Thread: Veiny face Effect?

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Hi, new to these forums, LOVE halloween. This year im going as a modern day vampire, seems to be pretty damn popular these days. My costume is simple, pure black outfit of black shoes, dress pants, dress shirt, vest, blazer and a blood red tie for some color. For the face area, I wanted the vein looking effect like in interview with a vampire. How would I easily achieve that? Blue/purple pencil with white powder over it?

I hope you received my reply this morning, very simple. Used a bright blue pencil on already white madeup skin, (cream and powder), then softly draw on the veins, a little darker in some spots than others. Finish with setting powder.

I concur with Living Dead Girl except for one thing - corpses don't turn white, they go sallow, a seriously pale, waxy flesh before corruption sets in, if they're caucasian. Darker complexions wash out, about five tones paler than normal.

Even a drained corpse (vampire before turning) will have grayed muscle under the skin, so it never goes white. In that case a pale flesh-light gray is best.

Otherwise, Living Dead girl is right on the money with the eyeliner pencils. I use two, a medium blue for the majority (drawn light) and a purple for the occasional dark vein. I'd personally avoid the purple veining for a vampire, that might be too harsh. I'd go for a suggestion of veining at best.

If you have really good eye-hand coordination, try black eyeliner on some of the undersides of the blue veins. That will give a 3-D shadow effect and make it appear that your veins are popping up. Works well on neck veins, temple, and back of hands, where there might be naturally more 'poppage'

Black eyeshadow is also great for creating "hollows" in the neck, under eyes, and the hollows of cheeks. But use a matte powder. L'Oreal makes a super black eye shadow with no sparkle. Practice with this though because it tends to go on very dark and heavy at first and is almost impossible to wipe off. I use a broad "blush brush" to apply (lightly) then dab with a cotton ball to take up excess.

Another tip for "setting powder": Apply powder liberally, then dust off excess. Rub a small bit of face cream (regular daily moisturizer) on your hands until they are just moist but not greasy. Then "pat" and "press" your palms to your face firmly but gently. This is a final touch to give you a more realistic skin texture and set all the makeup.

listen to living deadgirl she knows how to do it

Thank you for all the replys. I went out and got some purple and red color pencil. The purple however, upon opening it, was a little pinkish, a lighter purple than what I wanted. Do you think going over the purple with red will darken it? Or how about red veins all together? Have not got home yet to try it, to already opened it to return it, besides being a bridge away.

I actually like the idea of blue liner the best. But red over purple would darken the value, just don't know if the actual color is what you want, it'll probably look like the color of a bruise, which could be cool too. Blood is blue until oxygen hits it. So for under the skin veins blue really is the best.

Ok maybe the pencil was not sharp enough, but I tried it and all it was really doing was smudging into the white foundation, not coming out right at all. Than after trying to powder it, smudged more and stainded the powder puff or whatever you ladies call it lol. Any tips?

Originally Posted by SlamSlayer

Ok maybe the pencil was not sharp enough, but I tried it and all it was really doing was smudging into the white foundation, not coming out right at all. Than after trying to powder it, smudged more and stainded the powder puff or whatever you ladies call it lol. Any tips?

When I did mine, it was an after thought, meaning my makeup was already set, and dry. Powdered and all. Also, the blue pencil I used was HARD. It cant be really soft (the cheaper pencils are sometimes softer). You cant draw the veins on to moist foundation, also, it should be sharp, and the pressure very light. Stick with blue too. Good luck and keep me posted.
If you look closely, the effect is clear but very subtle:

If your eye pencil is not working I do have another suggestion - but it's not exactly "hypoallergenic". Blue fine point marker on naked skin (Sharpie makes a new fine point "pen" that is very fine and blue), THEN do a light cover of foundation and powder after the ink has dried. To remove the marker afterward use rubbing alcohol (and take care to NOT do this around flame or cigs, rubbing alcohol is super flammable like rocket fuel, and stay away from eyes, duh).

A friend of mine did this and it looked great, but the ink sort of lingered a day later. Actually, it looked even better faded the next day. But she had to go to work looking half-dead

OK. Seriously, this really is a last resort, if you get totally frustrated with real make-up and don't have sensitive skin. I've known one person to draw big tribal tattoos on their face in thick black Sharpie, though I really wouldn't recommend going that far. It's not fatally toxic or anything but it's sure hard to remove.