.

I am not really sure what my next creepy makeup or cosplay will be. I will be working on my Sailor Moon. Any suggestions? My dream cosplay would be Madame Red from Black Butler. I also would love to be Asuna from Sword Art Online.

I hope you enjoyed this post! I look forward to continuing to post makeup and cosplays as I expand my portfolio. If I am still blogging in a few years it will be really cool to look back and see my progress. I have already made a ton in the span of 2 years.

Xoxo
Moon prism power makeup!