MY SFX JOURNEY

What is SFX? 

Have you ever wondered who creates those ghastly ghouls, wicked witches, and out-of-this-world aliens you see in movies?

It’s well-known that traditional makeup artists make actors and actresses (and the rest of us!) more attractive, hide flaws, and enhance beauty. But transforming characters into frightening, injured, supernatural, or mutilated creatures for film, TV, and the stage is the role of special effects makeup artists (SFX makeup artists). https://www.nyib.edu/what-is-sfx-makeup/

Since I found SFX very interesting so I tried it myself and this is a journey I started back in 2018 and I never knew that SFX makeup is so so cool that it can literally do wonders it's that amazing. How I started this journey was when I was in university in my 5th semester I guess and one of my seniors asked me to do makeup for her film, as I do normal glam, basic makeup looks too for which I  agreed and she told me that the script demands a small SFX look. A girl with a burn scar on her face, this was so new to me and I wasn't really sure if I could pull that off. Watched a couple of videos to make sure that I could at least try and not end up spoiling the actress's face or anything.  So I did the look and on my first attempt, this is something how it turned out... Don't judge I'm way better now than this. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aIUjEBX-AfE&t=56s

here's the link to that short film. 

But this was just the beginning of something new in my life, slowly I started searching for SFX more and more, I started experimenting, how to make scar wax, blood and they all started turning better I wouldn't say I'm perfect but the more I keep trying I get better at it.

A look I did for Halloween in 2018

SFX for me is my escape it's more than just makeup to me, I have my own freedom, my own tools, the face is my canvas and I can be creative with it. I can draw whatever I want however I want. Sometimes SFX helps me bring out my worst fears or my dark thoughts in form of makeup, my worst pet peeves so it's not just about makeup. I got better while practicing my makeup started working on different short films.

I started working on film that was based on harassment, topics that actually need more light in our society. I was working with my seniors on this film Isha. Story of a young girl being harrased. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s6tif6GJeEA

I then started opening the gateways to more darker thoughts or I would say something I thought I could try communicate through SFX. 

Question for you all, What do you think when you look at these pictures? What do you think it's trying to communicate to you? 

SFX i realized can be such an incredible way to communicate your thoughts.

Since then I've been trying so many things just for fun as well to kill my boredom, creeped my family out so many times with different experiments. Above all my mom used to be like so disgusted by this, it was kinda funny seeing her creeped out by my stuff really felt empowered there LOL. 

Later on I collaborated with some of the amazing and talented SFX artists from all around Pakistan. We ended up doing a monster mutation challenge, each of us came up with a story that actually turned us into a monster. My story was actually pretty simple something I picked up from my own life, I've been called out a lot by some of these titles "attention seeker" "sugar-coated" "drama" "dual-faced" "sharp" "fake" and etc the list can be pretty long LOL. I feel people just don't get it I am who I am, not pretending I am sweet to people who I actually care about but now I feel it useless to prove to people who you are because they'll believe what they want to not what you try to make them believe. so you could say the trying hard part unleaded a dark creepy monster within me. 

https://www.instagram.com/p/CDdgxWlpcAO/
link of my video you can check out the full version of the video

Doing SFX is not easy coming up with creative ideas, treating your face as a canvas ain't easy takes a lot of thinking and hard work. So further on I decided I'll be creating a Halloween series so that people might get ideas for what to do on Halloween by looking at my makeup looks. 

A huge shoutout to STRINGS my forever favorite band kept listening to these two-songs for the entire two whole days, these songs literally kept me motivated and focused on writing this blog. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uO2bWGrbvH8&pbjreload=101

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DL-TZMVcCCw