Focusing on one character for practice
The Joker
One of the most famous perceptions of the character of The Joker was Heath Ledgers take in the film The Dark Knight. This particular version of the character defied the normal representation of him as the joker is usually presented as being very clean cut, block coloured and sharp. However, in Heath Ledgers joker, he was tatty, messy, broken and this form of makeup was so powerful and bold in my opinion. This complete contradiction of Jack Nickolson's joker was still presenting the same characteristics, yet their appearances were very juxtaposed. The makeup artist responsible for this makeup was john caglione jr who won an award for the makeup done in this film.
I wanted to play around with perceptions of the jokers character with makeup, I found it interesting to compare the stereotypical portrayal with the idea I had inside my head and the ideas of others. Knowing this, I decided to begin exploring this by doing makeup on a model but instead of simply doing makeup that I had already planned out, I would ask them to guide me as to how they saw the character and wanted them to appear. This would also link to the drawings they had previously done as to bring their own character to life on their own face. I did not allow my model to look into a mirror during this process as I wanted the outcome to be purely what they thought the makeup should look like, not changing or altering which would be likely if they could see the development of the face in the mirror.
I allowed the model to completely take control of what I was doing, choosing colours, shapes, what sized brushes I was using so that I was purely working for them and they were my client. Doing this was very helpful in my development as I was able to create something completely new and fresh that was a collaboration of my eye as the artist and someone els' ideas which is definitely what I wanted from when I first came up with my idea for the project. Additionally, the process took a lot less time than a normal piece as I went into the piece with no previous ideas of plans of what I was doing, therefore not spending time on specific intimate details. I was able to purely go with what my model was saying in a much more care free way of working.
In my opinion, the finished piece held The Jokers character very well, yet also not being a stereotypical representation. When I showed the piece to several people, many of them couldn't identify the character we were working with, however I found this to be a sign success in this area of the project as you have to look deeper into the shapes, colours and mood to see who is being portrayed.
Other people that attempted The Joker makeup which I used as a reference to give me an idea of how I would go about doing that makeup in a comic/cartoon way.
This particular person did the modern day version of The Joker from the film 'Suicide squad' which was not as comic like as I wanted mine to be, however when on this video another makeup piece was suggested to me by an artist called Jordan Hanz (video below)
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