My fox face is one of my favorites to put on. It’s also one that I can put on quickly. I put on this face twice at Furry Weekend Atlanta (FWA). The first time I was a bit rushed on time since I had painted Kira in the morning as a snow leopard and worked during the day. The second time I had a lot more time. The photos shown here are my first run, so you’ll get to see the version where I didn’t have much time, but I’ll describe where I spent more time.
Materials
- Round foundation brush
- Chiseled foundation brush
- #7 Round watercolor brush
- #5 Round watercolor brush
- White Wolfe Hydrocolor (color: 001)
- Black Wolfe Hydrocolor (color: 010)
- Red Wolfe Hydrocolor (color: 030)
- Black eyeliner pencil (Urban Decay Zero)
- Black lipstick (BlackHeart Beauty Wicked)
Layer 1: White
The first thing I did was line my eyes with the black eyeliner pencil. I lined both the upper and lower waterline. It’s easier to put on eyeliner first because you can put your fingers on your skin to help when there’s no face paint applied yet. I only do the waterline since I’ll go back and line my eyes with black facepaint.
Then I took the chiseled foundation brush and applied white onto my facial hair. This has to be applied slowly or the paint will splatter. I painted from under my nose to my earlobe with upward and lifted the brush at the end of my strokes so the brush bristles make a furry texture where the stroke ends.
On my neck the brush strokes start along the center line of my neck and go up and out to the sides. This is to keep the illusion of fur going in a consistent direction.
Around my eyes I used the foundation brush to put the facepaint on the top of my eyes, then switched to my larger #7 round paint brush to paint under my eyes. With the round brush, I did lots of little strokes to make the edge of the white textured.
I don’t worry about making the first layer perfect since I go back to clean up the white later.
Layer 2: Red
The second layer is red. I took the round foundation brush and applied red on my face and neck where I hadn’t painted with white. On the cheeks and neck the textured edges were preserved by ending the brush stroke where the red and white meet in the direction where I wanted the texture to go.
When applying the red, it’s important to get close up to the white, but try not to touch it. The makeup on the brush will mix with the white makeup on the face.
The foundation brushes tend to retain a lot of water, so it’s important to make sure they’re not too wet or the paint will run. The round one is great for applying to large areas, but it can be difficult to control. You might notice that I took my necklace off in this picture. I didn’t think to take it off before, but the big round foundation brush put red on my necklace (which my wife made for me with love) as I tried to paint the edge of my neck where my t-shirt ends.
On the second run of this face I didn’t try to get so close with the foundation brush and switched to a flat watercolor brush to bring the red in closer against the white. I was able to get a lot closer without running into too much of the white.
In the picture above, you’ll see that on the first run you’ll see that I got red where I didn’t want it under my brow. I corrected this by taking a damp paper towel and removing the makeup on that spot. Then I reapplied white and red.
Layer 3: Detailing with white
Using my round #7 brush I went back with white to add the sharp feathery texture back that was lost from applying the red.
You’ll see in the closeup photos that the paint runs a little pink due to the white on the brush mixing with the red on face, and some of this is bound to happen. This happened less on the second run since I was more careful coming in with the red and used the textured strokes in reverse so there was a lot less red where I didn’t want it.
The cheeks and the neck get the same treatment. Using the round brush I painted white strokes going out into the red and continue the furry texture along these edges.
Layer 4: Black
With my #5 round brush I lined my eyes in black. I coated my whole lid so when my eyes are open you see black all around. I did a little wing tip on the outer corner of my eye and made a rounded point on the inner corners of my eyes pointing down toward the center of my nose to give my eyes an animalistic look.
For the nose, I used larger #7 round brush and flicked upward so it’d get some furry texture where it meets with the red. I painted a line from my nostrils down to my lips and painted my lips with facepaint. I did this as a quick way to line my lips and put a base color down. Then I put black lipstick on to keep my lips from drying and cracking.
On the second run of this face for FWA I instead borrowed my wife’s NYX retractable lip liner (black) and her better tube of Urban Decay Perversion Vice lipstick, which stayed on a lot better.
Finished
With the face done, it’s time to let the hair down and accessorize!
