FOTD #3: Evil Clown Halloween Makeup Tutorial

When most people come home from work on a Saturday evening, all they want to do is veg out on the couch, or get a bath, or skip all that and go straight to bed. Not me though!

I'll be spending Halloween in Berlin with my boyfriend (lucky us, we know!) and he wants to dress up as an evil clown for Halloween night. It's my job to do his makeup for it so tonight I practiced how I would like it to be and above is how it turned out. If you liked it, read on to see how I created this fun and scary look!

Start off by painting your face white with facepaint. Try get it as even as you would if you were applying foundation. You can use a sponge or your fingers for best application. Don't forget to cover your lips and eyebrows! If you are a man you may need a thicker coverage facepaint to cover thicker eyebrows and any stubble or facial hair.

You can use either facepaint or eyeliner to create this shape around your nose. I started off with facepaint but later on used liquid eyeliner as it is stronger, more pigmented and dries.

Colour inside the circle to create the clown nose. You can use facepaint or red lipstick, again I used both.

Eyebrows! Again, I used liquid eyeliner and created these swirly, rounded eyebrows. They have to look unnatural in order to look creepy, and this S shape really achieves that. Neaten it up with more white facepaint around the brow when you have finished.

I added these lines above the brows to add to the creepiness and give a three dimensional feel to the look. Besides, wrinkly clowns look scarier don't you think?

For the eyes, I recommend using bright, bold colours like green, blue, yellow or purple. I chose green as that is the colour I had in my facepaint set. I packed this on using an old, flat eyeshadow brush. The key thing to remember here is to apply it right up to the brow bone, otherwise it won't look like a clown. Clowns always have excessive makeup! If you can't create this shape as you go along, draw its outline with a facepaint stick, then fill in the lines. Facepaint is a lot more forgiving than make up so even if you make a mistake you can just cover it with more white facepaint.

The next step is to outline the green eye area to create a harsher look. Then continue to line your eyes, both above and below, and when you reach your tear duct bring the liner out a bit towards your nose. Again, this just adds to the unnatural harshness of the look.

Next I used black facepaint to outline my face and I kept all my white facepaint within this outline.

To create this zig-zag, use a facepaint crayon to make an outward-facing zig-zag pattern. I made mine really messy and blurry, then used eyeliner to draw a proper zig-zag on top of the messy one. I did this because I didn't want it to look too perfect, but still wanted it to be evident that it is a zig-zag shape. I later used a blending brush to dust black eyeshadow all under the eyes, like bags.

Ok this bit is tricky. I did the mouth quite messy because my interpretation of an evil clown does not have perfect teeth but that's entirely down to the individual. I found the easiest way to create the teeth was by outlining my lips with eyeliner. On my top lip I didn't trace my cupids bow but instead drew on top of it to keep the top lip rounded rather than dented by my cupids bow. By this stage you will have had white facepaint on your lips for quite a while so it should have sunken into your lips, leaving those horizontal, crack lines through your lips. I literally traced these with my eyeliner to create teeth. I used more eyeliner where my lips meet to shape the "teeth" and make them appear uneven and cracked. When all this was done, I drew a big lips shape around my actual lips. Ta da!

To create definition and also to darken the look, I used a purple grape coloured lipstick in the outer corners of my "Lips" and blended it inwards. This is optional but I do think it adds to the look.

In this picture I have finished the lips by filling in the empty space with red lipstick (you can also use red facepaint if you'd prefer). I also added curved lines to the edges of my smirk, similar to the brows, just to add to the creepiness!

Add your wig and clown costume and you are good to go!

I hope you enjoyed my tutorial, feel free to leave a link to any tutorials of your own and as always, feedback is much appreciated! 

Happy Halloween!