For Halloween and Día de Muertos, I tried my hand at using body paints for the first time. I have been influenced by many artists on Twitch that stream body painting, Djarii and ZombiUnicorn to name two! I have been watching makeup tutorials on YouTube for about 10 years now, this isn’t too much different! I love seeing how creative everyone is and how amazing their works of art turn out!
Since I am new to using body paint, this is not an article with tips, but rather a narrative on my experience using it for the first few times. If you need tips, you will want to seek out a more experienced body paint makeup artist that can help you! I am just a regular artist who loves to apply regular makeup and am now combining the two for experimentation.
For Halloween I wanted to be either Sylvanas Windrunner or Rich Lux. Rich would have been easier! But I really wanted to try to turn myself into Sylvanas from World of Warcraft. She is an interesting character with a tragic story, who has been causing a lot of problems.
I had looked for sets that would have the colors I would need. I thought of all the theatrical and professional makeup brands: Skin Illustrator, Ben Nye, Kryolan, etc. I even considered purchasing the cheaper makeup at Spirit Halloween. I watched a video by Atleeeey turning herself into Ursula. Ashley used Fab Body Paints, and I liked how her look turned out, and the price wasn’t terrible, so I bought that!
The paints were purchased from FxCosplay.com. I received my order within a timely matter (3 days), however, I only got half of what I ordered! I was pretty worried that the rest of my order would not arrive in time. I emailed customer service, and Emily was great. She told me they hired extra help because Halloween was a busy season. So she personally packed my items and overnighted them to me from Florida (to California). I am very appreciative of Emily and her excellent way of handling the situation. Therefore, I can recommend them to you. It was just one fluke, it’s forgivable. I also found a $5 coupon online, so be sure to Google coupons before ordering!
I bought several colors so my look could look more dimensional. I may not have used them all, but I can definitely use them in future looks!
To the right is the Monster High palette, except one pan got mixed up, it should be Dolphin, the greener pan in the left palette. Emily understood and made sure I got the correct color!
I did a practice run doing the Sylvanas makeup first. I thought it would be a lot easier than doing skull makeup that requires a lot of straight lines and detailed work. If you are using a new medium for the first time, I recommend doing a patch test on your skin first! Do not introduce something new to your skin without making sure you aren’t allergic to it first! Do this somewhere like your inner elbow and wait about 48 hours to see if you have a reaction. Once you find that it’s safe to use, do a trial run before going out on Halloween and finding out you don’t know how to use it. This is a good time to experiment and see what works and what kind of things you can mix with it.
Body paint was extremely drying on my skin. I did my usual skin care routine with moisturizing toners, serums, essence, and moisturizer. But dry paint is dry paint. I did not dare use a mist over my face in fear of leaving white spots or even have it remove the paint. This is something I would experiment with next time. So I dealt with it and used sheet masks and facial oils after I removed the makeup. Someone more experienced can tell you if the body paint mixes will with facial oils. Since I am new, I have not tried it out yet. I was afraid it would not stick and just break down the paint.
The thing about body paint is that it’s supposed to be on your body… therefore you probably need it to be dry so it’s not sticking to your clothes, rubbing off on the chair, the car seat, sticking to your hair/wig, etc.
I had a bit of trouble at first. If the sponge gets too wet it takes off the paint you already applied and that spot needs to dry before applying any more or it gets gets worse! The best way I found to apply the makeup (so far) was to use a Real Techniques sponge, not a cheap triangle one. I didn’t try using my Beauty Blender or any brushes, but I wonder if the toothbrush type of brush would be good to use. When I try my next look, I will definitely try using different types of brushes to see what works for me. But for now, my skin could use a break from body paint!
Dia De Los Deftones look
This is a combo of makeup, Photoshop and Illustrator. This was for an art contest to win merchandise or tickets to their festival in San Diego.
Each element represents a song or album name. I made a sketch to plan it, but pretty much winged the colors. I might have chosen a color different than purple to pair with the red and blue. Yes, I am wearing gift wrap on my head.
Minerva (actually, the self-titled album)- rose crown, overall color scheme
White Pony in rose
Phantom Bride– veil
Black Moon (Cypress Hill collab)- forehead
Diamond Eyes– Diamond shape instead of the typical eye socket shape.
The pattern on the brow is to represent the gold foil shirts in the merch store. Design represents the Chinese side. (Me being mixed with Chinese and Mexican, like Chino.)
Mascara– Applied my fave mascara & my biggest, boldest lashes
Adrenaline & Nosebleed– on and below nose
Rosemary– on chin/jawline
Hearts/Wires– spiderweb neck, web is supposed to be barbed wire
Cherry Waves– asian wave pattern in red
Other Products used:
PUR Cosmetics My Little Pony palette- Magic
Sugarpill Comsetics pressed eyeshadows in Poison Plum, Afterparty and Velocity
Lime Crime Venus III palette- Beam in the inner corner of my eye
Lorac Pro 3 palette- Navy and Black
Urban Decay Spectrum palette- Midnight Blaze
Jeffree Star Velour Liquid Lipstick in Druglord
Lime Crime Metallic Velvetine in Red Hot
Anastasia Beverly Hills Gold Luster Liner
Mac Cosmetics Star Trek Pure Show
Laura Lee Los Angeles Cat’s Pajamas in Kooky and In One Ear
Gel Eyeliner: MAC Macroviolet on lips
Tarte Cosmetics Amazonian Gel Eyeliner in Black on eyes
Lilly Lashes in Delara
Several black eyeliners for the spiderweb (pencils wear down quick!)
Sylvanas Windrunner Look
For Sylvanas, the main color I used was Seafoam. The face paint is as far as I could go with the Halloween look! I couldn’t do a full on cosplay, making costumes is extremely expensive and time consuming. I could definitely do this, it’s just a matter of having the money to buy all of the supplies and the time to make them. I just bought the Sylvanas Heroic Hoodie from the Blizzard store and called it my costume. That was already $85, so I really couldn’t spend any more.
I bought a white wig from Spirit, but it was so bad, I went out without it, and just took photos in it. I went with white because I don’t actually like how her blonde hair contrasts with her overall cool toned look. I actually dyed my hair dark blue a few days prior to Halloween, to match the look. Way less damaging than trying to bleach my hair blond like hers!
On both looks I used a glue stick to cover my brows. Use a basic, washable kind! There are plenty of tutorials on You Tube on how to do this. On Sylvanas, I allowed the brow hairs in the inner parts to show, and had to spackle on dry Seafoam body paint on the ends of my brow because the glue lifted a bit. The white is Jeffree Star Cosmetics Druglord, it also served as white out to fix mistakes on the Deftones skull.
This is enhanced by Photoshop. Sylvanas has red eyes and I couldn’t be bothered to go and pay for prescription contacts.
Other products used:
Sephora Ariel Palette- shadows in Unfortunate Souls and Flotsam
Sugarpill pressed eyeshadows in Candy Crush, Afterparty and Velocity
Urban Decay Spectrum Palette- Minx, Metamorhosis
Various black and gray eyeshadows
Jouer Slim Creme Eyeliner in Matte Navy
Ofra x Nikkie Tutorials Highlighter in Space Baby
Jeffree Star Cosmetics Velour Liquid Lipstick in Druglord
Kylie Cosmetics- Wicked lip liner
Sephora Jem and The Holograms liquid lipstick in She’s Got the Power
Lime Crime Diamond Crushers in Black Unicorn
Lilly Lashes in Delara
Wig- Gray Fashion Wig from Spirit Halloween
The red eyes are just Photoshopped.
I had elf ears safety pinned to the hood. I colored them at first using the body paint, but it wasn’t sticking too well, so I scrubbed Sugar Pill’s Candy Crush eyeshadow with a toothbrush-like brush from Moda. It worked a lot better!
As an added bonus I wanted to show you my Halloween pumpkin! This is a 40 lb white pumpkin I picked from Cool Patch Pumpkins in Dixon, CA. I highly recommend going there for the World’s Largest Corn Maze if you’re in Northern California.
I carved Queen Azshara from the Warbringers cinematic.
I intended on submitting this to the Blizzard Pumpkin Carving contest, but I decided I could have been a lot more intricate in the details and I don’t want to submit anything less than perfect.
I was asked how I created this in Discord. I hollowed out the inside and tried to scrape it as thing as I could. I did a little too much because I punctured two holes that I had to restuff with pumpkin shreds. For the drawing, I used longwear black eyeliner pencil, use a cheap drugstore one and not a $20 Marc Jacobs pencil. It really uses a lot of product! I kept some of the lines and the lips. For the carving I use clay tools.
Do you have any ideas on my next body paint makeup look? I got a lot a messages when Diablo Immortal was announced that I look exactly like the Wizard. Should I be Li-Ming? What about next year’s jack ‘o lantern? Leave a comment on my Instagram!
Find me via Warcraft search terms? Great! I have a sale going on at my online store!
I am offering 15% your entire order so you can be prepared for next year’s gaming conventions! Shop.ineedthisunicorn.com
Use the code CONAFTERGLOW until Friday, Nov 9 at 11:59pm PST. If you missed it, don’t worry, just sign up for the email newsletter and you’ll get a coupon code sent your email!
Disclaimer: This post is not sponsored. One look is a contest entry and one I thought of on my own. I paid for the body paints and the rest of the makeup myself. There are no affiliate links. There’s an obvious link to my own store in the paragraph above this one.
