dimanche 15 avril 2018

Tips For Getting Into Character When Doing Your Own Theater Makeup

By Marie Roberts


If you love acting you already know that stage roles in local and regional theaters don't come with professional makeup artists. Knowing your lines, hitting your marks, and setting the right tone are important aspects of your performance. Your appearance, in the form of theater makeup, is also important if you want to be convincing. Seasoned professionals have some advice for actors making up themselves.

The way you make yourself up for the street is not the way you make yourself up for the stage. When the lights hit you, normal cosmetic applications will just look washed out. You need to start with a solid foundation, applied to your neck as well as your face. Getting the color right is very important. There are store consultants who can assist you when you purchase your foundation.

Your eyes are all important, and to emphasize them, you are going to have to invest in some good quality fake eyelashes. The cheap ones don't fit and could fall off in the middle of your performance. Even if you manage to keep them on, they will itch the whole time. Eye shadows in gold, pink, and brown shades are good onstage.

You have to learn how to highlight your face without overdoing it. It's hard to use too much blush though. It might make you look like a clown on the street, but not on the stage. Some inexperienced actors overlook their brows when they are making up their faces. You need to fill your brows in using a good pencil. This is especially important for blondes.

If you ever get to play an accident or murder victim, you'll have to know how to make your wounds look realistic. You can apply liquid latex to the affected area. If you don't have access to the latex, school glue will work just as well. Makeup paint or eye shadow in reds and black work great to simulate blood.

Smudging black and purple eye shadow will simulate bruising if you need to show the aftermath of a fight scene. As the bruise ages, during the course of the play, you can begin to introduce yellow and green shades depicting the fading of the bruise. This may seem like a small detail, but audiences notice.

Hopefully at some point you will have the opportunity to play a character that requires you to age or start out as a much older person than you actually are. To make this role believable, you will need some liquid latex to make wrinkles. Once it dries on your face, you will remove it and apply plenty of makeup, making sure it gets into the creases in your skin.

You may never become a famous actress, but you can live out some of your fantasies on local stages. It's a great way to express your creative self. Skillfully applied makeup will add to the experience and help you get into character.




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