A couple of weeks ago I was fortunate to take a workshop put on by The Hollywood Makeup Academy in San Diego taught by Drew Talbot. The class went over the application and coloring of foam latex prosthetic pieces, bald caps, and hand laying facial hair. It was fantastic getting further training and guidance with these techniques. I had done some very simple bald caps prior, and some work with prosthetics, but having hands on practice was so wonderful. I’m so excited to practice more and create new characters in the future. From when I first got into makeup, creating unreal things has always excited me and pushed me to learn more. I loved fantasy and sci-fi as a child and dreamed of escaping my day to day life and to be surrounded by the surreal. And with makeup I’m able to bring the far off worlds into reality.

I had been given the pig nose and horns on the second day of the class and decided to try and keep my ‘pigmon’ based in reality by giving him a more realistic paint job. Initially he looked too “sweet” so decided to make him appear a bit creepier by adding in the eye shading and adding some maroon tones. I decided for the facial hair to give him some “pork chops” (if you didn’t chuckle at that there is no helping you), and the goatee so he would have a kind of biker feel to him. You can click through the gallery to see some of the various steps and the final images too. ( my model took selfies whenever he could to document the whole process)

I would have loved to had also given him som ears and tusk teeth, however they weren’t available in the workshop (next time though, that’s so happening!)
And I of course need to give a huge thanks to my long time friend and former roommate John Beers for being such a fantastic model! He drove with me down to San Diego and back, and even wore the prosthetics all the way back so we could get these great images. Sitting through this process is long and not super comfortable. But he did it like a champ and was cracking jokes the entire time!