Pop Art Make-up Tutorial
In the 1950s, Pop Art established itself as an artistic movement in England and the U.S., centering on simple everyday objects and dime novel motifs. Alongside Andy Warhol, one of the top figures of the genre was the painter, Roy Lichtenstein. In his work he imitated the drawing style of comics and combined it with the low resolution of industrial printing technology. This resulted in colorful, unmistakable comic characters with flashily dotted skin. Here we bring his paintings to life so you can transform yourself into a live work of pop art. Our professional make-up how-to is perfect for turning heads at any costume event. So, here goes.
BEFORE AFTER
Materials & Preparation
Set up your work space and lay out all the materials you’re going to need. To transform yourselves into living Pop Art, you’ll need the following:
• 4 or 5 make-up brushes in various sizes (Make-up Brush surface, Professional Make-Up Brush flat small, Professional Make-Up Brush, Professional Make-Up Brush angled, Make-up Brush detail)
• several cotton swabs
• maskworld aqua make-up (We used these colors: no. 090 black, no. 000 white, no. 273 poppy, no. 445 Honolulu)
• a make-up sponge
• effect contact lenses (extraterrestrial style used here)
• false eyelashes (burlesque style used here)
• Yellow wig or yellow and black hair spray
• Pop Art Girl Costume
• Pop Art Guy Costume
Tip: Before you start, moisten your face with a common face cream. This will create a nice base for the aqua make-up and keep your skin from drying out.
Pop Art Make-up Step-by-Step
1. First put in your blue effect contact lenses. We used maskworld Extraterrestrial Effect Contact Lenses. Their vibrant blue make your eyes look like they’re from a cartoon.
2. Following this you can begin applying your make-up. Prime your face and neck in white with a make-up sponge.
3. Then, beginning on the forehead, use a thin brush to draw a black line diagonally across your nose down into your neck. This line will be a point of orientation for the following steps, which revolve around shadowing: outlining, filling in and building on the darker areas that form the make-up’s base.
4. Start with the shadow on the neck. The lines should be diagonal, forming a sort of triangle. Now color it in black with a wide brush.
5. Outline and fill in rough triangles on both cheeks.
6. There is black shadowing under your nose and nostrils as well. You can now carefully broaden the line you drew at the beginning.
7. Using a make-up brush, paint your upper lip black.
8. To make your eyes look bigger, draw in fake eyebrows and highlight the crease of your eyelids. With a fine brush draw the general contour of an eyebrow, placing it a bit above your real eyebrow. Widen the line generously with black.
9. Repeat this process with your other eyebrow.
10. Next, draw in the eyelid creases either on your real eyebrows or a bit below them.
11. Using a fine brush and the color black, add some thick eyeliner to your lower eyelids. You can finish off the lines with upward flicks to give them the effect of eyelashes.
12. Now draw two very fine lines, one longer and one shorter, along the side of your nose.
13. The edge of your lower eyelid should be approx. one centimeter below your real eyelid. Don’t forget to do both eyes!
14. Color in your lower lip with bold red and add an elongated, yet small fleck of white to evoke the reflection of the light.
15. To highlight the eyes even more, use a make-up brush and white to reinforce the strip between the your lower eyelid and the one you created. This area does not get dotted.
16. Do the same on both of your upper eyelids.
17. And now for the moment we’ve all be waiting for: the dots! It doesn’t matter which side of the face you start on as long as you apply the dots in horizontal rows. Start on your forehead, carefully placing the dots in blue one after the other. Use a cotton swab for this. They’re great for creating even, round dots and absorb a lot of aqua make-up. Be sure to use a new cotton swab every couple of lines, as the cotton begins to detach from the handle after a while.
Tip: To apply the dots you can also use the eraser end of a pencil or the handle of a thick powder brush.
18. If you’re not planning on wearing a wig, don’t forget to add a few dots to your ears.
19. Now you can start applying red dots to the other side of your face. Use cotton swabs and make clean rows.
20. Keep on dot, dot, dotting all the way down to your collarbone, or to where your costume or clothes stop showing your skin and start covering you.
21. For increased comic-factor, glue on some long false eyelashes.
22. Put on a yellow wig or spray your hair with yellow and black hair spray and style accordingly.
Pop! You’re a work of art! Men, if you’re not into being a Pop Art lady, be a Pop Art man. In our rendition your hair gets sprayed black and blue.
There’s more where that came from! Check out some of our other professional make-up how-tos:
Grumpy Cat
Wild Thing
Put her in a museum!
The crew @ maskworld.com