Corpse Bride

Day 28 of 31 days of Halloween is none other than Emily, the Corpse Bride. I’m a huge Tim Burton fan and I had to include another character of his in this makeup challenge. This is a really easy character and is still stunning. Here’s how to do it.

Costume

You can go all out with an old torn up wedding gown or a legit costume. But keep in mind that you’ll need to paint your whole body to match the face and chest makeup I describe in this post. A blue wig is one of the elements that make the character really recognizable, so definitely grab one. Mine is from Walmart. Make sure you have a veil as well. The one I used is perfectly distressed from Party City. Okay now let’s get on to the makeup.

Face/Body

If you want to block out your eyebrows for this look in order to make sure the brows are very thin and true to the character (painting them on above the actual brows), now would be the time to do so. I provide a detailed description of how to block out your brows in this post. If you decide not to, follow the same process as me and start out with your body paint.

To get Emily’s perfect dead blueish shade, mix together a white and turquoise body paint. I used the Snazaroo water activated paints because they dry down to a matte finish and are perfect to blend eyeshadow on top of. Paint your whole face, leaving your eye sockets bare. Also paint your neck and chest the same color. Once you finish the makeup, you’ll need to paint the rest of your body that shows in your costume with this color. You may need to layer the color on a couple of times to make sure the finish isn’t patchy.

After everything has dried, you can start the contouring. The Corpse Bride is very thin and skeletal, so the contouring is really important for this look. Take a dark grey eyeshadow and go in HEAVILY into all the hollow points on the face and chest. Contour under the cheekbones, the temples and around the hairline, on either side of the nose, under the jawline, through the neck tendons, collar bones, and where the breast bone starts. Extend the contour from under the cheekbones all the way down each side of the mouth for a really sickly effect. Feel free to use a picture of the character to see where everything is emphasized. You can also reference my photos to get an idea of the placement. After contouring, make sure to highlight. go over the high points of the face lightly with a white cream makeup: the cheekbones, center of the forehead, brow bones and down the center of the nose. Pat it out lightly so that the highlights and contours are still very strong but still blended. Set the white cream with a white eyeshadow. The colors I used for both the highlighting and contouring are from the Saucebox Etude Palette.

For the lips, Emily still has a awesome pinky shade of lipstick, even though she’e dead. Colourpop Cheap Thrills liquid lipstick is the perfect mauve color for this step. Once your lipstick is on and has dried down, shade with the grey eyeshadow in the center inner part of the lips and the cupids bow. You can even shade under your bottom lip as well.

With black Snazaroo paint and a detail brush, draw on your concerned eyebrows with a little upward flick at the inner edges. You can incorporate your natural brows like I did, or go above them and draw on new ones if you already blocked out your eyebrows.

Eyes

In the blank space of skin around the eye sockets, lay down some white body paint. Right up against the bottom lash line and all over the eyelid, apply the NYX Jumbo Eye Pencil in the color Milk. Once that is all blended out and opaque, set it in place with white eyeshadow. The white will serve as Emily’s large, buggy eyes. Enhance them with some white contacts. Mine are from Ttdeye in the style Zombie Curse. ***Use coupon code: “anniessa” on your purchase to get 10% off!***

Under the white paint, or at the bottom of our new eyeball, trace the edge with black eyeliner and feel free to shade slightly underneath the white color to create a new lower lash line. I glued on some dollar store spikey false lashes along the new painted lash line.

On the eyelids themselves, go for definition and emphasis of the roundness of the eyes. I used the oldie but goodie Urban Decay Ammo Palette. The shade Polyester Bride went all over the lid, Shattered (a pearly blue) went up into the crease, and Last Call went tightly into the outer corners. Apply liquid eyeliner and mascara. The false lashes I used are the Flutter Lashes Ersatz in the stye #iSlay.

Cue the organ! Corpse Bride is ready! Thanks for reading about my transformation into this awesome Halloween character. I’ll see you back here tomorrow for more 31 days of Halloween!