Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1529095
THE ARTISAN WINTER 2025 • 17 PHOTOS BY MORIS PUCCIO/ LEGENDARY ENTERTAINMENT LaKeith and I did a deep dive into the psychology of the twins—one of whom, Clarence, was living on the streets, supporting his mother, and the other, omas, was living more comfortably as an apostle of Jesus Christ with no responsibility other than the study of faith. LaKeith wanted there to be subtle differences in skin tone between the two. He wanted omas to be slightly lighter skinned and Clarence to be deeper, in order to illustrate the way African Americans with lighter skin are treated in one way versus those with darker skin treated another way. Going with this idea, I suggested that we give omas different eye colours. I remember when I visited Trinidad how enthralled I had been seeing so many beautiful shades of caramel skin with blue/green eyes and I suggested that we do this for omas ... and with this in mind, we make his hair, a wig that would be a large Afro, have a soer curl to it—more of a Jheri Stanfield as Clarence. Inset: Clarence gets more cleaned up. Smokey eye done with Moroccan kohl, beard gets neater. curl—and incorporate some so copper tones into it. e same for omas' beard. We would do a full hand-laid beard that would be lighter and warmer with a soer texture and would look like a godly cloud. I used Siân Richards Hydroproof Colours and made a custom palette for LaKeith for the movie for his skin tones. ey enabled me to change his skin lighter or deeper easily and quickly, and I did his character work with them too. I lightened omas' eyebrows with Bluebird Highlight palette mixed with Siân Richards Alco Colour Palette Oliva. Clarence, by contrast, would be deeper, dirtier and with a tighter texture in his facial hair. We would give him a more full beard than LaKeith already had, but keep the texture more contracted. Also, I do love a man with a smokey eye and drawing from Middle Eastern male culture of using surma or kohl in their eyes, I wanted to give LaKeith