Sugar Skull Makeup Tutorial

Hello all! This is my first tutorial, so it's not exactly up to par with the usual youtube/blog tutorials I've seen. For example, I'm using my trusty old Iphone for these photos, in my room, with terrible lighting, ha! Anyway, the point is that I'm going to show you how to do this rad sugar skull zombie-esque makeup tutorial. All you need is:

• Black, white, and yellow face paint (I use Mehron)
• Purple (or any theme color you'd like to use) eyeshadow, preferably different shades of one color. 
• Makeup AND paint brushes, along with a painting sponge.
• Liquid eyeliner (it's not mandatory, but it makes things easier!)
• Makeup setting spray, if you need this look to last for awhile!
• Black (or dark purple) lipstick

Okay, now that you have all of your supplies, lets get started!

Step one: First, you're going to need to cover your entire face in white face paint. White is the color I hate the most when covering my whole face, because with a brush it leaves streak marks, and it can also easily become blotchy if you use a sponge that's too wet. So to do this, wet your painting sponge a teeny tiny bit (like literally if you licked your sponge, that's how damp you want it to be!), dip it in your paint, and lightly pat it all over your face. You don't want to brush it, because that leaves streaks, or could wipe the paint off entirely. Be patient, this process could take awhile, especially using white. Don't forget your eyelids! After that's all finished, use a black matte eyeshadow and an angled eyebrow brush to create a cheek shadow. Make a fish face to find the hollow of your cheeks, and just follow your natural shape. Make sure to make the edges sharp, you want the 'shadow' to look creepy! Then blend with your regular eyeshadow brush. If you want, you can add some dark purple in there too; you can't tell in the photo but I added purple to some of the shading!

Step two: Take a very light purple eyeshadow, or whatever color you've decided to incorporate into your sugar skull, and fill in your eyelids, underneath your eyes, above your eyebrows, and almost reaching your temple/hairline. You want big ovals for the eyes, and make sure they're even! Otherwise it looks funky once you start adding the details. Don't add any more eyeshadow other than this light purple until you've outlined the eyes in black, this makes it easier to stay in the lines! You can also use paint, if you'd prefer not to use eyeshadow, but this will make it look a bit flat, and it's a lot harder to get that ombre look!

Step three: Carefully outline the 'eyes' with black paint. It's easier for me to do it in one sweeping motion, instead of little by little. You can go back and fix the uneven parts quicker that way, in my opinion. If you accidentally have some purple leftover outside the black outline, you can use white eyeshadow or white paint and just your fingers to blot it out. Unless you're covering your eyebrows and making them 'invisible', you want to make sure the black outline goes above and beyond them, so you can fill them in with black paint. I don't think you want sugar skull eyes AND eyebrows! (Well, maybe you do. In that case, go for it!) I decided to choose the quicker route to do this, but if you do want a more professional look, you may want to consider concealing your brows!

Step four: Use black paint to make a thick rim around the eyes, then use a medium shade of purple, starting from the rims and blending toward your eye in a complete circle. Leave your eyelid the light purple that you used in step two. After you've successfully blended the medium purple, grab your darkest purple and again, starting at the rim, blend so it fades into your medium purple. After that, use black eyeshadow to blend the black paint in with the dark purple, you don't want a harsh line separating the two colors! Just a heads up, this look requires LOTS of blending to get the ombre eyes! You may have to go back and use the different shades of each color again; and blend, blend, blend away.

Step five: Use a rounded makeup or paint brush to create tiny circles/ridges around the eyes. This step is sort of difficult using yellow and black together, you can use whatever other color you'd like, I just like how those two colors looked next to each other! Again, make sure the brush is really rounded. It makes it super easy to create those little ridges!

Step six: Okay, this part is kind of tough. I totally ran out of liquid eyeliner, so I had no choice but to use a black pencil liner, that's why mine looks kind of sloppy and smudged. Be careful when you're doing this, because if you mess up, its really hard to wipe off with yellow and white face paint underneath it. Don't worry though, mine obviously isn't perfect, I messed up a few times myself! Hopefully you can find some liquid liner or a detail brush laying around, and yours ends up looking better than mine! :P I also added some teeny dots in between the ridges, because I like little details. You can do whatever you want, though!

As for the rest of the look, I leave that to you! Sugar skulls are a great way to show off your creativity, whether you're drawing, painting, or doing one as a makeup. I made mine dark and creepy by adding crosses, spiderwebs, and black lips. I did all of this using black lipstick, black paint and a detail brush, but you can also use liquid liner. The only advice I have to give is have fun with it! Do whatever you think would look cool or edgy. Most Sugar skulls have the traditional spiderweb forehead and sewn lips, but I dare you to try whatever you please!

I actually based this look off of a drawing I did almost a year ago. I drew it originally to do a makeup of it, but I never got around to it until now. I also did a bright, flowery sugar skull that I'll do a tutorial for sooner or later! You can definitely use this look for Halloween or for a party; and you can add little details like black/purple feathers, a tuxedo, etc. I'd love to see what you guys can do with this! Everyone's sugar skull is a little different, and it's one of my favorite things to paint because there are no boundaries!

Here's mine, finished: