Were you ever creeped out or given the heebie jeebies as a kid from movies that others loved? Well, the top of that list of many for me is the Wizard of Oz. For years this creepy thought stayed in my head until I became a professional SFX Makeup artist. I wanted to come up with something original, not often seen before—quite the challenge for in this day and age. So that’s where the idea comes from the things that weird you out, that make you feel uncomfortable. The idea of doing something every day that makes you uncomfortable and challenges is where this whole journey even starts. The process of creating this makeup series was a two-year idea. The first year was actually at Dark Hour. I would’ve done it that year, but I worked for the haunted house as an actress and an SFX makeup artist for 20 long hard nights, which meant all my time went to them and my other full-time marketing job. You will not hear me complaining about that because not only did I share my ideas, but it helped mold the characters into who they are now. Working with creatives in the industry like Allen Hopps and soo many others pushed my creative ideas to the art you see now. Looking back, grander ideas for a Bionic Lion were a possibility. I will incorporate that bad-ass idea into something in the future, so stay tuned. Below I will describe the thought process and a brief explanation of the SFX makeup.

Dorthy- The main character! She had to be beautiful and Gorey, but how to depict her with this twist was one of my favorite ideas. As we know, or if you don’t, Dorothy enters Wizard of Oz through a massive tornado, which turns her life upside into the land of Oz. My thoughts concluded this time; she would not make it through scotch-free. This time the Wicked Witch of the East had one more casualty, Dorothy’s Eyeball. As for the SFX portion of Dorothy Eyeball Makeup, you can watch my process here.

First and foremost, you will always need to check yourself and others for skin allergies and proceed with caution when using any new products. This SFX makeup involves proximity to your eye with adhesives. 

A breakdown of the process. You will need a small image of an eye color close to your own; I printed a green iris (or you could paint your own). I then bought some polymorph plastic from Amazon here. You heat this material with warm water and mold it into a ball. I used clear nail polish to add the iris to the ball, but any glue will adhere to the plastic polymorph ball’s iris. Once you have made the eyeball, we need to make the tendons. I made the tendons from yarn; I used different red colors, but you can find a link to that product here. I then applied the yarn with Elmer’s glue to the eye, making sure to spread it out in a vein-like pattern. We also need to make an eyelid; you can use a bald cap or spread some liquid latex out on a plate and let it dry. The next step comes to application onto the eye. Safely and carefully! First, you need to block your eyebrow with a washable glue stick; this will protect your eyebrow from any pros-aide or liquid latex you may use to apply the cotton pad. Once you have safely applied the cotton pad around your eye and dried it, you can paint it black. Next, you will need to strategically fold the bald cap or dried liquid latex into the eyelid. I use false eyelashes to sell this look more. After you have an empty eye socket, it’s time to adhere the tendons to the eye carefully. Add some freaky fake blood but not too much; you don’t want to cover up your beautiful SFX makeup. 

If you would like to see where I learned this process, I frequently seek Ellimacs tutorials to gather knowledge, and you can find that here.