h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

One year, I was asked to help turn the staff of a local cinema into gruesome ghouls. There are a few basic patterns to think about when doing Halloween make-up that can be applied to the faces of men and women of any age.

Firstly, it helps to have a good idea of what makes up the human head. If you can think about where the bones are on the face (even if they're overweight and the bones are a bit hidden). So you think about the brow, and how there is a section on either side by the temples. You can shade this bit in, probably in dark brown or blue, back to the hairline, so that there's a semi-circle or darker skin. Now you can slightly lighten the brow so that it stands out - tones of yellow or pale green work best. Now aply a little of your dark colour (brown or blue) to create a feint semi-circle dipping to about an inch above the nose amd rising smoothly up to the hairline. This should leave a pale horse-shoe shape coming down from the hairline and dipping to the eyebrows and nose.

Next, the cheeks. You want the cheekbones to be quite prominent, so the way to do this is to shade, like you did for the brow, to create dark circles under the eyes and below the cheekbones. If you have trouble finding the cheekbones, get your victim to purse their lips and suck their cheeks in.

Now you want to shade in the neck. get the model to grit their teeth and grimmace so their neck muscles stand out. Shade the bits in between and either side of the neck muscles. Again, if you wish, you can highlight the base of the neck muscles a bit to make them stand out.

For the eyes, you want quite pale lids but dark eye sockets that match the bags you've done. And around the mouth, you might wish to shade in the little well underneath the nose and above the mouth (the name of which completely escapes the entrie Editorial team at this precise second!). And also a little shading beneath the mouth.

If you combine this with the latex ideas in the other thread I've sugegsted, you can get quite a scary face working for you.

I believe the word you are groping for is 'filtrum'.

F