Most of my cosplays are male characters. I use makeup to make myself look more masculine and to fit the character better. For the purpose of this tutorial, I’ll be explaining using pictures of my JD makeup from Heathers: The Musical.
1. Start by moisturising and priming your face for makeup. Then apply concealer and foundation in the usual way.
2. Taking a brown contour (I actually use brown eyeshadow), contour your cheekbones to be sharp. I contour my jawline to make it sharper too. Also apply the eyeshadow to the sides of the nose to make it narrower, the groove below the nose that reaches to the top lip, the curve of the chin, and to the temples. Blend this out with a blending brush. Feel free to apply more or go back over with foundation to cover it. Younger male characters (usually children) have less defined features so no need to go crazy with contouring. I usually do a lot for my JD cosplay to make myself look more mysterious and masculine.
3. Fill in your eyebrows to be quite thick by using an eyeshadow a few shades darker than your wig. My eyebrows are naturally thick anyway, but I still fill them in. I tend to bring them in a bit closer together and lower down too for a male character.
4. Taking some concealer or foundation, apply it to the edge of the lips to make them thinner and less full. You can also use some lipliner and lipstick on your lips, but use a natural nude shade, unless your character wears lipstick!
5. For JD, to make myself look more menacing and slightly crazy, I added bruising and bags around my eyes. This was done by blending red, pink, blue, grey, green and yellow eyeshadows under my eyes. You don’t need to do this for a simple male character, but you can apply a bit of the contour brown under the eyes and the nose to give the effect of bags if you wish.
6. Set your makeup in your usual way.
7. Put your wig on (or not) and you’re done!
It takes a while to get the contouring right – I still struggle sometimes even now! Just keep practicing. Remember, just because your male character may not wear makeup, does not mean that you should not use it. I find that using makeup for a cosplay is a must. It allows you to look more like the character, and also makes your face smoother and more defined in pictures.
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