Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1256324
Photos by Chris Haston/NBC Karen would always be Karen without fault, down to the martini glass she carries while portraying her version of Lucy, Ethel, and Fred. Starting the episode off in the present day, our team worked seamlessly to bring our four favorite characters to life. Darlene Brumfield and Elaine Offers Woulard were responsible for Debra Messing. Double teaming with Darlene, Elaine primed Debra's skin carefully before applying corrective colors to neutralize and brighten her complexion before NARS Radiant Longwear Foundation in Sahel. Highlighting with Ben Nye Total Cover-all Wheel, then shad- ing with Tom Ford's Shading Intensity 1. Working with familiar motion, Darlene styled Debra's gorgeous red hair which was infused with extensions and a topper for fullness creating smooth waves and curls. Tim Burke, Nicole Venables, and I handled Eric McCormack, Sean Hayes, and Megan Mullaly. For Mullaly's Karen, my glam staple was Le Mieux Eye Pads that I use as a stencil for the perfect eye lift and eyeshadow placement that I used for every show. This allowed me more speed (ever so important) without irritation. Her lip colors were perfectly mixed to match her wardrobe. I would start with 2-3 Mac lip pencils for definition and four or five lip colors to create the perfect shade. Tim and Nicole would work in synch wrapping and preparing Karen's chestnut-colored lace front custom wig which was a beast in and of itself that they maintained weekly. One of the largest hurdles for our team with the exceptions of applying bald caps in half the time and keeping the characters straight, was blocking the eyebrows on Hayes' Jack and Messing's Grace "Lucy" looks. After we all watched hours of make-up videos, Elaine Offers Woulard chose the old school make-up technique of applying an Elmer's gluestick and powder, then layer rolling the hair flat, powdering, sealing, drying, and repeating this process five times. Krylon TV Paint Sticks were used to give an opaque coverage and added a couple drops of RCMA foundation thinner to make the make-up easier to work with. Layers were used to completely hide the original brow. She then contoured fake new brow bones that looked exceptional. Hiding the original brow was a huge challenge because Debra's brow was coarse and dark. Elaine's lip choice was Stila Stay All Day Liquid Lipstick in Beso that she also used in the chocolate factory scene to avoid smearing. Elaine finished with two sets of Ardel natural lashes #172. It was absolutely thrilling to watch Debra Messing morph into wide-mouth Lucy; the resemblance was uncanny! For Jack's Lucy, with only 30 minutes to complete, Farah Bunch and I worked on opposite sides of Sean Hayes overlapping and crisscrossing each other, starting with Beard Stipple to neutralize his beard and then blocking his brows using Baldiez and sealer, a tech- nique shared by our bald cap team. In unison, Burke and Venables are placing and applying the wig to cut time. It was a team effort from top to bottom to get everyone perfect. For Eric's Ricky, we needed a deep rich finish; I added Beard Stipple and then proceeded to mix four different shades of water-based foundations and added a fifth for contouring which was extremely popular in the 1950s. Tim Burke applied thickening products and Super Million with coloring pastes to add fullness and height. We then tweaked the brows and laid down the brushes and voilà, Eric became Ricky! To pull off the hair looks in the "Lucy" episode, our hair depart- ment collected pictures, watched video clips and devoured countless