Let's make up with Bina Khan

Halloween in Karachi is one of the few times when people living in this challenging metropolis cut loose, get hold of their sense of humour and put it on display. From Dorothys and fairies to militiamen and M&M’s, the costumes on display always manage to tickle your funny bone. With an aim to get your creative juices flowing, we have decided to show you how an idea can simply be translated into reality — once a week, till October 31.

People tend to go one of three ways for Halloween — whimsical, scary or beautiful. We will cover all three by the time we get to All Hallows Eve!



Today, we have decided to take Roy Lichtenstein’s famous painting ‘That’s the way it should have begun! But it’s hopeless!’ from 1968 and reproduce a living version of the character featured. Lichtenstein was a famous American pop artist from the ‘60s and a contemporary of Warhol and Jasper Johns. His work referenced the style of comic strips and heavily featured the use of exaggerated Ben-Day dots. Ben-Day dots are a printing mechanism invented by Benjamin Henry Day in mid-1800s, which used many dark, closely-spaced coloured dots in the printing process to create an effect of a lighter colour. For example, sparsely placed magenta dots create a delicate salmon. To Karachiites, who grew up on Archie Comics, this device is a familiar sight. 

Using the comic book aspect and Ben-Day dots, we have had a blast creating this fun Halloween look, as many have before us. Here is what you will need:

1)  White face paint

2)  Blue face paint

3)  Black eyeliner

4)  Pink lipstick

5)  A great brush

6)  A black eye pencil

7)  A sense of fun!

There are five components to this look:

1.  Black outlines: Since you are trying to create a look out of a comic book, the first thing you need to do is create black outlines around the edges of your features. Here, I have had an easy time since I knew the pose I wanted to put my long-suffering manager in. So I knew what her silhouette would be but you can stick to something very close to this. Using a brush and a black eyeliner, run a black line down your nose, just off centre, and then on to each side of the dent of your upper lip. Outline your lips as neatly as you can, darkening the centre and give your jaw a nice sharp outline. Create a few furrows in the brows and a dash in the socket line of the eye — Lichtenstein’s women were mostly crying. Don’t worry if your line gets wobbly, you can use a cotton bud and an eye make-up remover to make your application look super precise.

2.  The eyes: There are two components to the eyes. One is the liner and the hand-drawn swishes of lashes, and then there are the epic tears that are a mainstay of the Lichtenstein heroine. Since you will be standing up, perhaps, you can adjust the centre of gravity of your tears and have them more to the centre of your eyes. Create a blue, watery shape and then outline them neatly with black. Where the water feels like it would swell, follow the curve of the tears with a few dashes to create the impression of movement and quivering, as I have done here.

As for the lashes, draw an exaggerated sixties liner and towards the outer edge, create 12 or 15 lines that swish upwards to create the illusion of huge ‘60s-inspired lashes. In this picture, we haven’t even used mascara since the painted lashes are doing their job so well!

3.  Next, you can fill in your eyebrows with a black pencil. Don’t be shy — the blacker the better. If you want to refine your shape, again, a cotton bud soaked in make-up remover is a girl’s best friend.

4.  Carefully fill in your lips with a bright pop of pink of lipstick. Don’t interfere with your black outlines. Here, a lip brush is a must — you can’t achieve this precision without one.

5.  Before you add your Ben-Day dots, it won’t be a bad idea to contour your face a bit. Here, we have sculpted the face by creating a sexy jaw, cheekbone and temple. Now comes the fun bit! Dip a cotton bud in some white face paint and get dotting. Lichtenstein famously exaggerated the size and spacing of these dots, so we have made them large. Since we are not white people, we have had to adapt the use of red dots to create salmon skin. But here, we have used white dots to give the same effect. This creates a fun, vibrant and crazy look that should win you the title of the ‘Most creative costume’!



If you do, you better share your prize with me! Stay tuned for next week’s column where we cover SCARY make-up.

Bina Khan is a make-up artist, photographer, skin technician and writer who owns a salon and photography studio in Karachi.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 13^th, 2013.

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