Since we’re nearing October, and I just finished digging through 100GB worth of memories, it’s time for you all at Many Hats to be visited by… the FX daemon.

Long ago, when I was just a wee lass of fourteen, I attended a magical school, sorted into four houses, where people could go to become wizards learn the tricks of their trade.

My trade at the time happened to be theatre. I lived, breathed, ate, sang, insert-your-cliché-of-choice-here for it. And, during the first show I worked on, I had the opportunity to learn old-age fatigues from our then-head of FX makeup.

It was all downhill from there. Within a month, I’d completed a full-scale raid of Cinema Secrets and their entire Ben Nye line. Most teenage girls, you open their makeup kits, you’ll see mascara, lipstick—for me, it was latex, fake blood, color wheels, and burn kits.

Halloween, 2006. My friends were running a “Horror Asylum”, full of strange and whimsical creatures. And bloodied victims, apparently.

Petroleum jelly and a Ben Nye burn wheel. Oh yeah.

Here’s one from a 2007 “Zombie FX Night”. Come one, come all, and I’ll teach you how to emulate bone coming through skin.

I have a bad habit of somehow ending up applying FX makeup for shows I’m also working on in other capacities.

Or shows I’m acting in.

It’s funny, really. I have no problem making myself or anyone else look gruesome, gorey, or out of this world…

… But god help me if I try and put on any sort of “traditional” makeup. (I suspect it’s just too normal-looking for me to care about it.)