Tutorial: Cosplay Make-up for crossplaying as a boy/man
As always~ English is not my native language so you might come across mistakes. My apologies! If anything is unclear feel free to ask me in the comments.
Basics:
I’m just showing you what works for me and what’s my personal liking. I’m focusing on eye make-up and additional tips. If you think this way of doing a boys cosplay make-up is is using way too much make-up that’s totally fine. Everyone has his/her own preferences and this tutorial is just a hint who it can be done.
The shape of eyes differ a lot from one to another, so if you want to try it the way I do my make-up you might have to adjust it to your own eyes. Maybe you have already run into this problem before while seeing a well done eye make-up in a tutorial or worn by an asian cosplayer. Furthermore be aware of the fact that the shape of your eyebrows, wearing contacts or not, wearing a wig or not and the rest of your make-up can make you look way different every single time you change something.
I recommend testing your make-up before going to a convention or a shooting. This prevents running into several problems like having not enough time to finish ones make-up or having to pull ideas out of nothing.
I myself am not very skilled with applying make-up, so I need at least half an hour up till one hour to do my complete make-up. It depends on my mood and the amount of make-up I wear. Therefore I test it beforehand to know when I have to get up. I usually ask some of my friends and my wife what they think about it and accept suggestions. You can do so as well if you are not sure about if your make-up fit’s the character you want to cosplay but you should always have a wig at hand for your cosplay do know exactly how you will look like. If you get asked for your opinion by a fellow cosplayer some when try to give useful critique. A “this looks shitty” doesn’t help ;3 Try to explain what you would change and why. Try it like this for example “I think if you would try to make the line on your eyelid a little thinner it might give a manlier look.” If you don’t have any idea how to work out a make-up you can look at other cosplayer’s make-up and take it as base for own ideas.
1. Liquid eyeliner
I take my “Basic Make-up” tutorial as base for this tutorial. I like working with liquid eyeliner (form now on I will refer to it as LE to shorten the tutorial a little). I prefer LE over kajal because I feel a lot saver. When I use kajal it tends to smear, especially in the outside edges of my eye and ruins my look. I only use kajal to as support and for redrawing likes. Due to LE’s massive black color it’s a rather hard contrast. While not wearing contacts it can look off so I recommend wearing kajal instead but it’s up to your own preference. If you have the same problem as me and the contrast of LE is too hard you can look for other colors like grey and brown instead.
I start with the line on my eyelid. It usually starts in the middle of my lid and goes down until I almost meet the edge of the eye (I hope you know what I mean with “edge of the eye since I don’t know the technical term for it). I’m not drawing it down until there completely because this would make my eye look a little hanging down. My line gets thicker the more I’m coming to the outer edge of my eye. This makes my eye looking bigger.
If you have problems drawing the line you can hold your eye with your finger but be careful not to put too much pressure onto your eye.
The next step is the line under the waterline. I’m using kajal now to draw it since I can remove and redraw it easily if I do something wrong while trying to find the perfect place where the eyelid line and that one under the waterline shall meet at the edge of my eye.
If something looks odd I use a cotton stick/Q-Tip to remove the kajal. I recommend just putting it onto the make-up and turnrning it around in a circular move instead of wildly rubbing back and forth. This prevents ruining the basic make-up unnecessarily. Please refrain from using alcoholic cleansing stuff. You are working near your eyes and want to keep them save.
If you have done heavy make-up for camouflaging eye rings and so you might have to add a little camouflage/consealer again where you just removed the kajal. You can easily apply it with a cotton stick/Q-Tip too. When I’m completely okay with where the lines meet I redraw the line with eyeliner. But I only draw the fist 1/3 of the line under my waterline. This can be adjusted if you like it shorter or longer of course.
I additionally darken my waterline with kajal. This is totally optional. I do this because I don’t like the waterline to be visible. It also works to use white kajal instead. Darkening with LE also works, but be careful not to accidentally hit your eye or contacts. Furthermore some LEs burn like hell if you put it onto your waterline. So, be careful! Kajal on a waterline is unfortunately something that won’t last forever :/ I have to redraw it at a convention, so I wear a stick and a mirror with me all the time.
For the last step I use black mascara. My lashes are natural black but I do it anyways. You might ask why. Well~ My lashes are not pointing straight to heaven, so I use it for pushing them up a little. This refreshens my look like camouflaging my eye shadows. Furthermore my lashes are not deep dark like my LE, so adding black mascara will blend them in and I also cover the little rest of bright powder that still hangs on my lashes from doing the basic make-up before. You can use transparent mascara instead if it’s available. A eyelash curler works as well instead or additional. It’s totally up to you. Adding fake lashes is an option too, but be careful with it. Not every boy/man make-up will be pimped in a good way by using them. If you ask me for my personal opinion: The older or manlier the character is, the lesser you should think about using fake lashes. But like I said before: Boy’s make-up is something that highly depends on your own desire how to portrait the character and if you feel like wearing something and feel fine with it, then do it!
Sometimes I use a little eyeshadow to give a more drastic look to my eyes. But I’m not using it here. Try it if you want.
If you have a “Oh gosh! This is way too much make-up for a boy” thought put on your wig first before thinking you have done everything wrong. This will change a lot and there is a high chance that you might suddenly think “Yeah, I’m totally looking good now!”. Happens to me about 80% of the time.
Now that’s the base what I did. This is what I’m wearing the most, but depending on the character I adjust this version like shown below.
For Saitou I extent the line on the eyelid to the tear sac/pouch (sorry I don’t know the technical term again >__<). Furthermore I added a little red eyeshadow under the outside edge of my eye. This is highly experimental. I like it, some do not. I don’t care x’D If you do something like this make sure to not overdo it. Otherwise it will look like someone punched onto your eye.
For Judal I use the same as for Saitou and I also make the line on my eyelid a little thicker except the highest point of my eyelid. There I draw the line a little thiner to make my eye look a little more “edgy”. Furthermore I added this little edges around my tear sac/pouch. I call it crowfeet. Don’t ask me why. I don’t know. I have a lot of problems drawing them free hand and in just one try. It highly depends on experience I guess. For me it works find to pre-draw it with kajal or make little dots with LE. So I only have to clean away one or two points for adjusting the line instead of redoing the line completely. When I’m okay with the dots I draw a line over it and I’m done.
Nurarihyon is my heaviest make-up for guys. If you ask me this much of make-up is okay for demons and ghosts, but every normal male character might look off with an amount like that.
A lot of love and thanks to my wife for helping me with it. Otherwise I would still sit in my hotel from the bookfair in march. As you can see the line on my eyelid is like the one of Saitou. But the lines on/under the waterline are way different. Same goes for the outer edge of my eye. The line under my eye divided into three parts. Starting from the inner side it’s under the waterline and in the middle of my eye it’s going into my waterline and after that coming back under the waterline. This makes the line very, very straight looking. The line does not go directly towards the edge of my eye. It’s going a little more straight outside and then going up to meet the line from the eyelid. Furthermore both lines are getting very big here go visually expand the eye. For a little blending and making the eyes look a little “deeper” black eye shadow was added in the eye wrinkle. I hope this was understandable in some way.
If you are not able to do your make-up on your own it’s not a shame. Ask your friends if they can help you. It’s great if you have someone who is willing to help you or at least is staying by your side if you are on the edge of crying because nothing works out like you want. And always be grateful for it.
And remember: This is just the way I do my make-up. It’s not the only way to do it in the world. It can be done completely different if you don’t like it, you can adjust and change it if you want or take it as step by step guide if you want. It’s up to you and you alone.
2. Kajal
This part of the tutorial is mostly thanks to my wife *chibinis-chan who did the modeling for it.
She is doing her eye make-up after applying basic make-up like shown before. She will show you one make-up with different colors. I’m holding this tutorial very short with just the steps as such because I already wrote all the tips for applying in the first part of this tutorial.
First she is using black kajal to draw a line on the eyelid and under the waterline of her right eye. The line under her eye is about 1/3 of the complete length of the waterline.
After this she uses brown eye shadow to blend it a little and make the contrast less heavy. Furthermore it fixates the kajal like usual powder fixes foundation.
If you want the make-up to look more natural you can use brown kajal instead of a black one and blend it with brown eye shadow as well. This is recommended for characters with bright hair like blonde and young boys. Of course there are exceptions. For this she is using a black kajal and black eye shadow combo. To show the differences here a compare.
On the left side in both pictures Chibi is wearing a black kajal with brown eye shadow. This is what she uses for characters like Ciel from Kuroshitsuji and Sora from Kingdom Hearts. The upper right eye shows a black/black combo. This is what she wears for Alois from Kuroshitsuji and in the lower right eye shows brown kajal with brown eye shadow. This is what she uses for characters like Roxas from Kingdom Hearts.
You can read the version of this written by herself here: [link] I’m just putting parts of it into my journal to show other ways are possible.
3. Lips
If you ask me this is the easiest and most important step in the boys make-up. It’s covering the lips. Bringing the lips more to ones skin color makes them less feminine. All I need for this is a lip balm and a mousse make-up (I think a skin colored lipstick or something like this will work as well). I apply the lip balm for preventing my lips from drying out and cracking. It also helps adding the mousse onto my lips. After that I add the mousse and that’s it. But like kajal it’s nothing that will stay forever. You are talking, eating, drinking, maybe smoking or kissing, so some when the original color of you lips will be visible again. I carry both, the lip balm and mousse, with me at conventions to redo the process when it’s needed.
So now we went from basic make-up to a n almost finished boy make-up.
4. Eyebrows
This step is completely optional. It highly depends on the characters I cosplay if I use it or not. Most of the male characters have very straight/unbowed eyebrows. If you ask me you can say “the more evil a character is the more will the eyebrows look straight and almost diagonal”.
Most girls have a natural bow in their eyebrows which is nothing like the male characters’ eyebrows. Mine are like this as well.
I experienced that something was terribly off when I did my make-up tests for Cloud from FFAC and Saitou from Hakuouki. It took me quite some time to find out what was bothering me so much and it turned out to be the shape of my brows.
There are a lot of ways to change the shape of eyebrows. You can shave or plug the brows and redraw them but I don’t recommend it. This is a way that will not last as long as you are wearing a cosplay. You will have to deal with this in your regular life as well. So think a lot about it before doing this!
I recommend just covering them. You can purchase special wax for covering them in online stores or Halloween/theater make-up stores.
I heard about using a glue stick instead, tried it and it worked fine for me. I usually cover my eyebrows before doing my eye make-up, but it will work after doing it as well. Just don’t put your wig on before to prevent getting make-up onto your wig.
I use a little spatula/scaper to take a little amount of glue from the stick and apply it onto half of my brow. I don’t apply the glue directly to prevent it from getting dirty. If the glue gets powder from your basic make-up or the second layer of covering onto it will mutate to a slimy monster until the next time you use it and all the glue effect will be gone.
After I applied the glue I use my powder on a sponge and press it onto the glue. I use a sponge especially for this work and not my usual one. There shouldn’t be too much pressure while squeezing the powder onto the glue. Otherwise the glue will smear and won’t cover the brow completely. If one layer of glue won’t cover everything you can add another one but be careful. The more glue you apply, the higher is the risk that it might look odd and uneven where the glue ends. If you have problems with getting it smooth you can use a blow dryer to warm the glue a little and a spoon for smoothing the edges. Sounds funny, but it works.
After covering the brow you can draw your brow the way you want . It depends on you if you want to cover your complete eyebrow or just a part of it. Of course this is not perfect since I’m just covering the eyebrows and covering is not deleting. But it works in a decent way if you don’t want to shave or pluck your brows.
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