Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/910903
THE ARTISAN FALL 2017 • 43 THE ARTISAN FALL 2017 • 43 Production was still searching and had not hired a Department Head for Make-up or Hair. For part of the streamlining pro- cess, Shane Mahan, Lindsay MacGowan and I had discus- sions with the producers about stepping outside the norm of make-up and hair departments and creating a legitimate third "Legacy Effects" make-up department. Like most make-up departments, ours had artists who did corrective, beauty and prosthetic make-up, but we would also include an internal hair department. This way, during the design process, L.E. could discuss and decide the flow of creation of all aspects of the characters' make-ups, prosthetics or hair before we started the build. On set, this translated into shorter application times, as the actors did not have to trailer hop, or sometimes not have to chair hop. As the Legacy Effects Department Head, I could maintain the integrity of the intended look that was created back at the shop. The work for the film's characters were divided up between the L.E. prosthetic department, the make-up department and the hair department. Gamora The original prosthetic design for Zoe Saldana's "Gamora" consisted of a silicone forehead, and right and left silicone cheek pieces. Zoe was not a fan of having "all of this alcohol- based make-up sprayed all over her face," so the search was on to find something more skin-friendly. For the testing phase, we cast a local model to be our guinea pig until we were ready to bring the goods to Zoe's face. We combined the three separate silicone facial pieces into one forehead and cheek silicone wrap. This would clean up the "crow's feet" area and save some time with less edges that needed to be blended. Like the original design, we carried the forehead deep onto the top of the head so that we had scalp material there so that through the part of the wig, we would be able to see "green skin." Between finding the right thick- nesses, to the right depth of the "metal" elements in her face, to the best place to end the sculpture for movement purposes, L.E. ended up doing at least a dozen versions of the Gamora forehead cheek wrap. Glen Hanz, Mario Torres, Shane Mahan and I worked on these variations. Vera Steimberg is Zoe's personal make-up artist, and was also part of her make-up team on the first Guardians movie. When it came to redesigning her coloration, we knew we needed to involve her right away. We poured through the con- tinuity and application notebooks from the first film to see what we could change and streamline. During Vera's and my discussions about moving from so much of the traditional alcohol-based make-ups, I remem- bered a conversation I had on the X-Men set with one of my crew, make-up artist Julie Socash. On Dancing with the Stars, they had used ProAiir Professional Body Make-up from Donna Nowak's ShowOffs Body Art. She described it as a very hearty body paint and safe for kids. The "Hybrid" formula is made with a highly refined cosmetic alcohol which is practi- cally odorless. The initial tests with the Hybrid ProAiir were great and it did prove to be long-lasting. I mixed up two color samples from Gamora's base palette, and sent them off so that we could get the color in bulk. ProAiir has a very matte finish to it, almost too matte. I mixed in some of Nik Dorning's BlueBird Gloss into the formula, and it gave the make-up the suppleness that we needed. Vera and I did a few tests on our local model, figuring out the best way to lay down the colors to keep its vibrancy. We narrowed down the coloring process to 10 layers, a combination of MAC make-up, ProAiir, BlueBird and minimal translucent use of Skin Illustrator to bring us to her Gamora green skin tone. The silver implants in her skin were achieved by painting the sculptural element with Zoe Saldana as Gamora Applying Gamora's palette