Marie Murphy is an internationally renowned makeup artist. She recently was invited to compete in the 2013 Illamasqua Makeup Distinction competition.

This girl is the real deal! She was kind enough to stop by the blog and offer Halloween makeup tips for those less confident with makeup! 

1. Dont be afraid of it, it’s only makeup! Experiment and practice! Use your bodypaint as a base, even if its just one shade! Lay your base down, say it might be white. Now set that with some white powder or transparent powder. Get a fluffy blending brush and use eyeshadow in the hollows of the face to get a gaunt zombie look if thats what your after. If you look at an image of the human skull, you can see the hollows, which are the cheekbones and the eyes. Use a blending brush with a MATTE eyeshadow to shade in these areas to give a gaunt zombie effect, don’t go straight into black, use a matte brown (very important that its matte and not shimmer) and hollow those areas out.

2. You can then use the body paint again to draw in any details, it doesn’t have to be crazy detailed, again, reference the human skull, you can trace in some teeth, or if a zombie looks is what you’re going for, get some impressive contact lenses and some fake blood they will make all the difference!!

3. Experiment, have fun! Try it out on your friends, work your way around the materials and get to grips with blending. Watch Youtube tutorials! This was my very first EVER time using bodypaint after watching a petrilude video 3/4 years ago: https://scontent-b-mia.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-prn1/149542_162037567166029_6637451_n.jpg

I got used to working with the materials, experimented with shading and highlighting and I went from that; to this!

https://scontent-a-mia.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash4/418384_332485590121225_278939883_n.jpg

It’s all about experimenting and most of all, having fun!!