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3. Write a paragraph summary on the back.
Glam Meets Gore: Goldie Starling's
Awesome Halloween Makeup Tutorials
By Lylah M. Alphonse
Goldie Starling's sultry, DIY Spider
Queen look for Halloween. A fierce
pirate wench, with puckered scars
running along the side of her face. An
eerie doll, with pursed lips and
hauntingly oversize eyes. A grim Jack
the Ripper and his final victim, Mary
Kelly, her throat slashed and oozing
blood.... Goldie Starling's Halloween
make-up creations are a creepy
combination of glam and gore—and she shares her beauty secrets in her deeply detailed
video tutorials.
"When I started making tutorials there weren't a lot of people uploading artistic tutorials
so I decided to try it out," Starling, who lives in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, told
Yahoo! Shine in an interview. "There was definitely a learning curve but after four years
I feel like I've grown so much as an artist. And my subscribers have helped encourage
me the most. When I learn a new technique I get excited to share it with them. That
passion for learning has kept me going."
Starling, whose real name is Angie Davis, has no formal training as a makeup artist—she
has a Bachelor of Fine Arts in graphic design and computer animation—but her love of
drawing and painting helped her hone her makeup skills. (You can see some of her other
amazing looks on her Facebook fan page.) She currently works as a freelance makeup
artist, a cake decorator, and a graphic designer, she says. And of course Halloween is one
of her favorite holidays.
"I had grand plans to make a Zoltar costume from the movie 'Big' but I may actually go
as Vincent Van Gogh," she says. "I just filmed a tutorial based on one of his self portraits
and I really like the way it turned out, plus he is one of my favorite painters."
Her attention to detail (and her super-steady hand) is clear in every video she posts. A
simple tutorial may take six or seven hours to make from start to finish, she confides in
one of her videos, but the theatrical Halloween how-to's take much longer.
"For these Halloween videos, it's been quite the labor of love," she says. "At least 20
hours, 30 hours per video just from conception to visualization, going and finding
products and costumes, backgrounds, things like that." And that doesn't include the days
of prep work before shooting.
"It's something I just like to do, though, so it doesn't bother me," Starling adds. "I'm also
Notes on my thoughts,
questions, and
reactions as I read:
a night owl, so all of my creative juices are flowing at night."
An amazingly detailed take on a watery Davy Jones. Some of her Halloween looks, like her
sultry Spider Queen, can be created with products many women already have in their beauty
bags. But others, like her version of the horrifying deep-sea denizen Davy Jones—her alltime favorite video tutorial, Starling says—requires liquid latex and other specialized
products. She made latex starfish using a candy mold and dipped cheerios in liquid latex to
make barnacles, which she glued to her face using a medical-grade adhesive. A sea sponge
dipped in watered-down face paint adds texture. For really complicated designs, she maps
features out with a white eyeliner before filling in with face paint and white foundation,
which she mixes with different pigments to get custom colors.
"I apply my foundation with a brush and a sponge," she says in that video. "I find that by
doing it this way you're able to get into the cracks and crevices around the barnacles."
Her other secrets? Plenty of powder, to set the makeup
and prevent smudging. Don't be afraid to use
eyeshadow in unusual ways. Lipstick is awesome ("I
know a lot of people think lipstick is outdated but I
love the way it defines the lips," she says). And make
sure to properly prep your "canvas."
"I'm all about taking care of my skin," Starling told
Yahoo! Shine. "In the morning I wash my face,
moisturize and apply sunscreen. Then I'll apply
makeup. Mascara and concealer are great to have when
you want to appear awake. At night I will cleanse my
face, exfoliate if I need to and apply replenishing
moisturizers and eye creams."
Though she's honed her makeup skills in a variety of
ways, she says that painting has helped her the most.
"You prep a canvas with gesso the way you would prep a face with primer," she explained to
Styleist.com. "You paint on your design the way you would apply your eye shadow and
lipstick. You add shadows and depth where you would contour. Painting translates
perfectly."
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Notes on my
thoughts,
questions, and
reactions as I read: