Screen Vampires have been portrayed as both horrifying and glamorous with many shades in between. With constant reinvention this is a genre within which new make-up styles always seem welcome.
Basic Vampire Make-up:
Vampire styles from the Gothic novel Dracula to Buffy the Vampire Slayer all have a few things in common.
- Pale skin: White greasepaint is ideal for creating the traditional Romantic Gothic look and works well for stage, screen, fancy dress and Halloween. If applied with care, this can be dramatic and convincing. Blend a small amount of greasepaint into skin with a sponge. Take care to cover all areas of visible skin including hairline, hands and throat and do not stop at the chin.
- Coloring hair darker makes most people look paler and either sickly or sexy. For glamor, blow dry hair and use a serum to get a dark shine. Look at Underworld (2003, Len Wiseman) to see a glamorous modern Vampire look.
- Blood on lips is usually fresh, clean and bright rather than Zombie gore.
Fangs:
Individual fangs are cheap to buy in make-up shops. For budget make-up these can be dressed with some tooth enamel to look sparkling white. However, the best teeth will always be made to fit the actor. This requires time, money and special facilities but molding and making teeth for horror characters is a very rewarding pastime for anyone interested in special effects.
An easier way is to buy a full set of nylon fangs or hire a prosthetic artist who specializes in dentistry to make a unique pair. Whichever route is chosen, having poorly realized fangs always looks terrible and badly fitting ones will be impossible to wear whilst speaking.
Recent productions have used CGI to give the look of fangs appearing: An example of this is the 2005 remake of the Salems Lot mini series.
Made-up Vampires:
- From the late 1980s Vampires took on a healthier look. Examples of this include The Lost Boys (1987, Joel Schumacher) and the Buffy and Angel series' throughout the 1990s. These relied on simple prosthetic nose and forehead pieces. Whilst being unconventional they were used to great effect to change actors into monsters. Foam latex is an easy way to create this kind of small scale prosthetic piece which can then be blended in to the skin. For Buffy fans it is even possible to buy named nose pieces in make-up shops. The rest of the Vampire was created with slightly paler skin and fangs but the general appearance of these characters was otherwise fairly healthy and modern.
- Traditional Vampires have been extremely made up to look absolutely horrifying. The original mini series of Salem's Lot (1979) featured humans turning in to Vampires by way of developing a penchant for navy shimmer eye shadow. However none can argue that the main Vampire in the series is very scary: Bald headed, pale and with terrifying fangs and eyes he is barely human. This take on the traditional Nosferatu look requires a bald cap, teeth and plenty of pale make-up. Other prosthetic pieces such as claws and ears could also be employed. With modern materials this could actually look realistic on screen if desired.
The Naturalistic Vampire:
A wave of recent films has stepped away from monster effects to create Vampires with little more than fangs and pale make-up. The subtlety of this approach has not only connected with the human element of Vampires but in so doing, adds to the horror. It is also relevant to the stories of such films which deal with more than a simple battle between good and evil. A different kind of terror has been realized.
Examples include Let the Right One In (2009, Thomas Alfredson) and The Night Watch (2005, Timur Bekmabetov).
- This look is easy to achieve with staples such as a very pale foundation. Blend make-up as if for a photograph; it must not show.
- Vampires here look sickly again with either bitten fevered lips or no color at all.
- Make sure that all skin on display is made-up, especially in the case of tanned bodies or groomed fingers.
- Teeth need to be the highest quality so that they do not appear at odds with the realism of the look.
With so many trends in vampire make-up it is possible for a make-up artist to create a truly unique look as well as to complement the style, story or content of a film. This is an example of when it is really fun to be a make-up designer and to be able to get involved in the ideas of a film away from the plain functionality of make-up. With Vampire films remaining endlessly popular it must only be time before another successful Vampire make-up trend is started.
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