The Vampire – An old classic
Vampires are one of the classic characters of horror movies. Face-painting the classic vampire look requires only three colors: white, red and black (plus an eyebrow pencil). First, paint the entire face white. Outline your eyes with a solid line of black. Next, apply a light coat of black to the eyelids (or you can use purple for a really dramatic look). You can emphasize the eyebrows in a color that matches your hair or wig color. Paint your lips a rich, deep red. You might want to add a bit of red at the corner of your mouth to look like a drop of blood. Then you can grab some fake fangs and you’re all set.
Get Your Creepiness on With A Witch
The witch is another very popular Halloween look. Traditionally, people use green for the base color for scary witches, but you can mix it up and use blue, yellow or another color if you want a different look. Outline your eyes in black. You can create “wrinkles” by using a black or dark gray pencil to make wavy lines on the forehead and around the mouth. Use faint lines for best results. Your lips should be painted black. If you want an extra bit of creepiness, use some fake flesh to make warts and put them on the nose, chin or forehead before painting your face. A bit of tooth black can be used to give the appearance of missing teeth.
Skull-face, Anyone?
Halloween just wouldn’t be complete without a few skeletons. In order to create a skull-face, paint your whole face white, including your lips. If you apply a wide circle of black around each eye, you will create the appearance of empty sockets. Next, paint the bottom third of the nose black. Use a black pencil to draw teeth over the lips and to draw “cracks” in the skull. Wearing a skullcap and/or hood will hide your hair and thereby further the illusion.
Frankenstein’s Monster – Another Great Classic
Another horror movie favorite is Frankenstein’s Monster. It only uses green and black face paint. First you paint the entire face and neck green. Using a black pencil, outline the eyes and draw in thick, bushy eyebrows. Next, draw three thin black horizontal lines on the forehead to look like wrinkles. Paint your lips black. You might want to attach black “bolts” to the sides of your neck to make it look more real.
Want To Be A Scary Clown?
Another great horror staple is the scary clown. As with most clown faces, begin with an all-white base, but for variety you can freely use any color you like for the base. Some people merely paint the features onto their bare skin, leaving the natural flesh tone as the base.
Clown faces give the artist a great deal of flexibility and plenty of room to get creative. You might choose to design a very dramatic scary clown by penciling in some spiky black eyebrows, then shading in the eye area with bold, ragged sweeps of color and drawing on a bright-red grin with sharp teeth showing. You may choose to take a more subtle path and make a happy clown face, then mar it by adding a few drops of blood near the corner of your mouth.
As you can see Halloween face painting ideas for adults is limited only by your imagination and willingness to think outside the box. No matter what you decide as a theme for your costume, the important thing is to have fun with it!
