Cesare the Somnambulist Makeup Tutorial

8:59 AM Moi Sanom 0 Comments

I had the idea of making a Cabinet of Dr. Caligari inspired photo shoot for a while.
I absolutely love the film and it has been a great source of inspiration for years now.
You can really tell that this is also the case for many other artists such as Tim Burton.
It is a cinematic master piece which should be watched by everyone.
Since I wanted to make a simple tutorial for Halloween this year, I thought Cesare would be suitable since it doesn’t require too many items and is also a look that shouldn’t be perfect.
That is an important factor if you attempt creating a look on Johnny Clyde, the wobbliest person on earth.
Since he is so wobbly, there is no way I can draw a straight line on him or make anything even at all. There were even some steps I had to skip since he thought they were unbearable. One of them was to draw on the waterline since he couldn't take the feeling of his eyeball being drawn on (not that I was drawing on his eyeball, but no use convincing him of that fact).

Scheming applicational disruptions!

First up, prep your skin as well as possible!
I skipped this step (don’t ask me why!) and the make up didn’t apply as evenly as I’d liked.
Exfoliation, a good moisturizer and possible a primer should definitely be used depending on the white paint you choose.
I used the face paint that came in my Halloween Memebox (unboxing coming soon), and since I wanted to test it out I didn’t use a primer.
I applied the paint to the entire face using a little egg shaped sponge dabbing the product on in thin layers until it built up to a more opaque shade of white.


If you are a man, this can be done on a 3 day beard, but it is hard to get the color through the hairs, so a shaved face might be easier to work with.
Next, I contoured the cheeks a bit to make the face look more gaunt.
You can either do that or contour around your lips for the signature Cesare look.
I did not do this since Johnny has facial hair and it would just look like a goatee.
I recommend powdering the whole face with translucent powder since it makes the next steps easier.
I didn't (for testing purposes) and it made it more difficult for the color to be added evenly without smudging.

The contouring looks a little uneven since his cheeks are unpowdered

Afterwards I added a thin black line above the upper lash line to give the eyes some definition.
I drew it further out to the side in a little tail.
I then marked the middle of the eye with a dot to be able to add lines on each side to create a triangle underneath the eye.
I used a regular black eye pencil for this.
I recommend using a waterproof one that doesn’t smudge too much.
Mine was pretty crappy so it started creasing and moving around pretty fast.
I then painted a little half moon on the inner corner of the eye to create a hollow look.
I smudged it a little for it to blend in better.

First add bigger dots and then make a line following the little dots

The eyebrows were filled with the same dark pencil with squared off corners which were then brushed with a spooly to look a little less like fake pieces of fur and more like eyebrows.

You can see my crappy pencil smudged after 5 minutes of application already

The lips were completely covered with foundation as well.
Cesares lips a relatively thin so I had to hide Johnnys thicker lips to create that look.
I then filled in the lips in the same shape only thinner, making them look a little wider than they originally were without looking too artificial.

You can see his lips end just underneath the moustache

I decided to adapt Cesares look to Johnnys face instead of doing it just as it was on screen.
I feel like makeup can either work with someones face or try to change the face and I always belonged to the work with the facial features type of person.
I tried to convince Johnny to go scare some people on the street but that seems to be on schedule for next week instead.

Practically twins!

And that is it little Batlings!
I hope you liked the tutorial.
Is there any looks that you always wanted to recreate?
P.s: We actually live right next to where The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari was filmed. There is a little plaque and everything!

This is going to haunt my nightmares!