Dude, your makeup looked awesome. I’ve really wanted to do something like that too, but I have no idea where to start. Would you mind letting me in on the secret as to how you did the ridges/what you used to make them?

Oh gosh thanks! I went pretty low-tech (it was my first try, it was meant to be a one-time thing, and I have no money for fancy moldmaking stuff). I made some molds out of wax and old TV dinner trays, and sort of squished the shapes into the warm wax. Like…inverted sculpting? I used an actual spoon to make the forehead shape. In retrospect, I should have used a smaller one, but it gets the job done.

When the wax had cooled completely, I filled the indentations with silicone putty. I used clear putty because that’s what I had, but black might have been better. Liquid latex might work, too? Once they had set, I pulled them and trimmed them, and filled in as many air holes as I could. They ended up being more like air gaps in some cases,and I couldn’t quite get it smooth. Paint hides a lot though.

After that, it just becomes a matter of gluing (spirit gum) and painting. I typically use a combination of Halloween face paint and eyeshadow to do the dramatic grey skin tone and shading. I draw/shade on the smaller scaly parts like the ends of the eye ridges and the nose ridge, as well as most of the forehead detail. It is possible that a person could use a bald cap to make their lives easier (instead of having a zillion separate parts, glue some pieces to the bald cap and make a mask out of it, and then wig over it or hair the cap) but I haven’t tried this.

I would highly recommend finding a way to cast it in as few pieces as possible. The eyebrow sections of mine are absolutely awful about staying in place!