Are you hiring?	Will you look at my portfolio?
I'm just starting out, what advice so you have to offer?
What is the best makeup school?	What kind of schooling do you offer?
Can you send me a course catalog?	Do I have to go to school to become a makeup artist?
Do you have any prosthetics/makeup for sale?
Can you recommend any good makeup books? A good makeup case? The best products?
Can you give me some tips on age makeup? Animal makeup? Character Makeup?

Are you hiring?

The short answer is most likely no. Living Mask is a small company (sometimes consisting of just one person). We're not working on many large projects at this time. However, if you'd like to send a résumé, we'd be happy to keep it on file and contact you if we have a need for more artists

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Will you look at my portfolio?

I'd be happy to look at your portfolio, and give you any advice or suggestions I can. If you're looking for work from me, please see the question above.

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I'm just starting out, what advice so you have to offer?

Practice, practice, practice

Be the best makeup artist you can be. There are too many people out there that call themselves makeup artists who really aren't any good. There isn't enough work to support all the good makeup artists let alone the bad ones. Dick Smith once asked me how much practice time I put in to my makeup. That's a question you should ask yourself. A professional musician wouldn't dream of going on stage without practicing several hours every day. Why should a makeup artist be any different?

Be Passionate About Makeup

It is not only important to be good at makeup, you must also be passionate about it to stay afloat in this industry. With the number of people wanting to be makeup artists greatly outnumbering the number of makeup jobs, you will have to work very hard to find work. If you are not passionate about what you do, there are 5 or 10 people who are, that would be glad to have the job instead of you.

You will also find, once you get that job, that makeup in film and theater can be long and often stressful hours. You will find yourself working as quickly as you can for an hour or two, followed by periods of up to an hour or two where you sit around doing almost nothing. If you are not passionate about doing makeup, this sort of schedule can quickly burn you out. A typical filming day is usually 10 to 14 hours long, but can be as long as 18 hours long. The makeup artist is usually one of the first people to arrive and one of the last to leave. These hours can really wear you out, so you want to be sure that this is the profession you want to be going into.

Attitude, attitude, attitude

Know your abilities and your limitations, and be willing to admit that you don't know how to do something. One of the worst things I've seen is someone who says that they know how to do something, and then proceeds to do it all wrong.

Be willing to admit your weaknesses as well as your strengths. I've found that people trust in you more if you are willing to admit that you are weak in certain areas, rather than pretending that you are strong in all areas.

There is however a fine balance of how much you should tell people you don't know. If you've never done any prosthetics, don't take a job doing prosthetics. However, if you've never done 1930's makeup, but you have done 1950's makeup, it is safe to take that job, and never mention that you've never done 30's makeup before. Just be sure you understand what 30's makeup looks like so that you can recreate that look.

No Gossip!

Gossip is fine for everyone but you. It's fine to listen to, but not to dish out. This goes for badmouthing too. You have no idea if the gaffer you're gossiping to is the cousin of the producer that you're badmouthing. You don't know if that script supervisor is best friend of the star you are gossiping about. Things get back to people, and if you gossip and badmouth, you will quickly find yourself not being asked back to work with people.

Market yourself

Spend the time and money to get your name out there as much as possible. Have a website built for yoyu, get good business cards made, and put together an incredible portfolio. Your portfolio should show only your best work. It is more important to have quality over quantity. Even if your resume shows that you've done a lot of work, it is going to be your portfolio that will show an employer what kind of work you are capable of.

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What is the best makeup school?

That's like asking what is the best kind of vehicle to drive. Do you want a boat or a car or a plane? Do you need four wheel drive? Are you looking for something with good gas mileage? The same types of questions apply when you are thinking about schools to go to. Do you want to do film, fashion, theatre, television? Do you want to learn animatronics? Do you want to learn hair and makeup, or just makeup?

To Find the right School, first ask yourself a few questions: What skills do I have? What skills do I want to learn? What direction do I want to take my career? Once you've answered those questions start looking into schools (there is a list of Schools on our Links Page). See what they have to offer, and what they don't offer. Look for the schools that offer classes that best match the answers to your questions. Do you really want to learn to make wigs? Then find a school that offers wig knotting. If you have no interest in animatronics, then it's silly to choose a school that has 5 weeks of animatronics in their basic program. Once you've gotten the marketing material from the schools, compare skill for skill what the school teaches. This will help you find the school that best fits your needs. Next compare prices. Break down each program into how many hours of actual education you are receiving then divide the tuition by that number of hours. The following scenario gives you an idea of what I'm talking about:

Two schools might have comparable 6 month program, School #1 is $10,000 while school #2 is $13,000. Well the choice seems simple. Go with school #1. But wait, the first school only teaches class for 5 hours a day, while the second one teaches 7 hours a day. When we break that down, we find that School #1 gives you 650 hours of education for $15.39 an hour, while school #2 gives you 910 hours of class time for $14.29 an hour. If you ended up going to school #1 you'd be paying $1.10 more an hour and getting 260 fewer hours of class time. Now which seems like the better choice? Mind you, cost shouldn't be you main factor in choosing a school, but it certainly is a factor.

Once you've done your breakdowns, narrow your list of choices to two or three schools. Write up a list of questions to ask the school registrars. Some questions might include: What are your teachers credentials? Can I see their résumés? What sort of job placement assistance do you offer? Does your school offer photo shoots or video sessions? What type of makeup products do you use?

Call, or better still, visit the school and talk to the registrar, tour the facilities, and get a feeling for whether the school is right for you.

Lastly it is time to narrow the choice down to one school. If you've made all your breakdowns, and asked all the right questions, then the choice should be simple.

One last thought on schools. Understand that any makeup school you go to is just going to cover the basics. When you leave the school, you will have a beginning knowledge of all (or at least most of) the basic skills you need to start your career. No school is going to make you an expert in 4 to 8 months. While they may tell you you're a pro and that you now know everything there is to know about makeup, real professionalism is in your attitude and your experiences. No one wants to work with someone who acts like they know everything (especially when they don't). Remember that you will continue to learn new things with every job you have.

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What kind of schooling do you offer?

We offer group workshops, and one-on one classes. Please see our Services Page for more information about classes. Please also see the information below about course catalogs.

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Can you send me a course catalog?

Living Mask does not have a course catalog, because we do not offer regularly scheduled classes. If you have a group (a school, community theater, etc.) and would like a class taught, please Contact Us and we can discuss creating a workshop to suit your needs. If you are an individual, and you want to learn a certain skill, please Contact Us, and we can arrange a time to meet and set up a one-on- one class

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Do I have to go to school to become a makeup artist?

It depends who you ask. There are two schools of thought on this question. The people who went to school will tell you that school is the best thing that ever happened to them and that yes you absolutely MUST go to school. The people who are self taught will tell you that school is a big waste of money, and that everything you need to learn can be learned from books.

Where do I stand on the issue? Well, when I started doing makeup I taught myself everything, stage makeup, film makeup, and prosthetics. Then I decided to go to school to refine my skills and to learn fashion makeup, wig-knotting, and hairstyling. Could I have learned those from a book? Absolutely. I felt that school was a better way to structure my learning.

So back to the original question: Do you have to go to school? If you are someone who can structure your own time well, and can easily learn from books, then by all means the information is out there, and you don't need to go to a school to get it. If, on the other hand, you like the structure a school has to offer, you learn better by seeing someone do something, and you want a basic overview of makeup skills, then schools are a good way to go.

Are Schools a waste of money? No, I don't think so. If you find a good school, with good teachers, you can learn a lot of information in a short time.

One last thought on schools. I know I said this above, but it bears repeating. Understand that any makeup school you go to is just going to cover the basics. When you leave the school, you will have a beginning knowledge of all (or at least most of) the basic skills you need to start your career. No school is going to make you an expert in 4 to 8 months. While they may tell you you're a pro and that you now know everything there is to know about makeup, real professionalism is in your attitude and your experiences. No one wants to work with someone who acts like they know everything (especially when they don't). Remember that you will continue to learn new things with every job you have.

For a list of Schools, go to our Link Page

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Do you have any prosthetics/makeup for sale?

At this time Living Mask only offers customized prosthetics created for individual projects.. If you have a specific need in mind, we can create a custom prosthetic for you on a generic face cast, but we do not keep generic prosthetics in stock.

We have been looking into creating our own makeup product line, but at this time, do not have any products to offer.

For a list of great stores, please visit our Link Page.

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Can you recommend any good makeup books? A good makeup case? The best products?

A list of makeup books can be found on our Link Page. Of the books listed, I would reccomend that every makeup artist own a copy of Richard Corson's stage makeup.

As far as most products are concerned, this is a personal chioce, and changes depending on the type of project. While I find Ben Nye products best for most stage performances, I use Ben Nye, Visiora, and even makeup purchased from drug stores for film projects.

Please see our Link Page for a list of suppliers. Makeupkits.com has excellent prices on makeup cases, and Seemings Costumes has great prices on Ben Nye and Mehron products.

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Can you give me some tips on age makeup? Animal makeup? Character Makeup?

I'd be happy to give you tips on a specific makeup project of yours. However, the best tip I can give is that you read up on the subject. There are countless excellent books on the subject of makeup and special makeup effects. Please see our Link Page for a list of books. Many of these books can also be found at your local library. If you still have questions, please Contact Us.

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