And now another of the majorly busy seasons has passed. Halloween gigs are usually a very lucrative time, but several of my gigs had to pull out due to the wildfires in Sonoma. I still did a sweet family-friendly Halloween party in Napa, and then I also had a peculiar gig Halloween night being a creepy clown.
Let me preface this by saying clowns usually do a lot of work to distance themselves from being creepy. I had some doubts about whether I should even be doing this job. The client had cited Twisty of American Horror Story and Pennywise as what they would like for their office party. I figured why not take the chance to try something different? We can find growth in uncomfortable places.
After a bit of research on creepy clowns I noticed some commonalities. You rarely saw explicit gore or blood. White tended to be their dominant color, unlike most scary things, though their whites also tended to be a bit dirty. Subtle details and the unchanging aspects of the makeup were the root of their creepy. Think about the plastered-on smiles, and the idea that those smiles seem so fake. I note in both iterations of Pennywise the oversize forehead tends to be one of the main unsettling details.
My concept was to do deep scar makeup that would show through the normaliah clown makeup. I hoped this would convey that underneath the makeup something was wrong. I stuck to primaries, but rooted the entire thing in white pants and white frilly shirt. The major detail for me was to black out my teeth, so if I did smile with an open mouth you would see pointy teeth. I spent several dats redoing a basic clown poof wig into a medusa-life dreaded mess. Think Sideshow Bob hair.
I succeeded in scaring the hell out of the office party! You can check out details of the makeup process on my Youtube channel, and lots of creepy pictures! Happy Halloween!
Now back to being a sweet and family-friendly clown.
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