Spider Queen

Here we are…the day has come…it is the grand finale: The 31st day of the 31 days of Halloween Makeup Challenge! I decided to do this awesome Spider Queen look to go out with a bang! It involves a combo of glam makeup, special effects, body paint, and hand made accessories. Also…you can’t have a grand finale without glitter. Keep reading to see how I achieved this look. Warning, there is a lot of details and information in this post, so buckle up!

Prep/Costume

The best part of this character makeup is that it will go just fine with any black outfit you’ve got. I threw on a short black wig to really open up the neck and chest area, drawing more attention to the spider and glitter collar. Go with whatever suits you as far as hair and costume, just be sure to leave enough room for the chest piece. My contacts, as always are by Ttdeye in the style Zombie Curse. They were kind enough to give me a special discount code  for all of you awesome readers! Use code: “anniessa” at checkout for 10% off your order! I recommend putting your contacts on before you start your makeup so you don’t end up smearing it.

Here is what you’ll want to do the day before you plan on executing the makeup. Using the Crayola Air-Drying Model Magic Clay, I molded my giant spider. It doesn’t take very much time to sculpt, but you will need to let it set overnight to seal in the shape. I had to work in sections, but overall, it is pretty simple to create the spider. First I made the large butt-looking section. Yes, that is the technical term. And then I made the middle segment, followed by the head. I then created each spider leg individually. To dry, I set them aside, all mushed together as opposed to letting them dry as separate pieces. That should be a “duh” point, but I put it in here just in case. After the spider itself, I made the little spike-looking pinchers for either side of my cheek/mouth area. I molded these the same way, bending and pulling the clay with my fingers til it ended up in the right shape. Try to get the two sides as symmetrical as possible. To make sure the ends of each pincher would fit perfectly to my face, I actually pressed the ends onto the exact spot I wanted to put them on my face, ensuring they’d fit the curve of my cheeks. After that, I set those aside too to dry with the spider over night.

P.s. I recommend using the kind that comes in a white color so that you can paint it into exactly what you want. I would have gotten black, but I knew I wouldn’t use the whole package for this look alone. So I opted for white, giving me the option to be able to custom paint the rest I’ll end up using later. If you just throw the rest in a zip lock baggie and keep all the air out, it should stay fresh for a while. Make sure to let the pieces you did sculpt dry completely before you paint them. Feel free to use regular acrylic paint, or body paint. And of course, let that paint dry completely before you try to start gluing it on you face/body.

Eyes

Since we have a pretty heavy smokey eye going on for this look, I would start with the eyes if I were you. That way you can wipe away any eyeshadow fallout on your face before you put on your foundation. The creme eyeshadow base I used was the L.A. Colors Jumbo Eye Pencil in the color Summer Time. After blending that evenly over the lids, I pat over top of it with the green shimmery shade from the Morphe Jaclyn Hill Palette. I also used this same green color, later on the lower lash line. From the same palette, I used a dark neutral brown in the crease pretty heavily, and black in the outer corners. I went over the entire outer corner and crease area with the very deep matte green in the same palette as well, to make it darker while still keeping it green.

I then cleaned up under the eyes with the L.A. Girl Pro Conceal– yellow, and set that with some translucent powder. You know my favorite is the RCMA No Color Powder, which I’ve used throughout the makeup challenge. After that, I blended the same combination of shadows under the lower lash line. Don’t be shy about making this shadow extra dark and smokey- that’s the look we’re going for. Feel free to add eyeliner to the eyes, but I wanted to omit it this time. My false lashes are from Flutter Lashes in the style #iSlay, but the big take away is that I made sure they were somewhat dramatic and spiky without being overpowering and hiding all the great shadow work I did. Don’t forget mascara on the top and bottom lashes.

The eyebrows are simple. I painted them black to match my wig with some black body paint. I used the Snazaroo black paint for this and for everything else I paint in this look.

Pinchers

Now it’s time to glue these suckers on! To attach these securely and efficiently, I used a special effects adhesive called Pros Aide. Before you start using this, as with all other adhesives, test out how it reacts with your skin by doing a little patch test and waiting 24 hours. As it turns out, my skin doesn’t like this stuff, but it doesn’t react as badly to this as it does to spirit gum. Keep in mind that everyone is different and do your homework before going all in with this product (or any skin adhesive). You’ll also need some cotton balls and Liquid Latex to build up the edges around the pincher, blending it into the surface of your cheek. I go into more detail about what liquid latex is and how to use it in this post, if you’d like to get some more info before getting started. To get these pinchers on, we’re using the same technique we did with the Devil look I did earlier in the challenge. Make sure you work on one side of the face at a time.

1. Paint the glue onto the little section of your cheek where you want the pincher to go and wait for it to turn from white to clear. Once it is clear, press the pincher on and hold it in place. It will set after a couple of minutes.
2. Have some pulled apart cotton balls set out ahead of time, along with your liquid latex and a brush you’re ready to say R.I.P. to. Paint some latex around the perimeter of the pincher and set some cotton on top. layer over the cotton with more latex til it is soaked and push it toward the edge of the pincher. You’re trying to create a smooth transition so that the pincher ends up looking like it is actually growing out of your face. Go all the way around the whole pincher. You may need a buddy to check your blind spots and make sure you didn’t leave any holes around the edge. Blend the very edges of the latex into your skin as thinly as possible around the very edge of the new latex mountain sides you created.
3. When the latex is dry (most will turn color to indicate this), you can take some black body paint and create a new edge of the pincher, or the point at which you want it to appear as though it is starting to grow. If you look closely in my photos, you’ll see that I left some latex showing slightly up the sides of each pincher, showing that the skin is broken right where it is “growing” through.
4. Do the rest of your face makeup and details.

Face

Okay, let’s talk about the nice, even base we have to create for this Spider Queen. *Note: just as a reminder, you’ll want to do this AFTER you’ve glued on your pinchers because it won’t stick to your face properly if you apply foundation first. I used a liquid foundation all over my face as well as carefully over the latex around the pinchers to further blend. At this point, they should really start to look like a part of your face. The foundation I used is the NYX Total Control Drops in the color Vanilla. Powder the face with the same RCMA powder so that the rest of the powder products will blend nicely. Now its contour time! Using the dark grey shade in the Saucebox Etude palette, I went in and contoured under the cheekbones, under the jawline, and under the collarbones. Skipping blush was obvious because the cheek area is already a bit occupied…

Go back to the eyes for a second. Well, it is still actually on the face and should be done after foundation and powder, but should also be an extension of the eyeshadow look in the end. Take some black liquid liner with a very fine and precise tip to start creating the spider web lines. For this, I used the L.A. Colors black eyeliner. I created one coming down between the nose and under eye area, and one coming from the outer corner of the eye. Look at my photos to see what I’m talking about. This step is super easy! All you have to do is draw lines coming out from one main point (one was my tear duct and the other was the outer corner of the other eye), followed by curved lines running on the opposite plane to connect them all. Think about it like you are starting at the first line and making a little hump in the negative space, connecting it to the next line till they are all connected. Try to go for it in one-shot motions so your line work doesn’t come out squiggly. To add some interest, I glued some small rhinestones I bought at Walmart randomly throughout the little spider webs as well as onto the tear ducts of both eyes.

On the part of one cheek that is still pincher free, I added in a little spider. I also added in another one on the other side, outward from the mouth. These ended up looking super realistic and can really stand on their own as convincing spiders, even from only a few feet away. I basically squirted a little blob of black-toned eyelash glue onto my face (creating the body and head) and stuck individual false eyelash clusters into the sides (to create the spider legs). The Kiss black lash glue was perfect for this, and I just pulled apart some of the cheap dollar store lashes for the little clusters. The clusters should be thicker than a single hair so that they can be seen and look defined from far away, but not thick enough to be able to tell they are actually false lash hairs. If you want to get super fancy, you can roll the clusters in the black glue and let them dry before sticking them on so that they give a more leg-like look, all clumped into a thick and sealed bundle. 

Body/Chest

Finally, the best part.. the giant spider! I followed the same process with Pros Aide to glue the spider to the center of my chest, but did not blend it in with liquid latex. The reason for this is that I wanted this spider to actually look separate from me, sitting on my chest rather than blending into my skin or growing out of me. Around the neck, I painted downward strokes of the same Snazaroo black paint with a small brush to create a collar. I made sure to taper the ends of each stroke to tie in the look of spider legs.

Lastly, coming outward on the chest from the spider as well as over top of the black body paint collar, I slapped on a bunch of amazing glitter by The Gypsy Shrine! To get this on my body, I first used some regular hair gel…yes, I said hair gel… and painted that onto the areas I wanted the glitter. Get all up in between the spider’s legs for this part as well as evenly over the rest of the chest. I coated my brush with some more gel and dipped into the glitter, then pressing it onto the gel layer till the whole area was covered. I started with the Chunky Mermaid style glitter around the edge of the spider and all over the collar, then using some Chunky Silver on the outside of that. With fine glitter, I just went slightly around the whole thing as well as downward through some strokes in the collar. Spray all the glitter with some hairspray and it will stay put! I know you are shocked, but yes, I’m telling you to hairspray your neck and chest. Trust me.

OMG WE MADE IT

Aaaandd, that’s a wrap for the entire 31 days of Halloween Makeup Challenge. Thank you for following my journey and I hope you learned something new. I threw a lot at you in terms of techniques and styles, but there is definitely something for everyone within this 31 look collection! I can’t wait to continue the makeup journey and to keep sharing my secret sauce with you, so make sure you show this post some love and share it on your social media so that everyone you know can join in the fun as well. Til next time, stay fierce!

xoxo, Anniessa